Taking a late dinner break to check in: As of now, more progress has been made on my MIL's Christmas (New Year's?) gift which I'm still hoping to finish tonight. I've managed to add the additional line of text that I wanted since my MIL doesn't cross stitch but the sentiments of the design apply to both it and our shared love of quilt projects.
It took me longer than I expected to pick and count out the spacing of a suitable font. Early in my cross stitch journey, I had picked up this ebook that I thought might be useful in the future if I wanted to design or add text to cross stitch projects:
Having already purchased an 8"x10" frame for the finished piece, the challenge was to pick out a font that would not add much to the stitched height of it since I already expected the margins of the finished piece to be tight in the frame I had purchased. The letters I chose were only two squares high and I thought were also that wide. However, I missed that the letters "T" and "I" actually needed an additional square of width. Luckily I realized that as I started on the word "Quilting" so only had to rip and re-do the beginning of the line once I re-counted where I had to start stitching to accommodate the additional spaces.
I had also tried putting the unfinished piece into the frame last night and it became clear that it wasn't going to fit because of the thickness of the Aida cloth I am using. I was afraid I'd have to shop for another frame but fortunately, I had to go do some grocery shopping today and while out stopped at the local dollar store. There I saw an 11" x 14" artist canvas and some decorative signs that inspired a new approach to the finish.
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| The original intended frame and the new canvas. |
The plan now is to add some fabric borders to frame the piece and mount it onto the canvas as a backer board, padding it with some batting. I'll punch some holes and seal them with grommets then add a pretty string for hanging the piece. But first I've got to get the top border stitching done!
Oh, and a quick quilting note: Bonnie Hunter has posted the next two parts of this year's "Old Town" mystery! Part 6 was posted early on Monday and Part 7 posted today. I had hoped to be working on my project for the mystery by today which is quilting my "En Provence" but clearly that hasn't happened yet. In Part 7 they are starting to assemble some of the parts made to date into larger blocks so hopefully there's still time to get my own project underway before the mystery ends!
With this posted, I'll finish eating and get back to stitching!
2 comments:
Oh, isn’t that the best, when you’re just window shopping or browsing and you spot a great idea to solve a challenge in your own creative projects? I love when that happens! Had not considered the challenges of adding lettering to a cross stitch project when different fonts take up different space for different letters, very interesting to think about how you calculate that for hand stitching.
Looking good so far! And I hope you get some time for En Provence quilting.
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