Throwback Thursday - 2004 (Part 2)

Let's see what I made in February of 2004, shall we?

It appears I made a dozen small projects. Here are the first six:


Woodland Christmas Tree

This is the first in a series of twelve ornaments called Woodland Christmas. They were all in a leaflet from Heart in Hand. Each ornament is about 25 stitches square. They have a somewhat primitive aesthetic and are quite sweet.

I stitched the designs on Fiddler's cloth. After the stitching was complete, I finished each of them in a similar manner. I sewed the stitchery onto a piece of gingham fabric in a coordinating color. I sewed a matching piece of gingham fabric to the back, creating a little pillow. A piece of ribbon was inserted into the top seam to create the hanger. The ornament was stuffed with fiberfill, then I sewed the opening closed by hand. Finally, I fringed the edges of the Fiddler's cloth.

Woodland Christmas Noel

Woodland Christmas Bird

Woodland Christmas Poinsettia

Woodland Christmas Star

Valentine

I took a break from the Christmas ornaments to stitch a Valentine for Dale. The cupid chart was an online freebie which I embellished by adding "Be Mine" in my own handwriting.

Because I chose a red ground cloth, I stitched the cupid with ecru DMC perle coton #8 so it would stand out. Then I used a darker red for the hearts, DMC 5270 which is a red metallic. I outlined the hearts in gold. The tip of the arrow is actually a little red heart charm.

Inspired by an online friend, I attempted to create a special embellished frame for this simple piece. First, I altered a 5" x 7" frame I had on hand with gold spray paint.  I repeated the heart elements in the stitchery by painting balsa wood hearts, each with a unique design. All the hearts have a red base with white and gold designs, painted with acrylic craft paint. The hearts were attached to the frame with wood glue.

I padded a piece of foam core and covered it with the stitchery. After framing the stitchery, it seemed like it needed just a little something else.

I found a cupid charm in my stash, and glued it to the top right corner of the frame. Then I draped the cord until it looked pleasing to my eye, adding tassels to the cord ends. These elements were hot-glued into place.

As a last step, I made this label and glued to to the dust cover on the back of the frame.

Overall, I was fairly satisfied with this embellished frame experiment. From a design point of view, it's a little clunky in that the stitched image and the embellished frame don't seem to have quite the right proportion. The visual weight of the frame overpowers the stitched design a bit. The thin line of words feels particularly skimpy, so that the words nearly disappear. But it's not bad for a first try.