Throwback Thursday - 2007 Part 08

This week the Wayback Machine takes us to June and July of 2007. Here are my next five projects.

When I consider what was going on in my life during those months, I'm shocked to see that I did any stitching at all.


Little Jack Horner

In June, the charity stitching group started a quilt with a nursery rhyme theme. I decided to participate in this because I have a wonderful book of nursery rhyme designs that I'd never used before. I don't think I've used it since, either, which is a real shame.

I chose to stitch Little Jack Horner primarily because it was the right size for a quilt block. This was one of those charts that was just fun to stitch from beginning to end. Great shading. Not too much backstitch. Lovely details.

Joy Bear

Following that great project, was this sad ornament. It was one of those projects that I completely disliked. I rarely stitch these pesky projects, but this kit was tucked in with some fabric that I received from the charity stitching group. One of our members had a lot of extra Christmas charts and kits, so she divided them among group members. Normally, I enjoy doing ornaments. But there was something about this kit that was an extreme test to me.

"Clunky" is the word that comes to mind. The quality of the fabric was fine, but the floss was odd and felt strange in my hand. The shading in the design is too harsh. There's no subtlety whatsoever. Thankfully, it did make for a sweet ornament. The finished piece was returned to the charity group as part of the ongoing Christmas ornament project.

Bird Song

I totally love this pillow, designed by C M Designs.
As a vocalist, the sentiment is one I believe in:

The woods would be silent

if no birds sang except the best.

I made this bolster as a gift for a dear friend. I'd reconnected with my favorite college music professor. He and his wife celebrated their 50th wedding anniversary in 2007. Though I hadn't seen them in over 25 years, I was invited to attend their party.

I was required to complete the finishing on this bolster pillow by the seat of my pants since I didn't have any directions for how to do it. I used the knowledge I have about making a square pillow or wall hanging, and adapted it to make a tube.

The overall look of the pillow was inspired by a few of the needlework blogs I frequent. Some of the artists out there have a great ability of putting various fabrics together. I wanted to give that design aesthetic a try. I found three flannel prints that worked well together.

1. The border around the stitchery has little polka dots and ladybugs. The dots mimic the musical notes and the colors balance the birds.

2. The back of the pillow and the "jelly roll" ends are a blue fabric with white clouds. This way the birds have someplace to fly.

3. The inside of the "jelly roll" ends is a blue and white stripe. I've turned the end back a bit on the left side in this photo to show it off.

I sandwiched some small pompom trim between the layers of fabric on the ends. Again, the pompoms echo the shape of the musical notes and polka dots.

Finally, I tied bows to form the "jelly roll" with some narrow picot-edged satin ribbon.

I'm really pleased with the way this pillow turned out. It was very well received by my old professor.

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Sunflower Bookmark

This bookmark was so much fun to stitch that this was the second time I stitched it. I donated it to the charity bookmark project.

I like this bookmark from Designs For The Needle so much, that I finally stitched one for myself in May of 2019.

Zebra

The next group project by our charity stitching group was to make a black and white quilt. This zebra was my donation to it.

The zebra is part of a chart by Funk & Weber Designs called African Night. In the original chart, the fabric is black and the stitching is white. Our charity group usually stitched on 14ct white aida. So I reversed the stitched area, and with a few tweaks, I stitched the black zebra on white fabric.

Next time on #throwbackthursday, I'll share the seven small projects I completed in September 2007. 

With this post, I've completed one of my 20 Goals in 2020. This is the 20th #throwbackthursday blog post I've written this year. I'll likely continue these posts on Thursdays, but if I miss a week here and there, I won't feel like I've let myself down.