I have been stitching away at the lovebird freebie on linen. It has gone pretty well. I got everything done but the border by the time I put it down last night. I'm pleased with how it has turned out.
Here's what I finished last night:
And this is what I have done up until now:
I did run into a bit of a snag as I was working on the border, and now I'm dealing with a frogging dilemma. To frog or not to frog? When I got around by the "e" at the end of "love," I noticed a little error in the letter. Now I can't decide if it is going to annoy me enough to just rip out the letter and do it over. Here is the boo-boo:
See the stitch on the far right in the loop of the letter? I went one thread too far, and didn't realize when I was finishing the adjacent stitch. So the stitch on the far right goes up one too many threads, and the stitch next to the left and above it is too short. Any thoughts?I only have about an inch on each side of the stitching since I didn't calculate the size of my fabric right. But Jennifer suggested this fabric calculator and it looks great! It takes all the guess work out of it for you by letting you put in the margins you want and the stitch count and voila it tells you how big to cut your fabric. I will definitely be using it from now on.
When I'm done with the border, this pattern I'm working on has little speckles of pink around the curvy border line - just one stitch all by itself. I figure I'll use the loop method to start off that Michele told me about, but I'm wondering how on earth I will secure the stitch at the end?? Does anyone have any suggestions or ideas? How does one put a single stitch out by itself and secure the ends of the threads?
7 comments:
Don't rip it out! I only saw it because you mentioned it - seriously you can hardly tell. Lovely work!
Tanya
If it bothers you, it would be easy to fix the "e," but honestly, it's not noticeable. And you've probably heard this by now, but many historical samplers have an intentional mistake, so they're not perfect (to show humility).
As for the single stitches, the loop method minimizes the extra floss, to make the stitch lie flat. You could either secure it by running the end under that same stitch, or, since it's so close to the border, you could secure it under the nearby border stitching. No matter how you secure the ends, just check to make sure that the floss for the individual stitches doesn't show through to the front.
Your stitching on the linen is looking great Kim, as for the error, some of say that a mistake adds some originality to the design!!!
I think all of my stitching has at least one mistake, so you aren't alone. This one wouldn't be that hard to redo, so I'd say to redo it if every time you look at the piece it bothers you. If not, leave it as is. The piece looks absolutely lovely and you stitched it up so fast - great work!
I didn't notice your boo-boo either till you pointed it out, I think it looks great.
I stitched that and secured the threads of the single stitches in the border. If it's a single stitch not close to anything, I just secure my thread thru it--but leave my tail just a touch longer instead of clipping it close.
Wow Kim, even your mistakes look good! You didn't even have to fudge the stitches around it to make it work! I'd leave it as it is unless it's really bothering you.
For the single stitches, I do mine the same as Staci. The loop method would work, too, but for me the stitches never come out quite square.
Are you pondering what I'm pondering Pinky?
I've been pondering the same single-stitch dilemma so I'm curious to see what suggestions you get. Thanks for posting the question!
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