The stitching on the hoop initial is finished and will be made into a card for my middle one’s birthday as her name begins with a J.
It’s been a useful exercise in practicality – there is no way this would make a useful workshop as the stitches are far too small for anyone to make reasonable progress in a two hour session, although it could conceivably be a kit.
On the bright side though I have a hand stitched birthday card ready in good time for my middle one’s birthday!
I’ve also finished couching the outline of the Baby Leaf-tailed Dragon.
I didn’t think it had had much effect until I looked back at photos of him before I put the outline in.
And although I think my Bayeux Stitch edges are pretty neat, the couching really does finish it off very effectively. Split stitch details next, which is my least favourite bit. I always worry that it won’t look realistic.
I’ve made the experimental cross stitch/free embroidery tree stitching up into a brooch. It’s a bit of a double upcycle in that I’ve upcycled the oddment of cross stitching as well as the brooch. It was initially set with plastic pearl beads, about half of which were missing, so I removed the rest and reset the border with tiny amethyst coloured diamantes to echo the little purple flowers in the grass.
The stitching was gathered over a couple of pieces of pelmet vilene for strength.
Then I backed it with green felt and mounted it in the brooch frame.
Goodness, you’ve made progress on all fronts there!
I’m impressed that you could remove the rest of the pearls from the brooch to replace them. I always rather assume that if I tried I would have lots of little obstinate bits in the way!
Warm water, lots of gentle brushing and the odd application of a broken needle I keep especially for digging out clumps of glue! Glue used on costume jewellery tends to be quite poor and its quite easy to remove and rather satisfying to boot!!
I shall bear that in mind!