No not me, my work desk mate, Alex's son and daughter in law. I say desk mate and we were physically for a lot of years then virtually for the last few. We have been on the same team, on different teams, the same team and so on and at the last the same team again.
I did think about making quilts, however I was not so sure I would be able to get two finished in time. Nor was I sure what style would feel right. So cross stitch, asked Alex if stitching would be OK and he happily agreed I would not be stepping on any family stitching toes.
On the basis of that, I started thinking about what to do and I was let in on a little secret, girl and boy twins. Oh so what to do. I have done a few birth samplers before and shared most of them on this blog. I did consider the patchwork bear and bunny But it did not feel quite right.
The solution came when I recognised the mental block. I wanted to do something for Alex and at the same time birth samplers are usually for the parents with the potential of being in the child's room and if very very lucky something they might like to have as an adult.
The solution presented itself after seeing some nice All Our Yesterdays designs turning up in some Facebook cross stitching groups I belong to. And the recollection I had a collection by that designer. Often there are designs with groupings of children, might I have one of a boy and girl of a similar size?
Oh I did , a boy and girl holding hands on the beach looking out to sea. Perfect, even more perfect it would not be difficult to stitch each one separately for the parents and together for Alex and his wife.
And I found a set of three frames that would be prefect. Well once I double checked the measurements, you may recall mentioning an AOY project and the irksome approx. on some frames. This is the project although you may note that there was a change in plan re the little wooden embellishments on the single frames. I will come back to that.
I am not very good at stitching repeats of things, these were nice to stitch and did not make me feel like the second set were repeats.
Worked out that on 18 count they would fit the frames, unusual for me but that is the way it worked out this time. The pair first. Then separated, and add the beach and the sky.
And the names, to the side on the pair in blue and underneath in dark grey on the individuals. Normally, I add at minimum the birth date , in this instance however, I was not able to decide where it would fit well, so no stitched birthdate, it is on the framing label.
There is a fair bit of white left unstitched and it felt just a bit cold. And as noted when I was framing them back in February it occurred to me to frame them over a coloured sheet of paper. Then a triple coloured sheet, with yellow behind the beach section, a mid blue behind the sea and a light blue for the sky.
It worked very well, the difference with the coloured backing was very clear to the naked eye. I think it can be seen on the photographs, that hint of colour warming the white.
I had some card in the perfect shade of blue and cut the mounts myself and framed the pieces myself. The frames for the single figures have little wooden starfish added, They came from a WOX cover gift of beach patterns and one star fish and one conch shell. Happily my BFF had the same and gave me her starfish and they looked more balanced on the bottom.
Here they are framed, and lots of pictures as I could not decide the best arrangement and because I was and am rather pleased with how they turned out. I do tend to take more pictures when I am happy with the end result in an attempt to capture that joy.
Alex kindly came to collect them, and whilst visiting took my Dad for a short drive he rather enjoyed.
I did tell Alex that it was his choice which he kept and which were for the parents, he kindly said he wanted to keep them all but would ask his wife (smart chap Alex) and they settled on keeping the double so if they wanted to the children could each have their own in their room in the future.
I asked if I could have pictures of the babies with the samplers and if I could send them into WOX and have them on my blog. After checking with their parents he said yes and sent me some well posed pictures (just after bath and bottle time so they were relaxed and co operative, I did mention Alex is a smart chap).
After blurring out the surnames for a level of privacy I sent them off and we waited to see.
As I currently subscribe I get the magazine that bit early to the newsagents, my October copy arrived on 5 August. With a very nice surprise in the letters section.
Published, and star letter , They cropped the double image to make them fit. As soon as I saw it I sent a message to Alex letting him know, he and his family had been looking forward to it happening. I had said there was no guarantee (although beautiful babies was an advantage) and that it usually takes a little bit of time.
I remain very happy with how all of the aspects of the project turned out and a new method of enhancing the stitching during the framing process. They were getting framed when I was framing the dragons over gold, I was having quite a successful framing time at the beginning of the year.
Now as that was a wordier post than has been the case recently I think you deserve an nice Forestella song as a reward for getting this far (did you notice they have now made their way into the banner below the bog title?) This is Together, with a translation of the lyrics which are in Korean.
I started off with a light purple then one stitch of pale pink to complete the patchwork on the left.
Delighted with that my eyes cooperating I thought to fill in the missing stitches on the ginger kitten. There were more than I thought, not a lot just ninjas I had not previously spotted.
Ginger kitten is now complete. a quick examination of the black and white kitten and it was missing one grey stitch at the corner of its rightmost eye. So both kittens have all their stitches in place.
Spotting missed stitches usually feels like a component of the backstitching process as that tends to flush them out of hiding. This project has no backstitching at all so I am hoping a good hard stare has found them all.
Only the patchwork to the right to go and I even managed to make a start on that.
I had thought this project might come out for a BFF session if I was needing to stitch on something else until my BFF caught up and we would be doing the backstitching together. However, that has not needed to be the case as she is catching up off line and we will be backstitching together .
I expect that this may take two weeks rather than one of Sunday sessions unless I can't quite wait and keep going outside the usual allotted period
Well the glint in the eye of the mouse is still to add but other than that it is just the backstitching to go.
The backstitching is supposed to be in four colours. According to the chart that is a brown for the fur, coco for the eye charcoal grey for all parts of the flowers and pea and brick red for the tail and paws.
My immediate thought was it was a mistake, or it was from the Robin pattern that shares the key, and my BFF and I discussed it and thought nope going to just use the grey for the lot.
However, in typing this I had the amazing though to check the colours "pulled" into the little box for the project and see what was being described as brick red and well, I thin I may just stitch with the shades as set. My BFF using a different material to me may well find that for her doing all the grey is the thing.
I in this instance am rebelling against my usual modifying self by sticking to the pattern...it is really still me honest!
So BFF 25 looms, a sort of milestone that, we never did get around to discussing that as I have a personal milestone of sorts coming up tomorrow and we will be having lunch together on 1st August to mark the occasion. We might squeeze in the question of BFF 25 and if there is any need to do something special for it. Mind finding something we both want to stitch is special anyway I think.
to get to this point and I am now completely relaxed about having enough of this thread to complete the project . I have just this last square to fill and whilst this Wyvern is a lot more solid than the previous one its not going to take up all the thread, I have started skein number six and fully expect to have four left over.
Happily the variegated thread has held my interest through all the repeated motifs and in the picture squares in a way that using one colour would have driven me round the bend.
I am looking forward to getting it into its intended place. I am reasonably sure it will be a little smaller than the available space and so fit. But I better not get too ahead of myself still a ways to go.
completed, there were a couple of unique points but still happy with how things are going.
There are points that I have needed to stop and start with thread lengths to get the colour transitions to work at splits of the branches or where one line flows into two. That is part of the fun.
And so onto the last space and the second Wyvern.
Trying to get the stitch placement to emphasise the curves.
Had a late start because I fell asleep. My sleep patterns are a bit off at the moment.
Once awake, well sort of I started with the pink. Managed two shades and some filling before my eyes objected to recognising the symbols on the pattern.
I was going to stop then recalled I had finally got the black thread out so
The mouse has an eye. There is still a touch of white to go into the eye to give it a bit of sparkle. But it looks less like a zombie mouse now.
Then I stopped with the stitching and went to look at the WOX Etsy store. As I get to pick a PDF pattern from there as a thankyou for my published letter. There is a limit to that, can't choose any of the Wrendale patterns. Which given we are stitching one at the moment is somewhat ironic.
My BFF and I looked together, which is fun at times as we do have different tastes BFF SALs or not.
There were some we both liked the look of but did not think we would like to stitch them. Some we liked but did not think the framing would be easy and was a bit essential. Others one liked the other did not and back and forth we went. This is the second time I have been given this opportunity and I've not stitched the last one.
We did eventual reach a decision, and I will let WOC know.
You may have seen my posts with the castle and dragon sampler using variegated thread or my Christmas gift box which contains non DMC thread that has DMC compatible numbers.
Some was gifted to me and some I bought from TEMU.
Usually I have bought either the variegated sets or toned sets of teal or skin tones.
I did however also get two packs of " random assortment"
Here they are.
At fist glance looking like an OK selection of very usable colours, I did not notice the issue until I was putting thread onto bobbins.
Can you see it?
enlarge it perhaps and take a moment.
See it, it took me a moment as well. Then it made me laugh. At some point in the future when I have a desire to do "something" yet not perhaps to sew I will get my DMC threads out and do a colour match so I know what numbers to put on the bobbins so I can add them to the not DMC storage box.
