It's Twins!

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.