So, I’m still working on “It’s Decorative Gourd Season, Motherstitchers!” but I thought I’d just do a quick post today featuring this piece I stitched last year as part of the Smalls SAL Challenge 2014, “Rotted but not Forgotted” by Plum Street Samplers from the 2012 Just Cross Stitch Halloween issue. The last time we saw this piece, it looked like this:
As part of National Craft Month last March, I finally finish-finished it into a gravestone-shaped standalone, with a lot of assistance from Twisted Stitcher’s amazingly detailed finishing instructions (this is “The Cube”). Now it looks like this:
Since the design is supposed to look like a tombstone, I finished it in a tombstone shape with some wilted-looking flowers on top. In my version, I used Gentle Arts Sampler Threads in “Carriage Black”, “Adobe” (light variegated salmon color), “Cornhusk” (light green) and “Banker’s Gray,” and the fabric is 32-count Vintage Country Mocha linen. I love the mottled look of this fabric and the muted green/grey color combinations which just scream decay and aging. I can’t believe I found a fabric that matches these wonky colors.
Speaking of decay and aging… this stitched piece is riddled with minor errors where the stitches are off by one linen thread. This is perhaps most obvious at the very top of the design between the decorative trapezoid (???) with the skull and wings and the dark gray outline; where there should be a full stitch between them, there’s only half-a-stitch. My sad, uninsured middle-aged eyes find it difficult to navigate between my stitching and watching TV, which I do almost always while I stitch, and I need much better light than I used to. Overall, though, my first cube finish went well with only a few minor hiccups.
Happy Halloween, everyone! Tomorrow, the pumpkins!
The Lyf So Short 