Sunday, January 27, 2008

Meet the Family :)

I promised a few blog entries back to post some family pictures taken during the Christmas Holiday. I must apologize as I'm just now getting around to it now. It was a great holiday - all my family came together to share with each other.

This is a picture of the ladies in the family, minus my Stepmother (she had to work this day...) - left to right - my sister, Michelle; Mom, and Me (in the pink raincoat!)

Here's a picture of the men in our life's.... (left to right - my Stepfather, Steven; My Dad; my BIL, Chris; and my Sweetie - Bruce)
Now on to stitching accomplishments for the weekend! You know those projects that you just have a hard time completing....either you lose interest or get intimidated - whatever the reason I think we all have one in our UFO pile somewhere. Well I've had one on my back for many years, I'm talking about 4-5 years. It was a project that I started when I was really green to working on big projects, let alone working on linen. I just fell in love with the design - Butternut Road's Earth Dancer.

A couple of years ago, I dusted it off and put it in my floor stand determined to finish it! We'll I just couldn't get past one piece of the design that was intimidating me so much.....that da$m Dream Catcher! I had started and ripped it out I know at least 5 times. Well this weekend I finally accomplished the impossible, in my mind at least, I did the catcher - and it turned out good I must say. I did have rip it out one more time and start over. The beading is going to be a piece of cake compared to that catcher! Here's a picture of the catcher and detail......I'm back in love with the piece and can't wait to finish it.


You can see the beading started in the center of her chest - it's a traditional Native American design which the picture doesn't not do justice to the beauty of the colors. My only delima now is working with that suede cording. It's a flat cording that you can see going around the outside of the dream catcher. There's also a lot of it as fringe around her dress. My problem is how do you fix it to the back. Running it under stitches is turning out to be very tedious - it's hard to pull through and when you do, it's pulling the stitches on the front of the piece. I've thought out about splitting end a couple of inches and feeding each end under 2 horizontal rows of stitches - but I'm not sure if that will work. Still have to try it. If any of you ladies have worked with this stuff, I'd love to hear your advice :)
Thanks for looking - Happy Stitching
Malinda

5 comments:

Amy said...

Hello family!!! ;-)
Earthdancer looks great Malinda! I know you're excited to be getting close to the end with it! ;-) Don't forget, March 8th, tell Bruce he's invited as well! :-)

Anonymous said...

Hi, Malinda,

Your Earthdancer looks beautiful. I feel your pain with the dreamcatcher! I restitched it several times as well.

When I stitched this piece, I did the same as you and ran the ends of the suede under the cross stitches, but I didn't like it much. So instead, I tacked them flat on the back of the cross stitched areas. That worked very well.

For the outside of the dreamcatcher, I took a very small stitch into and then out of the fabric with the suede, and then covered those spots with the gold beads that are positioned at each corner. That was OK, but if I were to do it again, I would lay the suede on the fabric and tack it at the corners with the beads.

Cheryl

Mel said...

Thanks for the advise Cheryl! I really appreciate it! I'll definately try the technique you mentioned in your comment.

Ruth said...

Well hello there, Pal! I lvoe your Dream Catcher. Sorry I can't give any advice since mine is still in the plastic the pattenr came in. lol Say, will your's be in 2008's MB showcase??? I;ll vote for it!

Good luck!!!

Mel said...

Hi Ruth, well thanks for the vote next year :) I'll have to see if it's done and framed by then! I made some good progress last night on the beading. I'll post an updated this weekend.