This is a picture of my first real project. It is resting comfortably by the blanket that my mother-in-law, Susan, crocheted for us, on my very classy $250 couch. I'm very proud of it, an I intend to go into it in detail, but first I want to talk about something else.This is a picture of my maternal grandmother, Nancy, or as we
affectionately call her, Bunka. This lady has a lot of grit. She walked out on her first husband when she was 19 because he was cheating on her, and didn't bother to get a divorce until she met my grandfather. She raised my mother and her four siblings on what I'm sure would be considered a pittance now. And she has been doing very well living on her own since her husband passed away in 1995.
She is pictured here at our wedding in 2009. I'm very glad to say that she is doing alright now. She can't drive, and a lifetime of smoking has led to some pretty serious deterioration in her lungs, but she keeps plugging along. Like I said, she has grit.
I have a lot of fond memories about my grandmother. When I was in Junior High she moved into a house near ours, and I would occasionally go over and help her cook. I don't want to make it sound like I was the best granddaughter ever (I wasn't), but I love my Bunka enough to eat beat pickled eggs with her, which is quite a lot of love, let me tell you.
Some of my favorite memories of Bunka from when I was growing up was doing crafts with her. She would paint cards to send for holidays and birthdays. She would knit. And she gave us our first cross-stitch kits. When we lived in Ohio she came to visit us and in the evenings she would work on the border of a table cloth. I remember being so impressed by the size of the project, and the huge skeins of floss that she was using to complete it.
Because she always enjoyed doing embroidery projects, and because she was always so supportive, I thought that I might like branching out from the pre-printed kits and starting to do my own projects. This first one was a gift for Bunka. I am proud of it, but of course I can see all of the flaws, and I know that it's not everything it's supposed to be. She says she loves it, though. Of course, she has to say that; she's my Bunka.
The cloth I used on this project is burgundy flannel. I really enjoyed working with this fabric. It is thicker than cotton, and has a closer weave. I find with cotton (or at least the cotton used on pre-printed pillow cases) that it feels like you are working with a grid - your needle naturally wants to go between the threads, which can make placing stitches a little difficult. With the flannel, it felt like I could put stitches wherever I wanted, which is nice. It did shed quite a bit, though, so if I wore light colored pants when I worked, they would come away with a dingy, lint covered look.
I designed the celtic knot based on some instructions on the internet. I thought that I had saved the webpages so that I could link them, but it turns out that I am not that smart.
The design is supposed to look like the leaves of a thistle plant, and I was going to add a thistle flower to each corner. I actually stitched several versions into one corner, but I never liked them enough to keep them. Eventually, I decided to finish it as it was, rather than continuing to mess with it, and potentially end up ruining the whole thing.
The design uses border (or stem) stitch on the outside edges in brown, gold running stitch in the center, and green chain stitch to fill in the blanks.
I like the colors on this project - I think that they work well with the darker background, and look good without being too childish or cheery. I like the way the stitches look sort of organic - almost scaly.
One of the main flaws with this piece is that it turned out rectangular instead of square. I'm not sure how this happened. My two leading theories are, 1) that I cut the front and back of the piece at the same time and ended up stitching the piece that was meant for the back, or 2) that that I was too rough with it when I was washing out the marker, and it warped either from being wrung out or from hanging to dry. Because the dimensions turned out wrong, I had to sacrifice the stuffing from one of the pillows on my couch to fill it, rather than using the pillow form I had bought for the purpose. That means that it is thinner and lumpier than I wanted it to be. So this is a pretty pillow, but not as functional as I wanted it to be.
I also wish that I had sat down and figured out how to do the thistle before I began. I did draw out what I wanted to do, but I had my doubts from the beginning. If I had trusted my instincts, I probably would have just made this border longer, and it wouldn't have the blank corners now.
All in all, for 2 months' work, it isn't bad. And I'm glad that I was able to give the lady who first introduced me to this hobby a token of my appreciation.
