So I finished the flamingo in time for the Mom’s birthday!  I still think it’s super ugly, but I can appreciate the design and the colors now that it’s finished.  Here is a pic from before I washed and ironed it.

I’m not sure what she’s going to do with it.  There is a distinct lack of wall space in her place.  Perhaps a bag or a pillow is in her future?  I’m not so good at that part, the finishing, unless it’s just slapped in a frame.  It’s all nice and washed and ironed now.

It was super hard to get all the tape of the edges.  Honestly, they are still sticky.  I should have just cut them off.  If you look really close, there are still some pencil marks left over.  An unfortunate side effect to using a pencil to mark your place?  It will rub off on your fabric eventually.

Typically I use pen to do my marks. However, a more dense pencil would be helpful. Try using a 2H the next time. The lead from a 2H pencil may not be easily seen when it rubs off on the fabric.

Happy Birthday, Mom!

While visiting my mom this summer, I worked on some cross stitching.  She dragged out one she’d been working on and asked if I could finish it.  “Sure Mom!”  I should have looked at it first.  It’s a super ugly flamingo (Cover Band Name?).  I’m a bit spoiled by my current projects.

Most of my current patterns are easier to read. These new projects have colored charts with symbols and they are much easier to work with.  Not to mention all the colors used with the ugly flamingo are very close together, so it is hard to see what you are doing.

To top it all off, penciling was used to show the area’s that had been worked.  That’s not so much the problem, I’ll probably do the same.  But diagonal lines were used.  Visually the printed, black & white pattern is just bananas, and then to add gray pencil diagonal lines on top of it? No wonder she felt as if she was going blind working it!

And don’t get me started on the back of the work.  I like stitches to be neat and it almost looks like the work was done in rows.  Disaster – a complete disaster.  It’s a bit hard to see here (ed. excuse potato), but I did the not-pink section.  You can see the difference.  I’m such a cross stitch snob.

I may have to wash it before I go to much further as well.  There’s some weird baby powder/lavender thing happening that assaults my nose when the hoop gets too close to my face.  Which, for a teenager, happens more than you would think.  There must have been some strong hand lotion in the mix for the odor to linger like this.  Maybe I’ll just hose it down with some febreeze and see if that helps.

Hope you aren’t reading this Mom!  I love you and am super happy to be helping you out! 🙂