My day at work a few days ago started out a little rocky as a woman who wasn't wearing a mask came in and didn't want to wear the required mask and proceeded to get snarky with me when I informed her masks are required by the state and locally while you are in shops. I was so exasperrated with this woman that I couldn't let her snarky comments go. To me a rule is a rule. If masks are required somewhere put the mask on. I don't care if you have been tested (first it's your word you weren't tested in front of me.) I don't care that you are tired of wearing them because so am I but I do it because I care enough about other people and the law. She finally put it on, well not exactly it hung around her neck. So again I said, you have to wear it properly covering your mouth and your nose. So of course she said something snarky and pulled it up. While part of me just wanted to let it go, I just couldn't. I then said, if you don't wear the mask you must leave the shop. She left wearing the mask. Not 5 minutes later Patty Yergey walked in with charts. At that point, thanks to Patty, my world returned to sanity. It was so nice to see Patty again. I miss the connection with other stitchers. I have seen Judy and Kathy but I need others as well. So my day got better than at 10 a.m. so now I can tell you about a finish. Liz Mathews Summer Quilt Tree is now done and finished. I watched her YouTube with instructions on assembling this piece and while I was leery of working with styrofoam I decided to give it a try. It sounds so simple. You make a slipcover of the stitched piece and slide it over the styrofoam tree you cut out. The only styrofoam we had on hand was from appliance packaging. Vernon brought me a big sheet of 1/2" styrofoam. Liz said to cut it outside because it's messy and she was not exaggerating that. I sat on my porch so I could contain the mess and it wouldn't blow all over the street. but that wasn't the hard part. I had a proper utility knife as I stole it from Vernon when he was up here putting my new bathroom in. (I felt guilty about doing it and ended up confessing to him-apparently I paid for it anyway through the hotel). Moving on...I cut two trees out using a pattern I made from the stitched piece. I then used double stick tape to glue them together so the insert would be at least 1". While I believe Liz said to use 1 1/2" I decided to bring it down to 1". But the tricky and really worse part of the job was shaping the sides so that they are tapered on the sides. Because it was iffy and the styrofoam doesn't let you just shave the sides it was a pain in the butt. I did the best job I could but was not thrilled with the result as it was uneven you can't get it to shave down properly. I decided to cover the form with Warm and Natural and even that became a pain. But I finally got it done and had it pinned in place and then sewed the linen and the backing together to make a slipcover. First try-on allowed me to get perspective. So I took it off and seamed it again as it was too big. I seamed it a third time and then the top looked wrong so I rounded it instead of making it into a point. Well that didn't look right so I went back to a point but a more tapered one. Then one final taper seam on the side and I was closing in on the final look. But with all the tapering the tree form was too large so I had to take all the warm and natural off to cut it down. So once I got the warm and natural back on the form and the piece slipped back on I was satisfied with the finish except...it was like looking at a girl who is wearing Daisy duke shorts. You end up seeing a hint of ass cheek where if she had just not cut the extra inch off it would be short but nothing would show. Well, I was certain if I looked closely I could see the ass cheek of the tree. Liz used Spanish Moss under her model, but I didn't have any and wasn't sure if I wanted that. So I settled om Lady Dot Storm Blue which is a little darker than the Dove shown on the piece, but I didn't mind that and I think it's the perfect thing to use around the edge of the bottom. I then put pearl cotton, 932 DMC around the spool which comes close to the color of the rick rack and I'm now O.K. with the finish. When I get into Hobby Lobby or Michael's I'm going to try to find a paint that will match the Pearl cotton and paint the edge of the bottom of the stand. and the spool ends. But for now, it's going into the shop and I'm moving on. But I'm going to do more of these trees and make them various heights for a display. Love the trees LizMathews...thanks and I see where she's got 2 more about to hit the market. Yippee, I say.
I also want to thank everyone who sent me Happy Birthday wishes. I had a lovely day and it ended with the entire family sitting down to dinner at the hotel. Lovely, especially during these times when families aren't able to get together due to the virus. We even had Michael and his girlfriend, Liz join us so it was a very festive ending to a wonderful day. I do want to share a few stitchy gifts I received....first from Sara who rarely has time to stitch due to lack of assistance in the shops but she managed to give me this lovely pouch she made and the pocket watch with a rose insert.
She worked so hard to get it finished and get everything perfect right down to the 2 tassels on the cord. I couldn't be more thrilled. Wonderful gift. Thank you Sara, it is perfection. And then the cherry on the sundae was a gift from Stasi Buhrman which was a wonderful surprise and a fabulous gift, or should I say gifts:
This fabulous bag, blue my favorite color, is stitched on both sides and it's big so all my stitching and little bags holding needles, glasses, etc., can fit in it so I can use it to tote my stitching in. And to add to the surprise, Stasi included a Peeps treat...
So cute with the 4 peeps and the fabric filled with peeps which Stasi purchased when we were in Nashville so it's a remembrance of our Nashville market days as well. Can't thank you enough Stasi, I love my gifts and will treasure them always. I also love the little tag on the back. She and Debbie are the ones that got me to start tagging the back of my pillows. We learn from each other, and I learn new things all the time even though I've been a needleworker since I was nine, 61 years. You would think I knew it all by now, but I don't. Never to late to learn though. Anyway, it's Saturday today, I'm at home working with windows open because we have a lovely breeze and temperature is in the low 70's. A great day. I know states are all easing out of the pandemic restrictions, but please, be thoughtful of others and wear a mask inside at least. It won't kill us to do that, and it might kill someone else if we don't. We are not home free yet, but if we are careful we could get there. Hope everyone can put a few stitches in their project today. Talk to you soon.
