Better Late than Never?

I'm all about recycle/reuse(Sara says I'm a hoarder),  so one day sitting in Sea Trader I came across one of the trays we used during our Troll beads days.  We use to carry the line a few years ago before it drove me over the bend dealing with it and so we stopped carrying it.  I was thrilled to carry it in the beginning because I wanted a bracelet, but after several years, and several bracelets later I had had it with customers and those darn beads and charms so I decided I didn't want to deal with it anymore.  I loved needlework far more.  But we were left with approx. 20 trollbead trays which have been sitting in the back room waiting for me to figure out what to do with them.   I used one at home as a stitching tray to hold my scissors, a pin cushion, etc.  Well I finally figured out a use.  I stitched the new Lizzie Kate "Love" from her Celebrate with Charms series.  Of course I went to Hobby Lobby and tried to find things to put in the tray, but couldn't find just the right things, so I decided to stitch "I Love 2 Stitch" by Hinzeit in red and white to add to the display and then Stasi Buhrman gave me a gift which turned out to be the Rovarias scissor fob in red with a heart shaped metal finding....perfect.   I'm so lucky to have such wonderful friends who stitch and gift me beautiful pieces.  Usually I wouldn't use them in a display like this unless it's home, but I just needed that other piece and this fit in beautifully.  Then I punched some hearts out of scrapbook paper and my tray was finished.   My tribute to Valentine's Day.  Thanks Stasi for helping me finish this, but also for this beautiful fob.  I love it.   Once I dismantle this display, my gift will return to my display cupboard at home.
                                                                                               
I think I mentioned before that I was stitching  another Block Party pin cushion, "Mend".  It's  the 4th one I've stitched and I love this series.  They are so much fun to stitch and this one was even more so and now I've declared it my favorite to stitch (I know I said that about the Snow pin cushion but I've changed my mind).  First of all, there is nothing I like to do more than add a bead, a button, perhaps a charm, or even all three.  But it must make sense to me.  I won't just throw a bead, button or charm on a piece I'm stitching, it has to fit in perfectly, in my  mind at least.  That is called, making it your own.  I love the artist's interpretation who designed it, but put my spin on it.  Mend just gave me so many opportunities I could hardly contain myself.  It bit me in the butt on finishing, as the needles, pins and threader kept catching on my t-shirt while finishing, but even so I still had a great deal of fun stitching and planning embellishments on this one.

I started to finish this when I realized it might be better to show it before I finished it.  This shows the band and what embellishments I used.  I have to admit I did change two colors on the tomato, I used Gentle Arts Buckeye Scarlett for the darker red and Weeks Bluecoat Red for the lighter color.  I also used GA Forest Green for the top instead of Green Pasture.  The first part of the band on the left shows one of my favorite changes.  The button card which was suppose to have stitched buttons, I turned into a real button card by using red buttons that matched beautifully from my stash and they were just the right size.  Next to the buttons is a pin card.  It was too small for regular pins, but Debbie Liming had given me a package of quilting pins that were short with white tops.  I just spray painted the tops black and stuck them in...perfect.  The next tomato section didn't have any areas that jumped out for embellishment so I just stitched that section, but the third section had the needle book with a threader.  I put gold petite needles in there and I happened to have a Puffin micro threader thich had lost it's top so I had it sitting on a magnet until I found it and attached it back on the threader.  It was the perfect size but  I couldn't find my top so I checked at the shop and the tops on those were a little bit to big so I decided to use a heart charm,  that I had taken home for the Valentine's Day tray and never used, and it was the perfect size.  So I attached that next to the needles.  The the spools were suppose to have needles stitched in them and I did a satin stitch over the cross stitch for thread and just stuck a regular gold needle through the stitches.  At the right end I just put a few beads on the top of the dress for buttons because it looked bare after the other embellishments.  That is why this became my favorite Block Party pin cushion.  It was just so much fun to play with.  For the stitcher who just wants to stitch, that's O.K. too because this is a fun piece no matter how you decide to do it.  This series has been so much fun I do believe I will be stitching all of them....the Bee is next.

The top of Mend.  I was suppose to put a stitch into each button as you would if you were sewing them on a piece of clothing, but after stitching one section, I decided I really liked the buttons without that so I left them alone.  I also used Moss Weeks Wool for the top.  I think the original was done with Weeks Wool in Capuccino.

All in all a great week of stitching and now I get to finish stitching something I started before Valentines Day or something Irish...uh, oh, another tray is starting to form in my mind.  I'll make Sara eat those "You're a hoarder" words.  Have a great stitching weekend.