A Happy Anniversary

Good morning everybody! I am so glad you are here. =) Thank you for all your kind words and well wishes for our 20th anniversary.♥

I am glad to say the yarn bombing went well.♥

I began this when the kids left for school and Brian had yet to arrive home from working all night. It was dark and 44º. By the time I had finished, my nose, fingers and toes were almost frozen. I decided to just do one heart for each of us. =)

Here we have the Pixel People made up into a framed flatfold. I love the petite cluny lace.

These are my gifts from Brian. He wanted to give me the traditional gift of china for our 20th. So he chose a beautiful china tea cup for me with my favorite flowers, pansies. The pansies are also on the wonderful Polish pottery candy dish.

Well, embarrassing dust is in this picture, but I thought that was really neat the way the sun shone right through it.♥

So here is the "To Thee My Heart" from Erica Michaels I worked so hard at. I found this frame at Kohl's Department Store. I found the perfect color paper to back it with at Michael's. I like the way it really lights up the silk gauze.

These pictures are not very good. I tried and tried. I have to tell you, there were real sweat and tears put into this piece. If you should decide to stitch an Erica Michael's Petite, DO NOT follow this part.

I must be real naive. I never stitched on silk gauze, so I followed the directions exactly!! Duh. In hind sight, I can see it was a bad, bad, bad decision to mark from corner to corner with pencil. Guess what would not come out when I finished stitching and was ready to frame?! I called my LNS. Cheryl did not know how to get it out. She suggested I call Linda Stolz, the designer of Erica Michaels. I did. I told her I was reduced to tears because it would not come out. "She said we have all been there at some point." What?! She asked if I marked the pencil lines from corner to corner? "Yes, that is what the instructions told me to do." She said, "Yes, I found out the hard way the first time too. You only need to mark small lines at the center." So I told her, "Yes, I did not know that. I only followed the directions." So Linda offfered to send me a new piece of silk gauze!! What?!? To which I told her, "NOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOO! NO WAY! This was a labor of love. It took many hours." She told me she never found anything to take the pencil out.

So yes, I could have matted it right up to the stitching. That is not how I envisioned it. I want the silk gauze showing. I tried 4 different erasers (artsy things). I washed it with a tiny amount of dish soap. I talked with another LNS and a framer. I finally thought of something after many tears. I have an at-home dry cleaning kit. It has a fine fabric stain remover in it. It says it is safe for silks. I used it. The pencil is gone. Happy story at the end. THANK YOU GOD!

Well then! Now you know! Whew! I am currently stitching a gift for my friend. It is looking very cute thus far. It is actually embroidery I am doing.So no pictures of that yet. But we need a poodle right? ;) Ha! At least I do!

My sweet baby girl Mabel.

Have a fabulous day in the Lord my friends!

Stitching and praying,
Vickie