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.
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!
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| My sweet baby girl Mabel. |
Stitching and praying,
Vickie
20 comments:
What a great celebration of your wedding anniversary - congratulations! I never thought pencil marks could be such a pain - I'm so glad you managed to get them out, but really, you would have thought the designer could have revised the instructions after experiencing the problem herself...
Lovely gifts. Glad it turned out okay. The directions often times are not always as good as they can be. I do all my marking with thread!
very lovely gifts..and a very lovely anniversary celebration..
a big congratulations dear xxx
Oh I bet you are so relieved to have the pencil marking GONE!!!
Happy Anniversary dearest Vickie. Your husband did GOOD for your gifts. Love your frame for your beautiful piece, you did a PERFECT job of framing it:)))
love Annette
Your gifts are beautiful even, or especially, after all the stress. I'm impressed that Brian went the traditional route. I don't think too many men would have thought of combining it with your favorite flowers!
Beautiful stitches.
Happy Anniversary.
I love polish stoneware.
Have a great weekend
Trace
www.grannytracescrapsandsquares.com
Your silk gauze piece is fabulous. Wonderful that the pencil came out! Hope you had a great anniversary.
How thoughtful and romantic of your husband.
I would never mark my work with pencil. I always use thread, I hope the designer amends her instructions.
Happy Anniversary!! Beautiful gifts - so happy you shared them with us! I once marked a quilt top with permanent marker by mistake -- it was awful! I caught myself before marking the entire area but it never did come out. Thankfully it was a small quilt without a whole lot of work put into it.
Congrats on 20 years! Looks like you had a lovely time and got lots of lovely gifts :)
Happy anniversary! What lovely gifts you gave each other and your stitching came out beautiful! Enjoy your weekend.
Congratulations on your 20th Anniversary, we've just celebrated our 50th. I love your china. How brave to stitch on silk gauze, we live and learn. x
Your hard work paid off, Vickie!! The silk gauze piece is so lovely and I know you'll always remember the story behind it of trying to remove the pencil markings... Lovely gifts from your husband--especially love the Polish pottery piece.
Wishing the two of you many more happy years together!
So happy you had such a nice anniversary...wonderful gifts! Glad you were able to get rid of the pencil marks! Thank you for sharing your experience with us hopefully sparing anyone else with this problem!
Oh my gosh -- the designer really needs to change her directions!!!!!! Oh - my -gosh! What is she thinking?! Thank goodness the pencil line came out finally! It looks soooooo gorgeous! Love the frame too! Love the yarn bombing -- you must have been so cold by the time you were done! Love how the Pixel people cam out too! Your gifts are wonderful as well! Happy anniversary! Sounds like it was a great success!
Many many congratulations to you both on 20 years of marriage. I love your gifts to each other, very thoughtful and shows the love the care you both put into choosing the right thing for just such an occasion. Thank you for the tip on the Erica Michaels, I have a few kits in my to do pile so I must remember your hint and I do hope that she ammends her instructions now, which really she should have done once she realised the error in them, if nothing else to save such a thing happening again.
Love how your hearts turned out!! Your husband did great on his gifts too!
What a hassle with those instructions! Glad you got it all worked out though!
Both of you are sweet and very thoughtful with your lovely gifts.
You did beautifully with the silk gauze, glad you got rid of the markings.
I am SO glad your were able to get the pencil out. Why in the world would they use something like that and not make it clear?? Duh.
Happy Belated Anniversary! Sounds like it was a fun day.
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