Saturday, January 5, 2013

Happy New Year!

Have you ever had a crafting emergency?  In the Carey household, they're not so unusual and come in many varieties (everything from "I-can't-believe-we're-out-of-glitter" to "I-just-can't-believe-I-spilled-all-of-that-paint!")  This most recent emergency involved a brand new needlepoint book and an incoming snowstorm.  Despite the impending snowy disaster, my mom and I packed ourselves into my little car and made our way to a local craft haven to load up on a few projects to keep busy with while snowed in.  (You might be wondering why we weren't heading out for actual emergency supplies-like food.  But I can assure you, we had plenty of coffee and Christmas cookies leftover...what else could we need?)  Since we were in quite a hurry, we were faced with such snap decisions as "Michael's or Ben Franklin Crafts?" and "Will navy Aida cloth work, since they don't carry black?" and "Oh my goodness, they don't have any crewel yarn, what are we to do?!"  Suffice it to say, I had to make quite a few compromises, and spent a few minutes running between the aisles muttering to myself while tossing a strange assortment of craft goodies into my basket.  Admittedly, I felt a little like MacGyver.  I ended up going ahead with my intended project, and just made a few tweaks based on the supplies I was able to find.

I made a piece for a clutch from Anna Maria Horner's new book; she calls this project the "star-crossed clutch."  While she uses many more colors, black Aida cloth, and crewel yarn, I decided to keep with a mostly blue color scheme (partially due to the fact that I didn't want it to be too busy with the blue background, which was all that was available to me.)  Since we couldn't find any crewel wool, I picked up some standard embroidery floss and just made do.  The finished product isn't quite as filled-in as the original (since the embroidery floss was much thinner than wool) but I like it just the same.  I went ahead and added the gold stitching that is called for in the original pattern, and it really brought the design to life...it's definitely my favorite part!








As embroidery projects go, this one was pretty darn speedy.  Considering I started it the day after Christmas and am finished just about one week into the new year, it's definitely a new personal needlepoint record.  Considering my track record, it's a miracle I finished it before next Christmas!  All that's left for this project is to sew it up into a little clutch, and take it out on the town!  Happy New Year!

No comments:

Post a Comment