This little piece of stitching came from a free cover kit from Needlecraft magazine, sometime in the late 1990s. I think - as was almost ubiquitious with these kits - it was made up into a card. I stitched it and gave it to my gran one birthday. As with everything I stitched for her, she kept it, and when she died five years ago, all these little pieces came back to me. Unfortunately, the card had been damaged, so I carefully took it off the mount - the margins were teeny tiny, as you can see - and kept it in my finishing box.
I didn't really know what to do with it - it wouldn't have made a pinkeep, for example - and the usual "four borders of fabric" pincushion seemed a little, well dull. And then, I remembered all those long pinpillows I'd seen on other people's blogs, and I knew that it would be a perfect finish for this! So off to my fabric stash I went...
I am not exaggerating when I say it probably took me as long to choose a fabric as it did to make the pillow - and I stitch everything by hand! Part of the problem is that rusts, purples and plums are my favourite colours. So I have a lot of fabric in those particular shades. And I really did want to use something from my stash - the reason why I was making this up was because I was snowed in, and couldn't get to the quilt shop which is normally only a 20 minute walk or 5 minute bus ride away down the hill. The hill being the problem...
In the end, I settled on this slightly distressed looking check, which reminded me a lot of a pinafore dress I used to have as a child.
The ribbon also came from my stash, and was originally a charity shop find. Again, it took a while to go through my box of trims to find something I was really happy with. Fortunately, when I showed it to The Hermit, his first comment was about how the ribbon sets it all off nicely so it's probably okay ;o)
This was the first of the finishing I need to do for The Year of the UFO, but I will have to stop for a few days as I have a heap of Uni work to do!
13 comments:
Hi Nic,
I love how your long pillow turned out. It if fabulous! That is one of my favorite finishes. Happy Stitching!
Jill
What a lovely finish. This will always have memories of your gran which will make it extra special
I hadn't seen these long pillows before -- but that's really nifty. Love how you were able to take something you made for your gran and recreate it. Has it really been five years? It seems like only yesterday I remember you sharing the news.
Happy New Year! Keep on stitching!
Nice finish! Everything works together really well and congratulations for using your stash too.
Lovely finish. Your pillow turned out just too cute.
Really like what you did with it, and I do like the fabric,so that was a plus, glad you got back the things you had done for your gran, so many times they are lost in the shuffle when someone dies. BarbM
Great finish, the fabric and ribbon look perfect.
This little piece made a beautiful pillow. I am glad it was saved. :o)
What a great finishing idea! I too have oodles of those little kit finishes left over - if I can find the box they are left in - I might just pinch your idea for finishing them - I am so over the card idea - great job on the finish too!
Your pillow looks brilliant. I love the ribbon it really soes finish it off well, and the fabric you have used suits it perfectly
Very nice finish! It's great that you were able to recycle your finished piece and didn't have to get rid of it when the card was damaged.
Cute finish!
I'm a little late commenting, but I think your pillow finish is great!
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