Finished Needlepoint Pillow

After many interruptions and distractions, I finally turned my "Floral Splendor" needlepoint project into a pillow.

I was never able to get the distortion stretched completely out of the finished canvas, so I had to sew it as a parallelogram.  I should have turned the cover inside out to examine how well I lined up the cording with the canvas and fabric before sewing, but I did not think of it, and so the final result was cord and lip sticking out further in some locations than others along the edge.

I also discovered that I do not have a sewing machine foot that is narrow enough for me to machine sew along the edges where cording is involved, so the pillow had to be hand sewn on top of the basting.  Basting is becoming my friend, because it saves me from a lot of pin pricks.

Also, this time I was smart enough to dig around in the kit for instructions on how to cut and assemble the backing, so there is enough overlap that I did not have to sew the back pocket together.  It's always a learning experience.  The problem is that it takes so long to complete just the needlepoint portion of a project this big that I forget what I learned from the previous time I attempted to construct a pillow.  That's why I write it down here.  Now I just need to remember to read my own blog before attempting to construct another pillow.

On another note, I ordered some smaller needlepoint projects online to keep my hands busy in the meantime, and one of them was a needlepoint coin purse.  When the box arrived, it contained the bag for the kit and the label, but no contents!  There was no coin purse, no thread, no needle, and no instructions.  The glue on the bottom of the bag had failed, and the contents must have fallen out in the warehouse.  I had to call Amazon to straighten things out.  The seller gave me a refund, but couldn't send me a replacement.  Oh well.  Sometimes buying products can be more of a hassle than it is worth, but at least the issue got resolved.

Another Needlepoint Block Complete

This is a Dimensions needlepoint project called "Floral Splendor", designed by Barbara Baatz Hillman from the Kooler Design Studio.  It's a pre-printed 18x18 inch canvas that can be made into a pillow or hung in a frame on a wall.  The finished product is 14x14 inches.

As I get older, my eyesight gets worse, so I try to avoid counted stitch projects.  I need the design to be printed on the canvas like this one.  However, due to the intricacies of this gorgeous design, I still managed to miss a few stitches even when using a magnifying glass on top of thick reading glasses.

There were also some hues that were too close to each other in color for me to differentiate between them, so I had to consult the legend repeatedly.  However, pinpointing a tiny spot on the canvas and matching it up perfectly with a tiny spot in the middle of the guide was no easy feat since the guide was blown up into two large pages.  Figuring out whether the middle spot I was working was on the left page or the right page was a struggle.  I decided to go rogue in the last few stitches, picking whatever colors I saw fit.

My other challenges with this project included me repeatedly dropping the needle and having it slip down the side of the couch onto the floor.  I had to crawl around with a flashlight several times to locate it.  I also kept "losing" floss, only to discover that it had stuck to my clothes and fell off somewhere in the house or garage.  Fortunately, there was plenty of extra floss left over by the time the project was done, so I really didn't need to worry.

Because I used the continental stitch mostly throughout, there is a lot of stretching that needs to be done at the moment.  I think I am on my fourth stretch.  If I do a similar project in the future, I will have to remember to use the basketweave stitch as much as possible to prevent distortion of the canvas.  The continental stitch usually results in a parallelogram shape instead of a square, so I have to mist the needlepoint with water, stretch and pin it to a bulletin board repeatedly until I get it as close to a square as I can.

I think I will opt to make a pillow since cording and fabric are much less expensive than large frames.  It should be beautiful when finished.