It's All Okay

Lots of pictures today!  I'm glad to report A Treasured Time made it through it's ordeal relatively unscathed.  Unfortunately, I never took a picture of the piece after the first wash.  99.9% of the bleeding washed out. Yay!  Basically, I just soaked it overnight in clear, cold water with a dye catcher.

A Treasured Time
Dimensions
completed 2008

I only have a tiny bit of progress on the 15 sided biscornu.

My new piece is Autumn Romance by The Victoria Sampler.  I've had this one in the stash for about 5 years.

This is the first two bands.  I still have to obtain the pearls that go on the first band.  The next band is a cut work band and I thought I would try to show the steps.  This is not meant as a tutorial, but just to show how easy it really is with the hope of enticing some of you over to the dark side if you haven't tried it.  :D 

Step 1:  cut the 8 horizontal threads at the center.  (Take a deep breath, it's all okay!)  I cut every thread individually so I make sure I don't accidentally snip a vertical thread.  You need sharp, pointy scissors for this!

Step 2:  withdraw every second thread past the margin of the sampler.

Step 3:  Unweave the threads that are left to the margins of the sampler.

Step 4:  thread the needle with the remaining fabric threads and reweave into the fabic at the sides, replacing the withdrawn threads.  Here, the top two threads have been done.

Here, all threads have been rewoven and it's ready for the hemstitching.

And here it is complete.

It's really more tedious than hard.  You do have to be gentle unweaving and weaving.  This particular fabric did not like the process much and ended up a bit fuzzy at the edges.  This will be mostly hidden by a mat, so no problem there.  It would be more troublesome if the fabric theads break, though.  So, give it a try!  I dare you!

I hope everyone has a very happy holiday season! 

May you have Peace and Goodwill along with your stitching!
Tamara