Not A Finisher…..

I have discovered recently, that I am not much of a finisher.

What I mean by that is, I have so many projects I have started and I

don’t seem to finish them! I start something, I seem to be going along

pretty well, and then it bores me and I begin another project. My

newest endeavor is teaching myself to embroider. I must say that

I have done some embroidering in the past without any real

knowledge of what I was trying to accomplish. I also have

some minimal knowledge, that I vaguely remember, from

my childhood. My mothers sister Olive taught me how to cross stitch.

Aunt Olive was so patient, kind and loving. 

I can still smell her perfume and see her crooked arthritic fingers.

That didn’t stop her one bit. When looking back

on it now, I can actually put a name to quite a few of the stitches

I was creating with her guidance.   So…just recently,

I decided to get serious about embroidery….well for as long as I can

stand it….I plan to walk right through that boredom …well at least until spring!  

Studying the videos at Needle N Thread has helped immensely. I also write

the directions out. I practice on a vintage white damask cloth napkin. It has stains and

a couple of holes in it. The first 2 stitches I taught myself were the stem stitch

and the French Knot. This is the result on the napkin………

 The French knots are pretty good but I have more

work to do on the stem stitch! Then, I wanted to get one of my absolute

favorite stitches down and I think I accomplished that….the Feather stitch….

I LOVE that stitch. Here it is… and again…

Once more, it is not perfect, but I can do the stitch without looking at the directions and

that was my goal. I started working on another stem stitch from one of the videos. It mentioned

working in a small rectangle. Once done, I was left with a not very good stem stitch in a

small rectangle!! So I decided to try another stem stitch and some French knots and

stenciling! This is what I did….. I can’t recall what my husband said it looked like

but he definitely saw my name and 2012 which was a big bonus because none of it was done that well.

Of course my motives in doing all this have to do with the bottle cap pincushions I am working on.

Like the embroidery, most I have made are practice pieces. I am getting a little bit better each

time I make them….here are some I’ve made that are rough…. The two

to the left and right of the Singer cover are not finished. It’s one thing to

put a French Knot on a flat cloth and a totally different thing to put one on a pincushion. It just does

not look the same because of the way you have to do it.

  

 I have a long ways to go and as long as I strive to be a finisher and not a

procrastinator,  I may just improve on my stitches. They may not be as messy and crooked as these are

in the future!! Oh well…I am having fun trying. Oh I got a nice card from Dawn from C and G Design the

other day. She is doing so much better!! When I first starting blogging, she was one of the regulars

I would go to and we ended up meeting. She’s a great girl who has been through some tough times and

is now turning the corner….thank God! I am hoping she comes back to blogging soon. And her mom

Jean comments from time to time on my blog. We met last year and she is awesome too!!  Well….any tips

would be much appreciated….thanks!  I’ll be back soon…..when I am done

with my Practice….Practice….Practicing!! Ha ha