Finally, some finishes.

Ohmigosh.  I can't believe it's been a week already since I last posted about my adventures with my sewing machine.  This month is FLYING by.  Next Friday is 1 July, and I can't believe it.  I just can't.

Anyways.  Now that I have a sewing machine, I decided it was high time I did some finishing work on projects that have been lying around the house.

First up was one of the baby gifts I did for Katie, which I gave you a preview of way back when.  Well, this weekend, I finally did the finish work on it.  Since I'm having Katie and the baby over tomorrow night for a lil' visit, I figured I should mayyyybeeee have at least one of the two things I stitched for the baby ready for her when they come over. (The other one is awaiting a frame.  Stay tuned...)

Ok so here is the "Sleep Tight" Mill Hill Sticks project all done up into a pretty pillow:

Sorry if it's a little dark - I was trying to eliminate glare off of my super shiny freshly semi-glossed bookcase :-)  Didn't it turn out great!?  I love how the small amount of green fabric that I put around the edges just brings out all the colors of the stitched piece.  It really makes the green stitching pop!

Here's the back fabric:

A starry night, perfect for a little one sleeping :-)

Up next is one of the Cricket Collection seasons, each of which I've been showing you my progress in this bliggity blog.  This one is "Summer", which I stitched on 32 count somethingorother.  I can't remember what the name of the color is, since it wasn't labeled on the package when I bought it.

Anyhooter...here is the finished piece:

Sa-weet, right?!  It is a smidggggggggge larger than I anticipated, but I still love the way it turned out.  I used a plain yellow for the border right up against the stitched piece, which was a remnant from Joann's.  The outer border is from a Moda jelly roll that I got from Cloth & Bobbin in Narberth.  I think both complement the stitched piece rather well, if I do say so myself :-)

For the back, I didn't have a piece of fabric quite big enough to cover the entire surface area, so I made panels to cover it.  Voila! -

I thought all three pieces that were in my stash were very summery, and therefore perfect for this project!

For those of you working on the Cricket seasons pieces, the finished stitch size of mine is 17"w x 4.5"h - I stitched all of them on 32 count linen.  Adding the border fabrics to this piece made it closer to 24" long, so it's a daggone good thing I have big bookcases to display these!!

I'm currently working on the final Cricket season - "Spring", and attempted to take pictures of it, but the fabric just isn't picture friendly.  I'm stitching this one on 32 count Silkweaver Buttercream linen, which is a-ma-zing, but again, not very photogenic.  Hopefully as I progress, the stitching fibers will be a little darker and conducive to photographs so I can share it with you all.

That's all I have for now!  Do something creative today :-)