Wednesday, December 18, 2013

A Finish -Kind of

Last evening I finished this red work piece that I started over 20 years ago.
I guess it really isn't a finish because only the embroidery is done.

I saw this done in red work at a local quilt shop. It was adapted from a Curtis Boehringer applique pattern. The embroidered part of the old fashioned Santa is about 13 x 30. I believe it was framed and not quilted but it has been so long I am not sure I remember how it was finished. The lady who did it did really beautiful red work. I was so impressed that I thought I would make it for our annual quilt guild auction. I didn't get very far before I knew that I was not going to put this in any auction.  This looked like it would be a quick project. Maybe it would have been fast for someone else but it was not fast for me.
At the time I started it tea dyed fabric was in. I didn't tea dye this myself but bought it at the quilt shop probably because that is how the original was done. I am not quite so enchanted with it now as I was then. It does look a little more  stained in the photo than it really is. The dark places are a lot lighter in reality. When I was working on it I read somewhere that if you traced the pattern with a red Pigma pen the lines would be easier to see and they wouldn't show; I found that to be true.
I would get this out every once in a while and do a little work on it and then put it away again. When I got it out last month to take along as a hand work project I saw how close I was to finally finishing. I have been working on it for the past 3 weeks and finally finished.

Now What? I don't know what to do with it. I don't think I want to quilt it.  I am pretty sure the one I saw was professionally framed. I think it might have had batting behind it to pad it. I know if I just put it away now that it will stay in this state until someone goes through my stuff after I'm gone.

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