Thursday, March 7, 2013

A Robin

Hello!
I have a small finish to show.

The light is bad, and I wish I had stitched it on darker blue fabric, the white branches would show better... This is a pattern from Christiane Dahlbeck.
I made several changes, because of the aida fabric. The design has half stitches that would only work on linen. Very different half stitches. Well, I will have to live with it.

I wanted to use a small frame for this design. Could not find anything that worked at Michael's.
But I found this  laser cut frame at the wood aisle. I think it was about two dollars, no more than that. I spray painted white,  and because it is a flat frame, I had to do a little trick to finish the ornament.
I wish I had pictures.
I got a piece of white cardboard just a bit bigger than the frame opening and put it on the back of the stitched piece, folding the edges of the fabric to the back of the cardboard and gluing it with Tacky Glue.
After that,  I put a thin line of glue around the back of the opening of the frame and carefully pressed  the stitched piece against it.
To finish the back I glued white felt on the back of the cardboard.
The finished ornament has to lay on something to stand, but you can make a stand to the back using cardboard, or even glue a ribbon to hang.
I hope my directions are clear enough.
I just love this little frame, is so delicate! I think I will have more finishes like this.
It was the first robin I ever stitched, and I want to stitch some more. I love robins, never saw a real one, but I think they are just adorable, specially the European one.
The robin on The Secret Garden movie (I love it!) and Beatrix Potter's robin on her Peter Rabbit story
are my favorites.
Since I only have sparrows here in my courtyard, I got the robin figurine on the picture above at a gift shop in San Diego. He is darling!
Anyways, that was my first robin cross stitch, and the first ornament for my cubby shelf from my previous post.


Hope you have a wonderful day!

Ana Paula.

1 comment:

  1. Oh, your robin is adorable, Ana Paula--and what a great idea for an inexpensive frame!! You've never seen a robin in real life? Maybe they don't have them in your part of California? We have so, so many of them here--they are the messengers of spring. Haven't seen any yet, though, but I'm sure the first one will be appearing soon :)

    I'm actually reading The Secret Garden right now--have never read it in all these years. I really love it and will watch the movie when I'm done with the book...

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