Final Finish of 2010 and More Framing

Unless I can slam in one more finish today, I have completed my final stitching project of 2010. This is a freebie named Celtic Swirls by Ink Circles:

This one is done in teals. I will be stitching a second one in purples and then the two will be combined into a biscornu.

On Wednesday, I picked up my last two pieces to be framed by Michaels this year. I am quite pleased with the job that they did, so I have one more piece that I’ll be taking in sometime in January, when I’ve saved up a little money (because it’s large and will require a special mat cut).

First, though, I took a better photo of my reframed Frost Fairy. It looks really nice against my grey stone fireplace:

This picture better captures the color of the frame, the interior silver mat and the metallic frost being blown from her hand.

The two pieces that I just picked up are:
1. Mystery SAL by Alchemy Stitchcraft. I finished this one back in 2006. I was originally going to finish it as a bellpull, but I decided to have it framed instead.

My framer, Kathy, did a wonderful job with this one. The mat behind the piece is the same color as the main navy mat. It shows up the hardanger sections quite nicely. I wasn’t originally sold on her suggested mat color, but the more I look at it, the more I like it. This one is hanging in my living room, between the two windows and just above where my two lap stands containing WIPs sit. I realize that a couple of the rows are curved, but I stitched the piece on Monaco, back when I thought that it was a great, inexpensive fabric to work with. I didn’t realize until after stitching this piece (and Just Nan’s Barnabee’s Quest) that it’s terrible for pulled stitches. It has very little stretch to it, so the framer didn’t have a lot to work with. The important thing is that the hardanger sections are straight and square, which they are. She actually did a very nice job. The photo is just a bit askew because I had to manipulate it so much. My camera did an odd sort of fish-eye thing with it, so it took a lot of work to get it looking somewhat square and straight.

2. Twinkle Twinkle by Enchanting Lair. This piece was stitched in 2007.

I used to have a serious hate-hate relationship with this piece. That is part of the reason that it’s been sitting in my waiting-to-be-finished pile for 3 years. I bought it directly from Enchanting Lair at CATS in Hershey in 2007 as a full kit which included the threads and fabric. It’s a seriously odd piece, in my eyes. The color combinations are strange and a bit jarring. I hated it so much that when I pulled it out a couple of months ago, while going through my pile to see what I wanted to have framed, I was going to give it away to any poor soul who might want it. I decided to take it in to Kathy, though, and see if she could make me fall in love with the piece. I told her going in that I hated the piece and I wanted to see what she could do with it. She pulled a mat color that matches the darkest color in the overdyed blue thread, though it doesn’t quite look like a match in my photo. We chose a slightly off-white inner mat and frame that would complement the very pale pastel overdyed thread in her wings. The inner mat is actually sparkly, which complements the metallic threads used in the star. No matter how hard I tried, I couldn’t get the sparkles in that mat to show up in a photograph.
I think Kathy did it. She made me fall in love with this piece. I desperately wanted to like it and now I do. She’s hanging proudly in my craft room.