Finishes!

Yes, plural!

My first finish was the strip pieced ornament.  I found a home for one of my rickrack roses.  Her face is an orangey fabric covered with batiste, the fabrics are mostly cottons, the stitching mostly white perle cotton, although there is a bit of gold around her face and halo (gold ribbon floss). Tiny sequins with clear beads (SJ Designs size 14 glass seed beads) decorate her scarf.  The wings are gold tulle on a base of white felt.  She was quick, easy and a lot of fun. 

I also completed the embroidery for the swirl tree.  The tree is chain stitch in Kreinik Braid #8 and the red is silk (12 stranded, but I forget what brand).  On pale green linen from Mary Frances's stash.

I damp blocked it because I didn't want to use a linen-hot iron on the metallic thread.  It looks better now that it's not all scrunched up!

I used the tent flooring I got to block knits and it worked fairly well.  This takes more tension and the "board" curved a bit in the drying, so it didn't get quite as stretched as I'd hoped.  The way to go is definitely lacing it onto a slightly oversized stretcher bar frame.  It's a total pain to do, but the results are so worth it.

I pin mounted it to a lightly padded foam core and popped it into the frame.  I didn't lace it, just left the pins in the edges (nickel placed, so they shouldn't rust). The fibers and the frame came from House of Stitches in LaPorte, IN.

To finish it off, I used some Japanese design wrapping paper to cover the back.  Voila!