Monogram pillows

Wednesday my oldest brother and his wife (Bobby and Connie) came to have lunch with me and my husband, Arthur. They live in Asheville, NC, now; but used to live at The Villages in central Florida.  I could kick myself for not having someone take a picture of us.  It was a bittersweet time since we all acknowledged that at ages ranging from 78 to 72, it was perhaps the last time we would be together. It was so much fun to compare notes about life experiences and catch up on various members of the family and acquaintances.  We had lunch at the Ocean Grill, an iconic Vero Beach oceanside restaurant, and were fortunate to be in the "second turn" so no one cared how long we sat and chatted. As an added bonus, he and his wife brought the finished quilt made from his bicycle event t-shirts that a friend of mine assembled last year.  They wanted me to see the final product (a quilter in Asheville completed the job).  I must say that Peggy and I did a great job of arranging the different colors and logos so the finished product is quite attractive.  In fact, I had to remind myself that it was composed of t-shirt fronts and backs.  But again, the doofus forgot to take a picture.  Sigh.  You can teach an old dog new tricks, but obviously not too many.

 This monogram canvas by Associated Talents is my new shop stitching project.  They have a series of these monogram canvases with different background patterns and accompanying fonts for the lettering. I am changing the colors, primarily to demonstrate to my customers that it can be done, within reason.

 I am employing a "soft" fiber--in this case, silk 'n ivory.  Soft fibers do a better job of covering the painting when you are changing colors than do "hard" fibers.  I think of perle cotton as being a hard fiber.  Hard fibers tend to have a shadow when you are changing colors.  I started stitching with a lime green to cover the pink and a dark pink to cover the navy.  They just didn't look good.  The green was wimpy against the white and the pink was just too dark.

 

 After some ripping, I arrived at this selection of colors.  These Lily Pulitzer colors are just so hot today.

A note about my stitching:  I'm doing this on a frame, even though I intend to stitch in basketweave as much as possible.  I have discovered that stitching "in hand" produces torque on my arthritic pointer finger.  Stitching on a frame doesn't produce the same stress.  Some days after stitching "in hand",  my fingers throb with pain.  That doesn't happen stitching on a frame.  I think that means my days of stitching "in hand" are gone forever.  A frame slows things down, but painfree is a good thing!