Vintage embroidery competition, or not.

Yay, it's Friday!!  It's just a shame it's not FNSI as I feel stitchy.  Speaking of which, do you remember my FSNI post on Saturday?  I showed you this little lady I was stitching up:

Well she's finished.  In fact, she was finished on Saturday night.  That must be some kind of record for me.  The poor thing never even got to be a WIP.

I've mostly used running stitch, though the chair is done in chain stitch, the rope thing that goes to the pedal was done in stem stitch and the sewing she's producing was satin stitched.  I used metallic thread for the machine (nightmare) and silk thread for the dress and sewing (pure heaven).  I was worried about my cracked eczema hands with the silk threads, but it was fine.  I used a mixture of brown and yellow for the hair to try to recreate my blond hair.  Yep, she's meant to be me, born in the wrong century I was. 

She was for the competition over at a group on Flickr, but the host of the competition was so damn rude to me that I pulled out, I just deleted my photos.  I didn't understand the 36 pages of rules apparently and had missed something out.  When I said that I didn't understand what I'd done wrong (which was invalidating my entry?!?) she got really shirty with me so that's a group I won't be visiting again.  Ah well, the pattern is lovely. 

I started with this vintage embroidery pattern, found in the Hoop Love Flickr group. I used a bit of fabric from one of the linen pieces my lovely friend Fiona sent me.

I wanted to finish her in a hoop, but not alone, I had an idea...

This fake hexie fabric has been in my stash for ages, bought on a whim from Fabricland.  I thought it was perfect for this project.  Especially as the purple in it was similar to the purple I'd used for the fabric in the picture.  That's right, I didn't think it through and use a thread to match the fabric I intended to use, I just stitched it!

It's meant to look like she's sewing the border.  I know it doesn't really work, but I kind of like it anyway.  I didn't like the wooden hoop against the design, so I wrapped it in white faric first.

And here she is, all hooped up.  From hoop to hoop in just 2 days!

Now I just need to get round to adding her to my gallery, that's two new pieces waiting to be hung!



Don't forget to enter my Something Old, Something New competition.  The deadline is 31st July and there is a prize!