Slow Stitching Sunday--April 3

 Slow Sunday Stitching--see more great handwork on Kathy's Quilts blog.

I haven't been doing any slow stitching, as I can't make up my mind what I want to stitch yet--not a terrible problem to have :)   I showed some older cross-stitch pieces that I am going to add to the Bookshelf Quilt I am making for my niece, Emma. Adding a fabric frame was the job at hand.   I started with the cherries. I finished this one in April 2018 and finished it in the cheap plastic frame that came with the kit, which was black.  

I decided to use a narrow black border of fabric and then found a silver accented fat quarter in stash to use as a wider frame. 

The silver is a Carolyn Friedlander print I picked up at Sewtopia Orlando after her lecture.  I left the frame wide for finishing  width options in the bookshelf quilt. 

Next was a much older cross-stitch project of Southwest cacti. I chose one of the four different cacti and trimmed it to one inch past the stitching boundary.  Due to an over-enthusiastic trimming episode, I had a "design opportunity" for the fabric frame--hence the dotted squares in the corners. 

I like it!  I'll decide if I want to add another cacti later. I chose shelf fabric in a solid brown and the bookshelf  background is black, so the gray frame will hopefully show up well.  I can always add another narrow border in a contrasting fabric. 

From my stitching past, I used an old sampler to test the new-to-me hanger from the thrift shop.

This was the first cross-stitch I ever did--my Godmother gave a kit to me lo those many years ago.  I had the kit for years before stitching it in my late teens. It was mounted on a sticky board for decades, which I have removed.  Perhaps I will lace the piece onto something else, but I actually like it deconstructed too!