First off, I want to say that I apologize in advance if I screw up any of the terminology. I'm so new to this it's ridiculous!!! My mother-in-law is a quilting queen and helped me create this project.
Background - my mom cross-stitched the 8 pictures of farm animals in 1982 when she was pregnant with me. My grandpa made frames for them and we've always had them. I put them in my toddler's room and he promptly destroyed the frames. So between broken frames and the desire to not put 8 holes in the newly painted walls, I decided to make these family treasures into something slightly less easily destroyed!
I asked permission from my mom first so that she would know that I wanted to add onto her work, not recreate it completely. Once I had her blessing, my mother-in-law and I sorted through some fabric bits to see what would work best. We found this awesome green, leafy design that couldn't have been more perfect if I made it myself! She showed me how to cut the muslin for the back (that rolling cutting, pizza-cutting-looking tool is the coolest thing ever!), use a sewing machine (I've hemmed pants, and badly at that!), and most of all to be patient. Together we pieced it together, and did everything but the last bit of hand stitching to attach the binding (sashing?) to the back. She also showed me the niftiest stitch on her machine - it stitches in leaves on a vine, and all ou do is push the foot pedal!!! (I'm sure you guys already know this stuff, but it's so cool to me!) She even showed me how to write the dedication on the back to explain its history. I couldn't have done this without my amazing mother-in-law.
So today I finally finished the project. They just need to be cleaned (slight staining on one cross-stitch picture) and hung.
I am over flowing with pride and what I was able to accomplish!!!
I just have the one picture as I don't know really what you guys look at when you look at someone else's work, other than the overall piece. Besides, you might faint if you saw some upclose stuff!
