Olive My Heart | ||||||||||||||
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The first chart I stitched from this calendar is for the month of February. It only takes six colors of floss. The specialty stitch is the Smyrna Cross (diagram included). I did change out the background color. I chose 761 instead of 352 so that there would be more contrast with the polka dots. I also learned that there are some errors in this chart! The thread guide says that the chart is 59 x 59 stitches. It needs to be that wide on the 18ct aida so that the stitched square fits exactly right into the cardboard mat. So that's what I counted when creating the square. Unfortunately, the actual chart is only 55 x 55 stitches! In the original pattern, the heart is a little off center. But if you look at my finished design, you can see that the heart is ... oh ... about 5 extra stitches off center! I still think it's cute and funky. But before stitching the rest of the designs from this calendar, I now know to count the grid on the actual chart to be sure it is 59 x 59 stitches ... and then compensate where necessary. I wanted to be able to have a quick-frame idea for these pieces. I'd like to be able to easily change out the stitchery to match the month of display. So I bought one of those metal frames — one where you buy a set of horizontal bars and a set of vertical bars and screw them together. They look fine and are easy to assemble. Unfortunately, I could find 8" frames and 10" frames, but no 9" frames. The cardboard mat is 9". So I bought the 10" frame and a piece of black poster board. I cut the poster board into a 10" square. Then I cut the middle out of it to make a 1-1/2" black mat. I slipped this poster board mat into my 10" frame.
Next I centered my stitchery onto the cardboard mat and taped it securely in place with some acid-free framing tape. I then lightly taped the cardboard mat to the back of my black poster board mat. It's only held in place with two small pieces of Scotch magic tape. I did this so that I can easily take out the cardboard mat for Feb and replace it with the cardboard mat for the next month. The frame is deep enough that I can just stack the finished stitcheries behind one another in the frame, and change them out each month. I then added a square of foam core to the back, and held it in place with the little metal corner springs that come with the frames. I did encounter one other minor problem. I forgot to put a new blade in my X-acto knife when I went to cut the poster board. I ended up with a small nick in the bottom of my mat. It wasn't horribly noticeable, but it wasn't exactly clean either. So I took some narrow grosgrain ribbon and glued it to the edge of the mat using a small bit of Elmer's white glue and my fingertip. This accomplished two things:
I really like the way it turned out! (And yes, I took the whole framing process apart before gluing the ribbon to the poster board, then reassembled it).
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