Baby sampler redesign and restart.
Clients project description.
The project is 31x26 1/2 cm and eight colors.
I will provide all materials needed.
No other details were provided.
My latest cross stitch finishing request is from a lady in the USA.
She is waiting to have her hip replaced and could not find the time to finish the project and was looking for someone to finish her cross stitch for her.
It is a baby sampler that I think was started over ten years ago for her grandson and was never completed.
It arrived by prority mail and without out knowing anymore than what the client had described I opened the package.
After alot of consideration, as upon inspection of it's contents I immediately knew that nothing was going to be simple about it.
On opening the parcel the first thing I noticed is that I will have my work cut out with this one.
As you can see in the image, the project is started.
It came with a picture of the finished design which was intended for a girl whose name and date of birth I have blurred out for privacy and can be seen in the next set of images.
The request is for a boy who's details were enclosed on a piece of paper.
It had a rough hand drawn stitching pattern and a few random coloured yarns that were far too dirty to use, being covered in dust and what looked like animal hairs tangled in the weave of the threads.
As you can see the pattern was also a little worse for ware and unfortunately did not quite match the design of the original which I had to copy, shown in the picture below.
After consulting with the client via email that I would need to use all new threads, I was told to do what ever I thought necessary to get the project finished.
I first decided to make a new pattern that was to scale to fit the original sized picture dimensions I was given, as to follow the pattern I had, and make it match the design in the picture was a task I did not fancy.
After carefull study and measuring of the original pattern and using the project dimensions the client had supplied I decided that the stitch count was 10 and so I began to redesign the pattern on a 10ct grid as shown below. The colour coding shown is for referance and not necessarily the final colours I chose to use.
Before starting I would also need to change the colours of the yarns slightly as the new design was for a baby boy, and not a baby girl, so the first thing I did was to swap out all pinks for various shades of blue.
By lining my pattern up with the supplied picture I was able to create a more accurate new design that closely matched both the original picture which was out with the design and was also close to the hand drawn design, as I found alot of stitch's had been missed out on the original sampler made for the girl.
I would also need to do a little more scaling and defining on the bunting and loop detail which I will do on a seperate transparent piece of paper and then overlay it onto my design in place of what is shown in the above pattern as I was not happy with the overal proportions and look of the balloon. To me it seemed a little cluttered.
The next thing I had to do was to thouroughly wash the supplied fabric as it was stained and covered with animal hairs and far too dirty to work with. I thought about replacing it but after much consideration I imagined that the client would want it to be the same fabric as I assumed the original girls sampler had been stitched onto.
I again consulted with the client as I would first need to unpick the design she had started, but after her consent I decided that I had enough spare fabric to start a new design without having to unpick the original. Also I noticed that the holes left when I began to unpick the design would not be covered easily by the new design.
With the fabric now clean after 2 washes and ironed flat I was ready to copy my design onto a soluble stabiliser before laying it onto the cloth ready to recieve the stitch work.
Although this seemed like a simple design at first there was alot of embroidery to be done in the balloon using satin stitch with some hoops, chain stitch and French knots to add some detail to the design.
As you can see I also used an embroidery hoop taking care that the fabric was at the right tension without permanently creasing its edges. I am using a round hoop but I think in future I will use a larger rectangular frame to hold the whole design in place.
I slowly and carefully worked my way through the design incorperating some stem stitch into the ropes on the balloon, the wire on the plaque held by the bird and onto the stems of the flowers at the base of the balloon, with some more satin stitch and French knots to form the detail on the ends of the butting design and in the birds eye. I also used a smaller hoop to do the bird detail and plaque.
The next thing to do was to move my hoop and start on the banners containing the writing.
I am now on the home stretch having completed all the satin stitch in the banners with only a little more stem stitch to finish off the banners, then finally some random straight stitch in two colours to build the highlights in the babies hair.
It is now complete and following the clients approval is ready to be packed and mailed back to the client.
This was an interesting little project. A little testy at first but once It started to take shape it was worth the initial effort to get it right.
The original design.
My interpretation
