posted by Lily on Uncategorized

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… at last!  I have a great fondness for the designs of Carriage House Sampling and last year bought all four patterns of their Girl Series.  I started three almost at once – this is Mary Margaret – I’m still working on Elizabeth and Molly’s backgrounds – and have just started the last – Suzannah.

I finished Mary Margaret a few weeks ago now, but had hidden her away, convinced I would have to wait until my mum was on holidays so that she could stretch her back into shape for me.  I don’t use a frame when I do needlepoint and some canvases are softer than others, so can become quite distorted.   However, a mist of water, some blued tacks and a bit of ply will see you back on the straight and narrow – and this time I didn’t even need my mum – I did it myself! …

… over at Carolann’s, on her lovely big table with lots of lovely natural light.  (Our house has almost no natural light – good residence for vampires).  Here’s her girlie all ready to go …

ah ha!  But not quite – when we were about to pin her, we realised CA had not finished the background down the right hand side.  So she sat and stitched for 2 hours, whilst I sprayed and nailed and sprayed and moved nails, and put them back in again etc.  What a painstaking process.  It is probably a horrendous way of stretching a needlepoint so I won’t describe how I do it in greater detail.  Suffice to say, I – or rather mum – has done it to three previous ones and they are all perfect.

Here’s Mary Margaret after a good bit of Pilates … and below’s a closeup of the blued tacks so that you may wince in horror …

Funny story about Mary Margaret – I had bought Little A a bicycle last MayDay weekend and took her to the Great Court at the University to practice riding.  I sat on a park bench under a tree and worked on Mary Margaret whilst Little A rode round and round and round – she was marvellous the old Little A – a real natural.   Anyway, a young Asian girl came up to me whilst I was sitting there, and with very little English, asked if I would take her photo.  I was very happy to do this and snapped a couple of photos – but no!  She wanted to sit on the bench under the tree – with Little A riding her bicylce behind her, and my needlepoint on her lap with the needle poised in her fingers!  What a hoot!  I let her do it, and took several photos for her.  Can you imagine what she told her friends back home!  “Ooh and this was when I was working on my needlepoint in the Great Court – a very Australian thing to do!”  Hee, hee, hee, hee!  I chuckled over this for a week and will probably remember it every time I fluff the future cushion of Mary Margaret.