Friday Finishes #4: Sleepy Moon – UPDATED – Mystery Solved! Or Is It?

Today’s Friday Finishes is one big mystery… one that may never be solved.

When I originally sat down to write this article, I discovered two very crucial things: one, that the information I thought I had on the kit was missing, and two, that the finished piece itself was missing.

I know I had both at one point. I didn’t think I threw away the kit information, but I organized all of my kits and charts recently and I couldn’t find it, so it’s entirely possible. I know I didn’t throw away or give away the finished piece. But sometime between putting it in my ‘finishes box’, moving, and then hanging all my finished pieces up, the piece has gone missing.

I wanted to be as informative on this piece as possible, so as I usually do when I’m missing kit information, I set about looking it up. And here’s where the story gets bizarre: I couldn’t find it. Anywhere. I have found information on kits that have been out of print for years, and I couldn’t find this kit. I used Google Search and Google Image Search using my finished piece picture and nothing came up. I looked on eBay, and nothing was there. I Googled the top three names of mini kits in my collection and searched the Internet, and nothing came up. It’s like it doesn’t exist!

I sent out a cry for help on both Facebook and Twitter, but it wasn’t until my Five-Minute Stitch! EP21 video that someone was able to find the information I needed. Thanks to Tricia The Left-Handed Stitcher on Youtube for finding the links for me!

So, mystery solved, right? Wrong. While I found the information I need to make the article informative, here’s the thing: the finished piece is still missing, a year and a half after the original article was written. I’ve moved three times since then. Rooms have been scoured and emptied and all items have been packed away. It’s just… gone. Missing forever. I have no hope of finding it again. The mystery of the Sleepy Moon will forever be… a mystery.

Name of Piece: Item 1143-05 Patchwork Moon

Designed by: The kit preview doesn’t say, but I have reason to believe it’s Donna Kooler from this book. Except that was a chart and the one I did was a kit.

Distributed as a kit by Janlynn, probably under their “Designs for the Needle” series.

Kit Contains: 18-count White cotton Aida fabric, 6-strand cotton floss, frame, self-adhesive mounting board, needle, graph, and instructions in English and French.

Finished Size: 2.5 inches round

The Story: All of this spooky and strange stuff aside, I really looked forward to doing this kit. I believe I started it around the same time as my Queenie piece, but because I was working on that I didn’t finish this one until afterwards. I know this was when I was still new to stitching; the stitches are going in all different directions, and I remember when I first started I actually started stitching with the full six threads instead of two! Oops! I had to frog all of my stitches and start over.

Time To Complete: Total, around three hours, but there was a long gap between starting and finishing.

Review: Honestly, I really, really enjoyed doing the kit. I liked doing the little boxes of blue in the night sky and seeing the pattern coming together. I’m disappointed now that the stitches going in opposite directions make the finished piece look almost “fuzzy”, like the picture isn’t clear. If I could do it again I would, just to fix that. And you can see one of my first attempts at framing (because after Love Bug I knew that the cardboard was meant to be backing!) by the crease I bent in the cardboard. I was just generally a big novice with this one.

Final Verdict: I would tell you that if you enjoy the design to go out and get the kit, but… I don’t know if it’s still possible to get this kit anywhere but eBay. I hope that I’ll find my finish of this, stuck in a drawer somewhere, some day!

Have you done this kit before? How did it go for you? How did you like it, or not like it, as the case may be?  Leave a comment below or head on over to our Facebook page and tell us how it went!

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Friday Finishes is a segment where I catalog and review all the cross-stitch pieces I have ever completed. Some of the pieces I no longer have information on, or I don’t have pictures because I gave away the piece as a gift and forgot to take a picture, but I’ll do my best to be as informative as possible! Check back on Fridays for more.