Friday Finishes #5: Dolphin

Today’s Friday Finishes was very nearly a bust again, stitchers!

Why did I throw away the information on my finishes? I wish I hadn’t, I was so stupid to do so… once again I sat down to write an article on my finish and once again, didn’t have the information. And I was almost unable to find it. Thank you eBay, after I searched a couple of different keywords I just started scrolling through and I found it!

Name of Piece: Dolphin #4112

Designed by: The kit doesn’t say!

Distributed as a kit by NeedleMagic Inc. under their “Stitch ‘N’ Frame” series.

Kit Contains:  14 ct. Aida fabric, thread, needle, graph, frame, self-adhesive mounting board, and easy to follow instructions.

Finished Size: 2.5 inches round.

The Story: I stitched this one for my little sister, because she loves dolphins. It was the first project I did as a gift! Everything else I had done up to this point I had done for myself. I think I started it around the time I started Sleepy Moon and Queenie, and finished it after Sleepy Moon but before Queenie. I can always tell when I started and finished things because of the crosses – it took me so many years to learn that the crosses should all go in the same direction. This piece was the last one where the crosses are messed up; some stitches are messed up on Queenie but I had learned about it not long after starting so the rest of that piece is fine!

Time To Complete: Around a few hours.

Review: I’m pretty sure this is the first piece I ever did with french knots! There’s one Friday Finishes coming up in the next few weeks that was all french knots all the time, which is how I learned how to do them. But the eye of this dolphin was the first time I had ever done a french knot! Looks good, right? Not half-bad for a first time.

I really liked this piece at the time because there was only one line of back-stitch, for the mouth. I do not like the quality of thread on this, though – it looks like yarn, not embroidery thread, and it looks like it’s aged in the two years or so since I stitched it. It would probably look better if I had the crosses right! Those darn crosses, no one ever told me they should be in the same direction until I was almost 18 years old! Still, the over-all quality would be better if it used regular thread instead of yarn or whatever the kit used.

Final Verdict: My sister totally loved her gift! Just be warned, if you’re looking to stitch it yourself, the kit is out of print and hard to find. And the quality of the kit itself isn’t that great. If you do get it and stitch it, I would substitute the yarn for DMC or some other actual embroidery thread!

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.