Friday Finishes #6: Too Many Books Bookmark

Okay… from this Friday Finishes there should be no missing information on the charts. Unless something went missing, I do believe I kept every chart and the information that went with it. No more problems like Sleepy Moon! I don’t know what clicked within me to start keeping my info, but I stopped throwing them away after the Dolphin piece. I think. We’ll find out as I keep writing the articles, I suppose.

Now on to this week’s Friday Finishes!

Name of Piece: Item 4572 Books

Designed by: The kit doesn’t say!

Distributed as a kit by NeedleMagic Inc. under their Bookmark series

Kit Contains: 18 ct. aida fabric, embroidery floss, needle, graph, and easy to follow instructions.

Finished Size: 2 in. x 6.75 in.

The Story: So I actually got this kit for an online contest! I went on my first trip to Hobby Lobby and bought a whole bunch of my small kits, and when I got home one of my cross-stitch groups on deviantART was running a contest for bookmarks! Since I just happened to buy two of them I was like “this would be a great contest to try my hand at.” Spoiler: I didn’t even place. But I still enjoyed working on the project and my mom is currently using it as a bookmark.

Now, this was also the very firs project I ever used Metallic thread on. I discovered how to do the blanket stitch and the original design for the border was just to fray the edged and do some back-stitching. I didn’t like the idea of the frayed edges, so I bought some gold metallic thread to go with the kit and designed my own border instead. Big mistake. I didn’t know it at the time but metallic thread is notorious for being absolutely dreadful to work with. And you can see how well I did with it in the picture below.

Time To Complete: About a week due to the new border, about three hours for the actual stitching.

Review: I did enjoy this kit quite a lot. It was simple and easy to follow and there wasn’t much counting involved, even though the design is all spread out. It was close enough together that you only had to count a few up or a few down in any direction. In the end I do regret going with the metallic border… while it was nice to design my own, and it might have worked out had I used something other than metallic thread, the combination of the two together along with lack of spacing pretty much ruined the border, at least for me.

I also forgot to iron it before I did the metallic thread, which is why it’s still wrinkled in this picture. (Don’t worry, I ironed it all out before I gave it to my mom.)

 

Final Verdict: The kit is great, and if you want a quick and simple bookmark this is a good one to go with. Metallic border, bad idea. So don’t do that. Or do it differently. Or just use the gold metallic in place of the black thread it tells you to use for the bordering. Just don’t do what I did.

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.