Friday Finishes #10: Grandma’s Love

Today’s Friday Finishes is devoted to my grandmother, who I made this piece for. I made it for her for Christmas of 2011, I believe, and forgot to take a picture of it at the time. I’ve taken one of it since then, but it’s not the greatest picture on the planet.

This piece was written using Google Search to find the information, as once again, I went into my Charts Binder to get the kit information and it was missing. Either it went missing after I finished it or I threw it away when I was done. I swear I stopped throwing them away but I guess for this particular piece I must have.

Name of Piece: Item K1143-16: Grandma’s House

Designed by: Neither the website nor the kit says.

Distributed as a kit by Janlynn under their Designs for the Needle series.

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

Finished Size: 2.25 inches x 2.75 inches

The Story: I bought this kit with a whole bunch of other small kits during one of my trips to Joann’s. I wanted to make this one specifically for my grandma on my dad’s side, who was sick with colon cancer at the time. We were going over to my grandparents’ house for Christmas with that side of the family, so I had about two days from deciding to make this to get it finished and ready for the Christmas party. (I want to find another one of these to do for my other grandmother, but I can’t find it in store and I don’t want to get it online just yet.)

Time To Complete: Around 2 days.

Review: My favorite part of this kit was the cursive lettering. I’ve never done anything like it before or since, but it’s so cool that with back-stitch you can create cursive like this. But all together the design is really simple and despite only having two days to stitch it I got it done in two days. I really like the design on this.

I did make a mistake on my version of the piece – I miscounted right when I first started and made the ‘G’ in Grandma too big, so it was one square above the rest of the letters. Luckily, it wasn’t enough that the edge of the frame covered the letter, and in the end I was able to look like it was intentionally done. Because there was so much back-stitch right in the middle of the chart I couldn’t start in the center and had to start on the G, which is how I miscounted… the rest of the count was fine, though.

Final Verdict: My grandmother loved it. She hung it up in her dining room and my grandpa would talk about it to everyone who saw it. My grandma passed away from colon cancer in September of 2012. I’m glad I was able to make something for her when I did. I see so many charts and kits now that I think ‘Grandma would love this’ and I feel sad for not being able to make them for her. Still, I was able to make this, and it still hangs in their dining room today.

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.