Friday Finishes #31: Sweet Baby

Today’s Friday Finish is actually a Christmas gift from last year! It’s been a long time coming. Sweet Baby was a fun piece to stitch and is a great, quick stitch for any baby gift, if you can find the chart!

Name of Piece: #021-1389 Sweet Baby

Designed by: As usual, the kit does not list a designer.

Distributed as a kit by Janlynn Company under their “Designs For The Needle” series.

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

Finished Size:  2.5 inches round (6.4 cm)

The Story: I actually picked up this kit for the first time when I was in high school, upwards of 4 or 5 years ago now. I kept it in my stash for years until the perfect moment arrived to use it: my cousin had a baby girl. I figured the colors were perfect for a girl – although I think it’s fairly gender neutral – and I stitched it as a Christmas gift for the baby’s first Christmas.

You can read how the piece came together here:

Progress Report: Sweet Baby: Part 1, Part 2

Time To Complete: In total stitch time, about 4 hours. In reality, it took about 5 months, because I dropped it and picked it back up much later as I do with all my projects.

Review: This kit was a typical, straightforward Janlynn mini kit. It was a fairly easy stitch, all things considered, and if I hadn’t dropped it for so long I would have finished it much faster. The kit was of a decent quality and I had plenty of leftover thread.

However, fair note of warning, if you are a stitcher who doesn’t like quarter stitches on aida fabric or backstitch, this kit will NOT be fun for you. I can tolerate backstitch, but quarter stitches drive me crazy, and this kit is absolutely full of them. I would say at least half of the stitches on the rattle are either quarter stitches or three-quarter stitches, and without the backstitch the piece looks like a big mess. I spent a majority of my time on the piece moaning and complaining to anyone who would listen that the quarter stitches were hard and annoying to do on 18 count aida.

But, you can see the final project for yourself and judge whether the effort was worth it:

Final Verdict: If you’re interested in doing this piece for yourself, the last time I looked for this kit in a store, it was on clearance. I know Janlynn has dropped their “Designs For The Needle” series for a new product name and design, so they may have it under a different name or product number. But it was a fun stitch and came together very quick if you need something cute and small to give as a baby gift!

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.