I finished both of my state fair pieces last week, quite a bit earlier than I originally planned. I’m half considering entering a third piece, but with less than twelve weeks left it’s probably not a great idea.

Pomegranate Quaker

Pomegranate Quaker by Owl Forest Embroidery was almost two years in the making. I worked on it almost exclusively while traveling – on planes, in hotel rooms, and when I was otherwise away from home. Finishing it was bittersweet because it brought me a great deal of comfort to have something familiar to work on in times when I was under a lot of stress.

I remember where I was and what I was doing when I stitched nearly all of the motifs. Looking at it on the wall stirs up many memories, some of which I’d rather forget. I suppose it’s poetic that no one else can or will ever know how much emotion goes into large pieces like this. To everyone but me, it’s just something nice hanging up in my bedroom.

All told, I must have spent at least 100 hours stitching. There are a few mistakes that are probably imperceptible unless you compare my work to the chart. I considered fixing one of them, but again I think there’s something poetic about this error hiding in plain sight.

The stitched area on 40 count linen came out to 7.5″ x 10.5″. I scoured my local stores for frames, but had no luck since I needed a non-standard size. I purchased a lovely (and affordable!) 10×13 frame online. It was a bit of a risk because you can never truly tell what color something online is for a variety of reasons, but the gamble paid off. The frame is a beautiful dark red-brown that complements the thread colors perfectly.

Here’s a close up of the bottom left corner and my inscription. I couldn’t get that crease out of the fabric, but I think it’s invisible from far away. Let’s hope the judges agree.

Finally, here’s the back. It doesn’t really matter what the back looks like as long as the piece lays flat when it’s mounted, but I do take some pride in making it look beautiful. No one but me (and now you too, dear viewer!) knows how it looks, so it’s a fun secret.

Armenian Lace Doily

My doily won Best of Show for lace last year, and I swore to everyone that I wanted to do something less elaborate this year in order to save my fingers. So much for that. My fingers hurt (and I should really buy a ring splint) but the result was most definitely worth it.

I have no idea how long I spent on this one, but I know it was at least tens of hours. I started it in October 2022 and it saw several airports as I took it with me on work travel. My cousin has laid claim to it after the state fair, which is fitting as she helped me get into lace making in the first place by gifting me a copy of the Priscilla Armenian Lace Book after our grandmother died.

Once again I swear I will do something less elaborate next year to give my fingers a break. We shall see how well I hold to that.

What’s Next?

I continue to knit in the background, and I have several cross stitch projects in various stages of completion. I’m also still exploring reticello and there will probably be another post about it at some point.

Quinto Acuto by Long Dog Samplers was meant to replace Pomegranate Quaker as my long term travel project. I have the chart and thread already and have spent quite a bit of time color planning, but my fabric has been on backorder for several months with no estimate of when I’ll receive it.

My (very) long-term goal is still to make a table cloth. I can’t start that in earnest until I have a house and a dining table (because I sure as hell am not going to spend several hundred hours embroidering something only to have it not fit), but I can start getting the pieces in place. Avlea Folk Embroidery sells large (tablecloth-sized) cuts of counted thread fabric at very reasonable prices, and I’m going to try one of her kits to see how I like the fabric. This is dual-purpose because the larger kits would also satisfy my need to have a travel project.

This blog sometimes feels like shouting into the void. I know from my WP stats that very few people even see my posts (hi Zach), but I can’t do anything about that (or even get my blog indexed by Google) without paying WordPress. I’m still thinking about what my goal is with this platform, which will determine what plan I get when I finally decide to sell my soul to WordPress. For now my blog is a glorified journal.

Happy long weekend if you’re reading this.