Vacillating....Again.....

Tessie is getting to be one of those tempermental decorators that changes her mind about every six minutes. This morning she had the wall that I took out of the bedroom down on the first floor and had it shoved in the kitchen area. She cut up the L shaped counter and has half on either side of the kitchen now. Actually, it looks pretty good this way.

I am all for more wall space in the living room area and It opens up the kitchen so that you can see all the way to the front bay window. I am now debating whether or not to permanently close the bay and not add hinges to that area.

She played with that whilst I finished the rug.

The warping wasn't too bad when I finished. I used the basketweave stitch on the black background. That always keeps the finished project much straigher than tent stitch for me.
Here it is before pressing and stretching.

I used to do finishing for other people on regular sized needlepoint projects, so I am not afraid to do a bit of stretching by hand.

This little guy only took a few pulls on opposite corners and some steam to take it back to square.

After it dried from blocking, I flipped it over, backside up, and ran a bead of Elmer's plain old white glue around the edge. I made sure that it hit a couple of lines of the needlepoint itself and at least one line of the bare canvas on the outside edge.

I let that dry thoroughly and then I, very carefully trimmed it just outside of the stitching.

Here is the trimmed rug. The left side is just as it was trimmed. The right side edge has had all of the raw ends of the canvas covered with matching Sharpie Permanent Marker. They come in lots of colors these days, so usually you can find one that is pretty close to whatever color thread is on your outer edge.

Be sure to use a pen that says Permanent!!! If you use the watercolor ones that are washable, you will wind up with a mess! I prefer this finish, to the one of turning under edges. It makes for a much more in scale thickness to the rug.

With that finished, I am going back to see where Tessie has moved the walls now. Hopefully she will tire of rearranging things soon and let me glue something down. I should never give her more than one option at a time......

See you tomorrow