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Wednesday, March 17, 2010

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

13 comments:

Debbie said...

The Rug looks great Casey. You amaze me how you manage to stitch them so quickly. Did her Highness pick any colours for her Manor yet?

Wendie-kins said...

WOW, I cant believe how quickly you've finished the rug! it'd take me months!! it looks really good, hope Tessie is happy with it too :o)

Kathi said...

Wow. You are a speedy stitcher! Thanks for sharing your tips for finishing the rug. I hope I get mine finished someday... I still have to find all of the colors I want to use!

MiniKat said...

Love the rug, Casey!

Sans! said...

Can't believe my luck. I am just finishing another rug and finally this one is not warping much but I haven't done the fillers yet (all the inside stitching like your black parts). I suspect its the fillers that make warping worse? Thanks for the tip on the edging. I am going to google basket weaves now.

miniacollection said...

I love your rug.
Geneviève

Roberta said...

The rug is very nice...congratulation, I think that make rugs or other things like this is very very hard!!!!
Big hug
Roberta

Irene said...

You've made a lovely job of the rug.

JDayMinis said...

Lovely carpet, Tessie must be thrilled. Scary but great way to finish the edges without the bulk. You must have such a stead hand.

JDayMinis said...

I meant steady hand, I should get Tessie over here to help me with editing, bet she is good.

Caseymini said...

Jean, I knew what you meant. Actually it just takes a careful hand and a sharp pair of scissors. Oh and nerves of steel!LOL You just have to grit your teeth and do it.

Minka said...

Love this rug. How do you decide if you are making the rug in needlepoint versus cross-stitch?

Caseymini said...

Minka, if the pattern has a lot of diagonal lines in it, I always use cross stitch. If you use needlepoint, you will get lines of dots one way and a solid line the other direction with cross stitch.