I Like Pie

And I'm sure you all do too!  So let's start with the January Pie:

You can see what I spent most of January working on!  And here is the progress photo:

Stitched on 32 count Oceanic Fantasia by Crafty Kitten

I've only actually got two colours, the backstitch and beads to do.  But there is a LOT of each of those two colours!  Thankfully the patterned fabric means I don't have to stitch all the charted background.

Stitch from Stash is no longer running but I thought I'd track what I'm spending this year anyway.  So far I have purchased the Crescent Colours for the letters and paid for a quarterly magazine subscription.

Threads:        £ 20.80

Magazines:   £   8.72

Total Spend: £ 29.52

I also promised you the photos for how I made my cube finish for Poinsettia Christmas by Acorn House Designs.  This design featured in Just Cross Stitch magazine Christmas Ornie Special 2013.  I stitched it at the end of 2014 and it sat there waiting for me to finish-finish which I finally did this January!

First all of I cut out four pieces of thick mounting board.  Two were 14cm by 14cm and two were 7cm by 14 cm.  I'm using cm because you can be more accurate without going into fractions of inches!

In the first photo you can see the sparkly evenweave facedown on the table with the left and right edges taped to the back of the mounting board.  I put a piece of wadding between the fabric and the board to give it a nice padded feel.  You can see I have cut a thin sliver off the other piece of square board. (about 4mm) this is to make the back slightly smaller so the cube will tilt back just a little and not fall forward on its face!  It makes it easier to see the stitching too.

Then I chose my backing fabric and taped the left and right edges to the board.  I use double-sided tape for ease and because this is not an heirloom piece, it's for my pleasure now.  If you want it to last 100 years, then lace the backs properly.

Next I used tape along the 14cm edges of the side pieces to fix them to the front and back pieces so we have a long jointed piece.

 This photo shows all four pieces joined together into a parallelogram shape!

I don't have a photo of the side piece laid out but basically it's a long piece of thin card covered in the same backing fabric.  The card is 60cm long allowing for four sides of 14cm plus an overlap.  I could have used more wadding to pad the sides but I didn't have any more!

You can see the bottom of the box isn't covered with fabric.  Because the back of the box is slightly smaller, the edge piece will meet at an angle on the bottom of the box so you will need to trim it to fit.  Then I used a piece of dark green felt to cover the gaps and make a nice base for it to stand on.

I taped the card to the top of the box and to the bottom on the box.  That's when I noticed the sides gaped.

At this point I realised my no-sew-cube was going to have to be a low-sew-cube!

This photo shows me using invisible thread to whip stitch the edge of the evenweave to the backing fabric and closing the gap.  I also did the same on the back of the box.

And voila!  The finished piece:

The clay poinsettia is available direct from Acorn House Designs.  I attached it using more invisible thread around the lower petals.  The ribbon came from a box of chocolates and was in my ribbon stash box.

Side view:

And the back:

Because I used thick mounting board for the main piece it stands very well as it is.  But you could weight it down with some kind of stuffing.  Old clothing is suggested in one place which seems like a good recycling idea.  I have plenty of pairs of Small Boy jeans where one leg would fill a box nicely.

I hope you enjoyed the photos!  It's a nice project for a Sunday afternoon.

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Finally,  the Secret Stitching Sweetheart Blog Hop will be taking place on Valentine's Day.  Full details can be found on this post but basically you email me a photo of something suitable for a lovely friend and I send you a photo from a mystery friend which you post on your blog to wait for your Secret Stitching Sweetheart to find you from the list of participants on my blog.  Have a look at last year's Hop to see how it all worked:

Secret Stitching Sweetheart 2015