Joyce’s Quilting Quandary

Back home again! Cats and house were fine! Jet lag was non-existent! Sad news greeted us on our arrival home.  Geoff, a long-time friend and the best man at our wedding had died after a long illness.  He must have died as we were flying from Syndney to melbourne on the last leg of our journey.

I have mentioned the CROSS STITCH a couple of times. It is a cross stitch of the 23rd Psalm and to say it is a long term project is an understatement. About two years ago, a friend of my brother’s, Caroline had found this lovely cross stitch. As she has eye-sight problems, she was looking for someone to do it for her.  I asked Catherine to do it, and very foolishly she said “Yes!” She took it back to London with her and commenced the work. Very soon she found that the design was very complex, both the design and the colour mixtures.

The rate of progress has been rather varied.  It is a very well travelled piece of work, it has been to South Africa, Slovenia, Cpenhagen,Ireland and to many parts of England. It has been done on trains, on planes,  in the tube, at aprties, in pubs and at Catherine’s work. It has been such a part of Catherine that now people are asking her where it is!    During these various expeditions  it managed to aquire a smell all of its own! I did some in Toyko!

Over the last few months, there has been a determined effort to finish! The deal struck was that Catherine would complete all that she could, and then I would bring it home with me and finish it off!!!  By the time we were to leave London, Catherine had completed all of the cross stitch, some of the back stitch, specifically on the Shepherd panel which is the most difficult and some of the writing.  I think she was up until about 1am on the morning we were flying out to St Petersburg.      

When we arrived home, I was determined to finish the  piece. My cross stitch and back stitch are not up to the same  wonderful standard as Catherine’s, but I was determined to do my best. I was very worried about the writing, I seemed to get a bit bigger every time I did it. But, when I finally finished, gave it a good soak, and ironed it, I found that the writing had settled down and had come together so it was difficult to pick the difference.  

FINISHED!!

We now only have to make the arrangements for the hand over!!

This entry was posted on Sunday, June 21st, 2009 at 2:36 pm and is filed under Uncategorized. You can follow any responses to this entry through the RSS 2.0 feed. You can leave a response, or trackback from your own site.