Normally, I don't hang with the docs. I am too lowly to be found in their presence.
But this doc, well basically, she's the shit. She's really fabulous, wrote me a rec for grad school, is chill and really pretty (hahahhaha she's probably smart too hahaha) and just a cool lady. Anyways, she had her baby a month early while I was in Kenya, so I scrapped the baby sweater i was making cause I was kinda like "forget it."
Well on Wednesday my coworker is like "oh let's go to the baby shower they're having for her." I was like "BABY SHOWER!!!!!!!????!!!! WTF??!!!"
Because I have skillz I only panicked for a sec. Then I rushed home. I gathered my patterns about me, went to AC MOORE, bought cheap thread and what is in my eyes, substandard but acceptable and even pretty fabric. I plopped myself on the couch for every free moment I had on Wednesday and Thursday and at 12am last night, I finished this:
Now it is much more vibrant in real life, and I did have to modify it a bit. I did not have the bird charms, nor did I have the patience to do about 100 french knots on each cloud, so I excluded both. It still looked cute though. I did go with a blue linen fabric, very nice. Framing was a huge issue. The design in 5 1/2" by 5 3/4" and of course I bought a 5x7 mat, having the options of 5x7 or 8x10. I was afraid that a small design set in an 8X10 mat (the opening is 8x10) and then framed in an 11x14 frame, would look lost. So as I stitched and realized that the 5x7 did not have a chance in hell of fitting the picture, I decided I would cut it.
I had a blue mat, darker than the fabric very nice. I cut the entire lower half of the frame, not even thinking, so the razor score line went across the mat, no good. Took the less desirable but white mat that came with the simple white frame I bought. Right away as I'm cutting, the razor strays from the straight edge, and I have a freakish crooked line travelling across the mat. Now I am desperate. It's midnight. I know I won't have time to deal with this in the morning. I look for extra mats in the house. None. I have an idea. I rip out a manilla envelope I had in my desk. It is full of matted prints of my "best photos ever" that I had on my wall in college. I find Peyto Lake. It's mat is the perfect shade. I grab the razor, cut it out of the mat and then measure the opening. As I get ready to cut the mat to size, I realize that it's my last chance for perfection. so I line the straight edge up perfectly, then step onto my kitchen counter and onto the straight edge, to stabilize it. I make the cuts nearly perfectly. Of course the edges aren't all nice and angled in now that i've cut them, but it's passable. I didn't even iron the finished piece, or mount in properly. I taped that bitch right to the mat then threw it in the frame I bought. Luckily I had the presence of mind to buy a piece of "non glass", no glare plastic that is better than glass, mostly because it is excellent at concealing small imperfections. So all in all, it looks great, and to a person who is more than likely uncrafty, it'll probably look hawt. I hope it does. Even with my critical eye with this type of thing, if I received this as a gift, it would go on my kid's wall. So that being said, I think I will congratulate my mad skillz :)
No comments:
Post a Comment