Why Am I Showing My Finishing?

Why am I going over my amateur finishing step-by-step?

Not everyone wants to finish their own pieces. I hope my adventure finishing the Joan Thomasson wizard will encourage you to try finishing your own pieces, but even if you never put a thing together yourself, at least you have a better idea how it is done. Visit these websites and think about what I did with the wizard and how the stand ups they showcase look. Check the beads, braids and ribbons used as trim, check out the bases to see wooden feet and platforms, check the edges to see how smooth they are. Is the edge a seam or a wide flat area? Do the trims and buttons and bows enhance the style of the original NP or fight with it to draw attention to themselves instead of the NP? What do you like and dislike in these finishing examples? Would any of the styles look good with your current piece? Why or why not?

David McCaskill's House of Four Seasons has a lovely plain seam and corners where the building sides and roof meet.
http://www.blogger.com/Why%20am%20I%20going%20over%20my%20amateur%20finishing%20step-by-step?

Stitchery Square shows standups in a variety of styles, each suited to the theme of the piece.
http://www.stitching.com/stitcherysquare/finishing_standups.htm

Kelly Clark features boxed standups with feet made from round painted wooden beads.
http://www.kellyclarkneedlepoint.com/node/78

Marlene's showcases a huge variety of styles. Use Next at the bottom of the page to see more pages.
http://www.marlenecustompillows.com/Standing/standings1.html

Finishing is a real skill and a good finisher who can do a lot of different things and who listens to you is worth their weight in gold. If you know a bit about the various styles available, you can better explain what you want to a finisher or get a better result yourself. "Knowlege is power" isn't just a slogan, you know. Any time you notice a website with examples of their finishing, it is a very good idea to look things over carefully to get ideas or at least names of places that finish to your tastes.

Jane/Chilly Hollow
Main blog at http://blog.360.yahoo.com/chillyhollow

Sew a Fine Seam

Yesterday I hand-stitched the wizard NP canvas to the backing fabric. If it stops being pitch black before I leave for work, I'll post a photo of my progress. We basically have a hollow stand up figure with no bottom. I had planned to stitch my feather boa trim all around the edges of the needlepoint but it is too wide. Now that the wizard is standing on his own, I can see that the trim is just Too Much. I probably will leave the edges bare (gasp!) with no trim at all but encircle the base of the standup figure with the feather trim which still looks nice with the design but the clean, crisp edge seems to want to remain unadorned with any sort of trim.

I'm not a neat hand sewer, but this time I did good. I back stitched all around the edge of the needlepoint, just inside my two rows of tent stitches that encircled the background edge. Then I carefully turned the two stitched pieces inside out (you put them together with the right sides facing each other) to show the needlepoint and the front side of the backing fabric.

Since I'm not going to put any trim around the edges, the next step will be to figure out the oval shape of the base and cut that from the leftover fabric, then put wire through the Flair and bend it into the right shape and length of smoke for the cauldren. I'll attach the Flair to the back side by reaching up through the open base. The cauldron is near the wizard's feet, after all, so this shouldn't be too hard.

I'll post a photo when it is light enough to take one, but that might not be until I get home tonight. Fortunately, it usually isn't dark when I get home from work.

Jane/Chilly Hollow
Main blog at http://blog.360.yahoo.com/chillyhollow