I fell in love with Elizabeth Talledo's "Fall Pumpkins" hornbook design in the Oct. 2014 issue of JCS. Since I had done the Spring one as an Altoid tin top, I knew this was the right size for one, so I decided to go ahead and stitch it with that finish in mind. I used Summer Khaki Cashel linen, one over one with DMC threads. After I finished the bowl that holds the pumpkins and looked at the rest of the chart, I was shocked to see that Elizabeth had charted a lot of petit point motifs. In other words, I should have been stitching that bowl over two so I could halve the size of the stitches for the other motifs. No way to stitch over half a thread!
I almost abandoned the project at that point. But I took it as a challenge instead. I re-charted three birds to make them simpler so they would fit in the space. The background had included a lovely alphabet and the numbers 1-10, but I had to let that idea go. I just looked around for fall sampler motifs and sprinkled them in the background - owl, acorn, key, tiny pumpkin, etc. I'm still not perfectly pleased with those choices, but enough was enough.
Then in the finishing, I started gluing the ribbon around top, only to realize I had chosen ribbon that was too wide. So I had to pull that mess off and re-start. The padded stitching is kind of lumpy too.. I don't know why that happened. But at least had 1/4" ribbon in the right color.
For the inside I got the idea to do a round keyring fob. I thought I still had one of those bottlecap frames to make a magnet, but I couldn't find it. So I just used a backing with plain fabric stretched around cardboard and sewed it to the stitching stretched around cardboard. I stitched the trim around at the same time I stitched the front to the back and it started fraying all over the place. I had to used clear-drying glue to tamp it down. The design is a little witch from a freebie called "Hallowen Witch and Tree" by Kathleen Finn of Stitches of Olde. She gave the freebie to members of the FB Prim Stitchers Society.
On to the next project!
