Organza Hardanger Ornament
Following on from my question the other day about projects in my books that you like to make, I’m interested to know about finishing. Most people indicated that the things they like to make are small things like needlecases, bookmarks, scissor fobs, biscornus and Christmas decorations (all of which I have featured in my books in the past).
Small things like this can often be fiddly to finish. From my wanderings on social media, it seems to me that there are a lot of people who are scared of finishing items and hand them over to a professional finisher for them to do them. Others are confident in doing them themselves.
How confident are you in finishing items when good instructions are provided?
1. I’ll give anything a go.
2. I’ll only finish items that are simple, so that I don’t mess things up.
3. I am not at all confident and while I enjoy making them, they end up in a drawer, unfinished.
4. I give them to someone else to finish for me.
In addition, does the need to finish a small, fiddly item put you off making it?
Finishing is something I enjoy doing, and I always do it carefully, so as to get the best results. After all that time embroidering, I’m keen to make the embroidery look great, by finishing the item well. However, as I know some people don’t feel confident doing it themselves, or don’t have the money to get someone else to do it for them, that’s why I often include projects in my books like runners that can be easily finished with simple turned hems, either with hand sewing or a machine.
Are you friends with finishing?
White Threads is the blog of Yvette Stanton, the author, designer, publisher behind Vetty Creations' quality needlework books and embroidery products.
If glue is involved, I back off sharply and take months to bring myself to the sticking-point. Finishing which is all hand stitch is much more comfortable!
If glue is involved, I come up with a way that doesn’t involve glue!
I done 1-3. It all depends on the project, materials and tools needed, my mood, and if time to focus is available, etc. Where I think I’d really hesitate and go with option 4 is if expensive or hard to get materials or tools are required. But I’ve not yet had that situation arise.
Truthfully, my biggest roadblock to finishing is losing interest, or indecision on how to finish something.
I totally understand about the hesitation with glue. Depending on the glue and project, it might not be possible to recover from an “ooops”.