Finished Summer Basket!

Summer Basket is finished! It was close, but I finished it before we left for the weekend and I took it to Salty Yarns , where Sally was generous with her compliments.  Salty Yarns was exactly as I had remembered it from last year.  Stuffed to the brim with charts and fabrics and threads and don't even get me started on all of the wonderful tools and doodads.  But anyway, here is my version of Blackbird Designs Summer Basket, purchased last Labor Day and stitched this summer:

 

I had to make some changes to accommodate the variations of dye lots in both the threads and fabric.  So I used the recommended fabric - 30 ct WDW Baby's breath, but I had to substitute Gentle Arts Old Brick for the GA Clover (pink letters and flowers) and I had to substitute GA Gold Leaf for the GA Brandy (gold stars and letters)  So my sampler isn't as soft and muted looking as the model photo on the leaflet, but it's because the dye lot of my piece of fabric wasn't as pale pink as the model fabric.  Stitches done in Clover and Brandy were all but invisible.  

I have to say, I did NOT like this WDW fabric.  I doubt that I'll ever use it again.  It had absolutely no body to it.  There are some nice colors, but it's like working with a wet noodle. 

Here are a couple other little changes that I made, too.  (Changes = Mistakes that I was too lazy to frog and restitch). The top line of my alphabet was about 5 stitches too far to the right and I didn't realize it till I was way into the stitching.  Luckily, I wasn't using it as any kind of jumping off place for placing other stitches (phew), but it meant that I couldn't fit the letter "G" in at the end of the line.  So since XYandZ were all tiny, I decided to use a tiny G.

But then I had to balance the left side of the alphabet line. Handily, in most BBD designs you can always have a couple extra birdies at your disposal!

So now I need to decide if I should frame it or make it into a pillow.  I'm actually leaning towards a pillow.  It would look great made as an envelope-type pillow in my wicker couch, and BBD has put out a new fabric line recently....Something tells me that a trip to the quilt shop is in my future!