Another finish!

We’ve got a wasp problem at home at the moment, this may not seem relevant to my sewing but it is actually impacting rather a lot as they seem to have chosen my sewing room as their preferred route of entry to our house. As I am somewhat terrified of wasps my sewing room is not quite the sanctuary it usually is. Yesterday, whilst my OH was dealing with the 5th wasp of the day I retreated to the dining room and decided to finish my Summer in the Dales box down there.

I started this a couple of months ago, it’s a kit from Nutmeg Designs up in Reeth, there’s one for each season. I finished the cross-stitch last week, all I had to do was construct it. I did have a few issues along the way but I’m pleased with the finished box…

The box is made using plastic canvas, I’m still not sure about using this for box making as I think card does give a crisper edge and is gentler on the fabric. The canvas can also be felt through the fabric.  I suppose using plastic does mean in theory it is washable!

The lid top and lining was embroidered as one piece so the outer was laced over the plastic on two sides and then the lining was folded under and slipped stitched round. My issue, apart from the fact that you couldn’t lace all four sides to get an even tension, was that I think there is an error in the pattern. The top and the lining are only one square apart, but the top and the sides are two squares in, so when it’s folded across it’s not central. What frustrates me is that I thought this was going to be a problem when I was embroidering the lid, but I convinced myself that they would have worked it out correctly.

I love the way the words go round the inside of the lid, it’s what first attracted me to the box. For those of you who can’t read upsidedown, it says ‘Summer in the Dales the swallows are back’

The box is lined with a pretty pale pink linen, it has a raised lip to hold the lid in place. I used a curved needle to slip-stitch the lining to the outer box as otherwise it tended to bow.

The box sides look really pretty with the gold cross on each corner. The construction is just not as crisp as I would like, between plastic canvas and aida fabric, which is fairly bulky, it’s difficult to get the neat corners and edges but on the whole I’m pretty pleased with my little box, not sure what I’m going to keep in it, I just like boxes!

I’m linking up with Kathy’s Quilts for Slow Stitching Sunday, why not have a look what everyone else is stitching.