Irish Lace Pincushion - Finished!

Whew!  I just finished this project this morning - finished hooking the edging, stitched it on, and wove in the last  few ends.  I pressed the edging which really helped.  Showed it off to the Sweetie, of course.  ...and borrowed his camera to snap some pics.

His camera, a pocket sized point & shoot, takes much better close ups than mine.  A new macro lens is on order and I can hardly wait for it to arrive.  It  should be here any day!!  Another chance to play around and try something new.

Now, I should warn you about one thing...

Yup.  It's round.  I tried to make it square, like the pattern, but it apparently was not meant to be.  I had the linen cut out  and stitched together, but it just didn't fit.  I still think it's pretty cute. 

Actually, I think it's super cute!  I can hardly believe I made it!

There's a saying that goes something like this:  Life is about the journey, not the destination.  I am a destination person.  I can't tell you how many times I nearly frogged this project.  I am glad I stuck with it.  It might not have been what I had in mind originally, but it still had a very nice end result.

I need to finish up the tutorial.  There are a few pointers I should pass along.  Like, crochet the edging after you stitch the piece to the linen.  On my first go at the edging - following the pattern instructions - turned out to be much, much too large.  When I re-did the edging afterward, I came much closer to the correct size and could have saved myself a ton of time. 

Oh well. Lessons learned from the school of hard knocks are often lessons best learned. 

I also walk away from this project with a new found respect for my great grandmas who made a ton of this sort of thing!