Gifted Gorgeousness - May Edition

We interrupt my giveaway(s) to bring you May's Gifted Gorgeousness as hosted by Jo! Where we work on gifts from/for others! With or without gifted necessaries!

click to join the fun!

Can you hear it? Maybe only bats can hear it, that excited squeaking.

Muppets.

Are.

Done!

Since the garden is in and things have settled down for now, I was plowing through a letter a day which was magical. Granted, the last few letters weren't all that difficult, around three hours each.  But that's three hours I don't usually have to spend on stitching!  Here are a few more letters I can flaunt:

Sam the Eagle

Statler

Do you think Statler would heckle my work?  :)))

The Swedish Chef

This piece wasn't terribly dirty but I still wanted to wash it because I think it makes the stitches look more full, plus makes the ironing easier.  I stitched what I felt were "questionable" colors on a scrap of Aida (I always keep scraps for this purpose) and washed the scrap first -- safe!  It felt really good to wash the piece, washing away that naughty center mark (remember the first fiasco?).  I also need to go over the piece with a pair of tweezers because holey moley, the cat hairs!

I am considering mounting this piece myself before taking it to be framed.  It's a bit big to be laced (14" x 14") though I did leave plenty of extra fabric (20" x 20"), so I am asking y'all for some help:  What do I do?  Foam core with pins?  Go ahead and lace it?  Leave it to the professionals?  I think Jo (forgive me if it was someone else!) mentioned to outline a piece in a running stitch or something similar to ensure it is mounted straight.

Technical Details

• Muppet Letters by Mike Boon, capitals and (modified) lowercase
• 2 over 2 on white 28-count evenweave, black 4 over 2
• Finished size: 14" x 14" (35,6 x 35,6cm)
• Started: February 2, 2015, Finished: May 13, 2015
• 65 hours, not including pattern making (+10ish?)
• First large attempt at evenweave fabric.

My verdict on evenweave? Undecided. I do like the higher count fabric though I did not think it was any easier or harder to work with. It was much softer than Aida. One thing I noticed and did NOT like is that the warp and weft of the fabric was not even. I realized this when a 6x6 stitched square was taller than it was wide. 6 stitches wide and 5 stitches high wound up being the square I was looking for and required a few adjustments to the pattern on the fly.

It's a little (hah) exciting to have this finished.  It's later than I would've liked but I will console myself with thinking it would've been done earlier if I hadn't screwed up the first piece of fabric.  CONSTANT VIGILANCE.  What do I work on next?!

Eeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeee.......

This post is scheduled for the wee hours of the morning for you crazy people on the other side of the Earth.