Madelon

In the interests of finishing sentences (or blog posts), I realized that I forgot to share the finished design, "Madelon", with you. I wrote about using the Ridged Blanket (or in this case, Buttonhole) Stitch and remember that I forgot to show you the finished design. By the way, the flower petals are stitched with the Raised Buttonhole Stitch (stitches verrrrry, verrrrry close together). 
     Instructions for the entire design are in the BDEIG Education Projects Book  but I thought you might like to see a picture here, too.

I'll also share the Ridged Blanket Stitch soon! I stitched a sample and think you'll like adding it as fill to your embroidery.

Here's the story about why the design is named "Madelon", and while I have everyone gathered around, I'll write about how I finished this piece.

I also sign all of my finished, original embroideries this way (if it is someone else's design, I'll add their name before my signature).
Here's how I finished the piece:

Most of us stretch our pieces over foam core board, pin the sides and/or lace the back (the proper way is to use archival materials and lace the back). After that was done, I glued a second piece of foam core board to the back. 
     Then, ignoring all the rules of "Proper-Ness", I found a piece of trim/braid and pinned it into the sides of the top and bottom foam core boards that were now stuck together for eternity (or till the glue gets crumbly and the pieces fall apart, whichever comes first...). Usually when I'm pinning trims on as a frame, I'll put a size 11° seed bead on the pin first.
     And, as shown previously, I attach a label to the back.