Missouri Niece’s House Portrait

My Chicago niece has become my Missouri niece. She moved to Missouri last June for her husband’s medical residency. We went there for Thanksgiving and I took pictures of their new house so I could make them a house portrait to celebrate their move.

I also used a Google search photo so I could see what the foliage looked like in summer.

Inspired by two embroiderers on Instagram who embroider house portraits – Kenzie of Neverland Knots and Kylie of Saint Rogers Street – I sketched out my design. And then I watched Kylie’s YouTube videos on embroidering house portraits several times each before beginning. I had been embroidering on duck fabric and was pleasantly surprised by my success but had run out. They were out of it when I went to Joanne’s, so I ended up using a thinner fabric, which presented the tension challenges I remembered from my long ago attempts at hand embroidery. Consequently, there are a few puckers above the roof, but all in all, I’m pretty proud of it, and I think my niece likes it too. She commented particularly on how I stitched the French knots.

I used a little artistic license and “removed” the trees that block the entrance. In this photo, I also used the erasing feature on my new phone to obscure the address to post it on Instagram, but I think it’s also a bit crooked. Although I wrote, “I’m pretty proud of it,” I meant considering it was my first house portrait – I think it will also be my last one!