Blossom Splendour - second update

Another week, another update!

I'm quite pleased with how much I've done ^___^

This is the area I've been working on this past week...

I have overly ambitious plans to complete the skirt section of the kimono this week... *luck*

Blossom Splendour - first update

Blossom Splendour - update

I am loving stitching this! The fabric is so nice to handle and the colours are so pretty. It's a very relaxing stitch.

I'm a slow stitcher so this has taken me about 4 days of almost solid stitching (not in work this past week yay!). Given my stitching speed, or lack thereof, I'm pleased with my progress. I'm quite content to take my sweet time with this one...

A little close-up... 

Here's to a nice afternoon of tea and stitching <3

Pako thread organiser

I love to buy 'stuff' for my cross stitch addiction.

My latest purchase is a Pako thread organsier. This cost £13 from a craft fair I visited in April. I was half-way through The Castle at the time, so I'm only getting the chance to use it now.

Usually I use organiser cards...but when you have a lot of colours they can turn into something of a nightmare...threads get tangled, needles get lost...ugh!

So far, this has been a dream! My threads are being kept nice and tidy - you push them into the foam segments so they are kept separate and you can stick your needles in the foam so they're not going anywhere!

The organiser comes with about 10 of the cards you can see in the middle where you write your symbols down and when you've ran out you can just use card-board from cereal boxes and the like, so there's plenty of life in this device.

Highly recommended!

New project - Blossom Splendour - Joan Elliot

Blossom Splendour by Joan Elliot

This beauty is my next cross stitch project.

The design is by another of my favourite designers, Joan Elliot. This will be the first of her designs that I will stitch.

I had thought to do something quick and simple after completing 'The Castle'...but I was buying all the threads and fabric for this design and then got far too excited and just had to start it.

The chart is from 'Cross Stitch Collection' magazine from April 2010.

It is stitched on 28count evenweave using DMC threads. The design also requires the use of Kreinik very fine #4 braid and seed beads. I've never used seed beads before so I'm a little nervous about that...

The fabric is a really beautiful hand-dyed Jobelan called 'English Rose' and is available from Polstitches.

(excuse the bit of stitching there!)

It's lovely to work with and smells beautiful! It reminds of fruit salad sweets :3

As you can see, I've already started! ^__^

The Castle - Complete

Finally, The Castle is complete! ^o^

I'm really pleased with how it's turned out.

I got a bit disheartened doing the back-stitch - it's not my favourite thing to do anyway, but I found it quite difficult to keep track of where I was going in places...but I got there in the end! The back-stitch has really made it come alive.

Here are some details pics...

Overall I enjoyed this cross-stitch even though it was quite frustrating in parts.

I completed this project from a kit from Janlynn and if I was to do it again I would prefer to work from the chart version in 'The Best of Teresa Wentzler Fantasy Collection' book.

The chart included in the kit is a really old one done by hand! As such there are squares which had no symbol in them and some symbols (when done by hand) are a little too similar - I completed a whole section in the wrong colour..it was only when I finished I realised it looked wrong - the symbols I got confused were two different dots - a small dot and a fat dot which look very similar when done by hand (pressure applied to paper for eg).

Whoever worked out the thread requirements must have been having an off-day :/ I ran out of a few colours and had loads left over of other colours...

As a personal choice I would work this in evenweave over aida - there are a lot of fractionals in this design and it gets very tiresome piercing the aida blocks.

This is the first Teresa Wentzler design I have stitched. She is one of my favourite designers for cross-stitch and her pictures are so beautiful so I was a bit nervous starting one of her designs in case I couldn't do it justice....but it's turned out really well :3

I look forward to the challenge of another of her designs!

The Castle - almost complete

All the cross stitching is complete!

Now for the epic task of back stitching.

Back stitching is one of my most least liked parts of stitching :(