Don’t you love those days where you anticipate sleeping in, only to wake up early for no reason? Today was one of those mornings for me, which is rare because I love my sleep. But my brain decided it was time to get up a couple hours before I typically get up on the weekends.
So I got up and thought I’d stitch in peace and quiet until my husband rolled out of bed (which was 4 hours later). I only planned to stitch this morning, but ended up stitching the entire day. And with all that dedicated time, I got to do a little happy dance this evening when I *finally* finished all the cross stitching AND backstitching on the top of my “Christmas Hope”:
Phew! This took FOREVER. My guestimate is that it took approximately 100 hours of stitching time to get this part done. I use to think backstitching Stoney Creek pieces was tedious, but for this piece, it’s all the confetti stitching. Those of you wondering what I mean, confetti stitching is when your piece has lots of color changes with the stitches scattered all over the place. The trick is to make a copy of the chart and use a yellow highlighter to mark the symbol you want to stitch before you start. It makes it easier to see where your stitches need to go. Then when you’re done stitching with the strand of thread, highlight back over the symbols for the stitches that were completed with a darker color, like orange.
Completing the top portion of this piece is a major milestone. First, because I think I’m more than halfway done (time wise) and secondly, I told myself I had to finish the top before I could move to another section. So now I get to start working on the bands of specialty stitches underneath, yay! I’ve been looking forward to this part. Each band is different, so I won’t have time to get bored. So for now, I get to say goodbye to confetti stitching while I learn some new stitches. I’ll get to revisit joys of confetti stitching after the bands, but at least the remaining motifs are much smaller the the wreath in “HOPE”.
I remember taking the class with you and wondering just how much time this one would take. I can probably multiply it by 1.5 and be fairly accurate.
Wow, it is still stunning after all this time. Now I know I have a lot of stitching to do to even make a dent in this project…well, after I find it in my sewing room first.
Your work is just wonderful and I’ll be anxious to see the specialty stitches.
Well I can say…..it’s looking great after all the time you have put into it! Are there any beads in the HOPE section? Have fun with the bands which will be exciting part of this project.
Hi Liz, just found your blog, hope you don’t mind if I tag along…
http://stitchinsweetsue.blogspot.com/2010/08/lots-to-share-lots.html