Work over the last few months has meant I have had very little time for cross stitching, in fact i’ve probably only picked it up ten times during the last 3 months. However I have managed to get some done and make a start on the second row of my HAED. Here is my progress as of today and hopefully there will be a lot more to show you soon as it is now the Christmas holidays.
First of all i’m very sorry that i haven’t updated for so long. I’ve been extremely busy with my teacher training course, so much lesson planning and essays and things that i’ve hardly had time for cross stitching. However it is now the Easter holiday so i should have a lot more time over the next couple of weeks to get more stitching done.
As you can see i’m working on that third page, just doing lots of sky which is fairly easy as it’s only really 4 colours. There’s just an awful lot of it so i expect i’ll get fed up of sky fairly soon!
I’ve been working on this quite a lot over the last few days, mostly on the archway part, which has a lot more colours in it than it looks on the photo (about 20).
I have also noticed that the part of the sky i did in blocks you can see a line down the edge of the blocks i stitched in (not visable on the photo). I have heard of a few other people having this problem but that it helps when you wash the piece at the end. I’m not too bothered because i only did it on a small part and you can’t see it unless you look closely, but it’s made me think twice about the way i do the rest of my stitches.
I was right when I said this page would be quicker than the first one. It doesn’t have many colours, which is making things so much faster (plus the fact that it’s the holidays so i actually have time to stitch). It’s lovely being able to see so much progress, although the sky isn’t the most interesting thing to stitch. I think i prefer dark colours on light fabric, they show up more, are easier to see and it feels like you’re making more progress.
I haven’t updated for the last few weeks because i’ve been really busy with my PGCE course, but i’ve finished my first school placement now so i should have more time over the next couple of weeks for cross stitching. I’ve finally finished page 1 of The Awakening! Unfortunately i don’t seem to be able to take very good pictures today, it looks much better in real life.
I had my first experience with krenik at the end of this page, there are 4 stitches using it in the middle of the sphere. For those who don’t know it’s a sparkley thread, this one is Krenik #4, an almost white colour. Instead of using a whole strand of it, because it seemed quite thick, i decided to separate it out into smaller strands and just used two of those, so half the original. This seems to work ok, i don’t think i’d have been able to thread the needle with it in the whole thread. You can’t really see it as there aren’t many stitches, but i think it will look good later on, in the snowy parts for example.
I think that page 2 will be a lot quicker than this page, because all it is is sky and archway, which involves very few colours compared to this first page, which used almost all of the 90 colours for the project. I’ve now done 8000 stitches, out of almost 200,000 for the whole project.
I’m a bit late with my update this week, but i’m really pleased with my progress. It’s amazing how much you can get done in just two days at the weekend. It wasn’t even two whole days either. I was very excited to get started on the archway which you can see starting to appear at the bottom right of the picture. And better yet, i’m getting close to finishing my first page! I read somewhere that it’s best to think of each page as a project in itself, which i think is great, i’m just forgetting about all the other pages for now. Luckily with this design each page has enough on it to keep me interested and make it like a miniature picture.
Unfortunately if i keep going at this pace (one page in over 3 months), it’s going to take me an awful long time to finish it. I’m hoping that i will find more time once i’ve finished my teacher training course, and hopefully with the Christmas holidays coming up soon i’ll have a lot more time for stitching. Thank you to everyone who commented on my last update, it’s really great to know what you think of my work so far.
This is the progress i have made on The Awakening this week. As you can see i’ve almost finished the sphere on top of this side of the archway. I’m getting close to finishing the first page now, which will be very exciting. Thank you to everyone who has commented on my blog, your comments really inspire me to make as much progress as possible.
I’m really impressed with my progress on The Awakening this week, despite not having that much time i seem to have got quite a lot done. I think it’s partly because the sky section is only made up of three colours so it’s really quick to stitch compared to the tree parts which are made up of well over 40 colours. At the bottom you can see the beginning of the sphere on top of one side of the arch. It’s getting really exciting now i can see the picture really appearing.
Sorry i haven’t updated for ages, but i have been doing a little cross stitch in the evenings. I have been working on both my HAED and Max’s Moon since i last posted, but i’m going to show you my progress on my HAED today. I’ve done almost half a page on The Awakening, which is about 2400 stitches so far. Hopefully you can now see the tree branch. I’m quite excited about the next half of the page because it has one of the spheres at the top of the arch on it.
I’m sorry this project isn’t coming along very fast, although i have done a lot of stitches. Hopefully you’ll now be able to see the tree branches a bit more clearly, and some of the sky (which has some really lovely pink and purple colours in it). Sorry the quality of the pictures isn’t too good this time, i’m having a bit of a problem with the sun.
And for those of you who want to see a close up of the little tiny stitches, here you go:
I have also added a new page onto the blog where you can see my previous finished cross stitch projects (just click on the link on the right which says Finished Projects). So if you haven’t seen my other pieces then you can have a look on there. As usual, comments and motivation always welcome!!