Becca’s Cross Stitch

Page 7 of my HAED, The Awakening is now finished.  The sun is sparkly but it doesn’t show up very well in the photo unfortunately.  It’s stitched using Kreinik.  The #4 braid which the pattern suggested I use turned out to be quite thick and to do a full cross using one strand of this looked too thick against the one strand of normal thread used for the rest of the design.  I’m sure the Kreinik isn’t supposed to be split into strands but I found if you are careful you can split it up into 4 strands.  So I used a two strand width to make it roughly the same width as the normal thread.  Unfortunately this then resulted in it frequently getting very tangled up and shredding fluff.  Eventually I found that using just one of the four strands was easier, but going over each cross twice to make it a double thickness.

After asking about the Kreinik on some cross stitch forums I found that some people use the blending filament which is thinner, but i’m not convinced that it would be as sparkly.  Some people also do just a half cross stitch with the Kreinik #4 braid, but having tried this I found that it didn’t look good next to the full crosses that I am doing for the rest of the piece.

Anyway, here is the picture of my progress so far.

Big changes in my life at the moment.  I’ve quit teaching and now hope to get my free time back - a life without time for stitching is no good at all!  So over the past few days i’ve managed to get the first page on the second row finished off.  It was a hard page with lots of colour changes, but the next page looks like it will be much quicker, with lots of big areas with just two or three colours.

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.

I’ve finally finished the first row of pages of my HAED, The Awakening!  It’s now been a year since i started this project, so it’s nice that after a year i’ve completed the first row.  It’s very exciting to start the next row and start moving further down the design.  Here’s a picture for you:

I have been very busy with moving house lately, so unfortunately not much time for stitching.  I am now settled in my new flat and waiting for my boyfriend to come and join me next week, it’s a bit lonely here on my own.

Page 4 of The Awakening is now complete!  After this there is only one more half (ish) page until the end of the first row so it’s very exciting!  I can’t wait to get onto the next row, unfortunately this next page is all trees so not too interesting.

As you can see i’m getting near to the end of this page on The Awakening, my Heaven and Earth Designs project.  I just have some more of that darker coloured tree to do, and a few odd spots here and there.  Then there’s just one more half (ish) page until the end of the row, which is very exciting!  Although the next page is all tree which means it’s probably going to take a long time as there are so many different colours in the trees.

I’m really glad i decided to start this cross stitch blog, it helps to motivate me and i really appreciate all the lovely comments.

Sorry it’s been so long since my last update, things have been very hectic, but i have finally finished my teacher training course (as of this Friday anyway) and so i should have lots more time to work on my stitching.  I have also managed to get my first teaching job and i start in September.

So, as far as the stitching goes, I’m working on the trees on the right hand side now and am almost all the way across the first row.  There is just one more part page after i finish this one.  Here’s a picture for you (sorry about the creases):

I hadn’t had time to do any cross stitching for ages, in fact i went a whole two and a half weeks without doing a single stitch which was very depressing.  However i managed to find some time this weekend and have finished both the arch and sky on page 3.  All that is left on page 3 now is half of the second sphere thing.

I am a little worried that my plastic snap frame is ruining some of the stitches, as the ones around where the frame has been seem a bit scruffy and you can see the difference (possibly not in this photo).  I already put a piece of fabric in between the stitches and the frame so i’m not sure what else i can do, any ideas?

Well the Easter holidays have certainly allowed me time to get a lot more stitching done, i think i’ve done more in each day of the holiday than i did in the whole month before that!  I’ve been working really hard on the sky, although i had to do some of the arch because the sky was getting really boring, there is only so long that i can work on pink, purple and peach.  I’ve almost finished the top half of this page now (which had nothing but sky on it), so hopefully i’ll get that bit done tomorrow.  Sorry the picture is a bit dark, it’s not so sunny here at the moment.

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!