[finish] Wish Upon A Star
This little guy is my first cross stitch finish of the year — I finished him yesterday, racking up around ten and a half hours. As he’s from a little kit on issue 194 (Dec 2007) of Cross Stitcher magazine, I’m really pleased with the result.
“Wish Upon A Star” — finished 30 Jan 2008
Now, the nice thing about this free kit is that it came with the delightful star charm, metallic thread and a mount. I found the metallic thread to be irritatingly substandard, as the metallic coating started to unravel the moment I threaded my needle (even when using a needle with a large enough eye!) — so in the end I switched to some Madeira Metallic #10 thread I had in my thread box (colour number 342; another previous freebie from a cross stitch magazine). The results were wonderful and I had no problems with the Madeira thread whatsoever.
Even more annoyingly, the accompanying mount is not a standard size — so finding a frame has been a pain in the proverbial. It’s too large for a 6″x4″ frame, and too large for a 5″x7″ one — and given that mount apertures are based around these sizes, getting a bigger frame and having a double mount (which was my first idea) turned out to be a no-go. Whilst browsing for frames, though, I came across two potentials — one was a 3″x3″ frame, which meant I’d have to trim the mount down somewhat. I stood in the store and tried to visualise this — with the frame in one hand and the mount in the other — and decided I probably wouldn’t like the result. *sighs*
The other option was a 6″x6″ frame, which would mean that the mount would have a little gap either side of it once framed. Then I realised that I could use a piece of black card as the background behind the mount, and it probably wouldn’t look so bad. And so, that’s what I’ve opted to do. I bought all the bits (nearly breaking the bank at just over a fiver!) and will set to framing this little guy hopefully at some point over this weekend. I’ll post a picture when he’s done so folks can see how it turned out.
Now I’m onto a Lizzie*Kate design, and my first time stitching on linen. I’ve already done twelve stitches and I’m quite amazed at how easy it is — certainly not as horrifying as I’d imagined! :)
Stitchcraft…
I’ve been having such a good time with my various cross stitch and knitting projects that I figured a separate blog concentrating solely on this aspect of my life would be a good idea — and so, here it be. :)
First off, after this post, I’m planning on copying across any relevant posts from my LiveJournal to this blog. (Hopefully they’ll appear pre- this post, as they’re from previous years…) Then all future cross stitch and knitting -related posts will be made here. Hopefully I can find a Plugin that allows WordPress-to-LJ cross posting, so that my entries automatically appear over there, too.
Inbetween talking about various WIPs, finishes, purchases and the like, I hope to also talk about the processes I go through, and techniques I use, when indulging myself in these crafts. There may also be some trivia too — and lots of fun!
And so, welcome! :)