Summer project progress

[angrboda]

Husband and I just returned from our summer holiday yesterday. We like to rent a summer house for a week, and I always bring a cross stitch project with me. I like to take a new one rather than what I'm already working on at home. Then when I've finished my home project I can finish the summer project. Last year, though, I didn't get very far and also didn't actually manage to finish my home project until recently, I thought I'd just take the same one again this year. That also meant zero preparation because the yarn and pattern and everything was already neatly together in a project bag in my drawer.

So I got rather a lot done on it this year. Progress in leaps and bounds compared to last year. Except I'd totally forgotten to check if I needed to top up the yarn. Turns out there were a couple of colours I ran out of last year and I ran out of several more this year because I generally never cut off too much at a time. It was a little annoying to run out of a colour when there were only six stitches left in that colour! Oh well, I had plenty to be getting on with anyway. Most of the stuff that needs to be filled in in the lower half here is black.

I really like working on this project. I've been hugely enjoying the super bright colours. Not to mention the wonderful absence of any sort of detail work of any kind and not a fractional stitch in sight!

(Pattern is called Strike A Balance by Emma Congdon, published in Cross Stitch Crazy issue 244 August 2018)

Comments

[grey853]

It looks lovely. I always hate to run out of colors when I'm in the middle of a project!!

[angrboda]

I cut off working lengths of yarn before beginning, but I tend not do very many, so I fully expect to run out of prepared yarn on my thread card several times. :) It's just to try to have fewer left-overs when it's finished. I just don't bring my storage boxes with me on holiday. :)

[dianec42]

I love that design so much! I've got it favorited on her Etsy. (Because of course the one thing I need in my life is MORE BACKLOG.)

In case anyone else is interested:
https://www.etsy.com/listing/671637172/yin-yang-cross-stitch-pattern-digital?ref=shop_home_feat_1

[angrboda]

Oh that chart is better than mine. In the magazine they chose a black square for the black and a black triangle for the darkest green. And the print colour for the darkest green is very dark indeed. Ask me how easy that wasn't to tell apart at a glance... I'm so glad to be finished with the darkest green because you really had to keep your wits about you with that one, especially when not being able to do it simultaneously with the black.

[dianec42]

Yeah, I gotta say I'm not super thrilled with the quality of magazine charts nowadays. The gratuitous page splits are the worst.

Big black squares are also the worst. They're basically impossible to see a highlighter on.

Your progress looks fantastic! Thanks for sharing.

(Hmm......... I do have a trip coming up... I could totally justify this purchase!)

[angrboda]

This one is over two pages too, but at least they're opposite pages so you can see both at the same time, not opposite sides of the same page like with my previous project. It's fine if it really is such a large design that it can't fit and still be legible, but sometimes the inclusion of a smaller version as well or a clearly marked overlap would have been useful.

I don't use a highlighter so that's not so much an issue for me. I don't like to draw in the magazines. :) I tend to start from the top and work my way down, so there's usually plenty to navigate by.

[dianec42]

For anything at all complicated, I usually make a photocopy (or, let's be real, scan and print it out these days!) and use highlighters on that. I just don't have the attention span I used to.

The one I'm doing right now is split across three(!) pages for no really good reason. And there's a ton of intricate backstitch across both page breaks. I had to edit the scans and try to line things up in Paint.net, which as you might imagine is not ideal!

[angrboda]

The first cross stitch project I ever did was a Christmas tree rug (because you gotta start with ambition apparently) and that was also several pages. I ended up just taping them together into a huge page that I could fold this way and that. I did end up wishing I'd taken a copy first, though, because the paper got quite worn before I was done. Hey, I was learning. :D

[word_geek]

Oooh, that's lovely.

(note to self, no you do not need another pattern with no kit...)

H

[angrboda]

That's the danger of getting magazine subscriptions. The list of things to potentially make just grows without you having to do anything. :p

[celli]

That's gorgeous!

[angrboda]

i'm liking it more and more too. It's quite happy-making. :)