One week in...

After a week's work on my Panda Collage cross stitch it's not looking as different to last week as I'd hoped. I've managed a few hours on it, spread over the week, but the section I'm working on has so many different shades of brown that I feel like I've spent most of my time changing colours.

The most frustrating part has been the confusing nature of some of the symbols on the chart. Some of the symbols are not as they appear in the key, and so I've had to guess which colour they're supposed to represent. Then, to make matters worse, two very similar shades of brown have very similar symbols too! I've lost count of the number of stitches I've had to unpick because I've used the wrong shade - grrrr!

Still, I'm loving how it's looking, with it being such a densely stitched design. It almost ends up like a stitched carpet of colours.

Here's where I'm up to now (excuse the poor lighting)...

I haven't made any progress on my birth sampler this week as I wanted to get a good start on the collage. However, I think next week my stitching time will be more evenly split between the two projects. After all, I only have until New Year to get the birth sampler complete and framed - eek!

A new thread...

...quite literally! I've taken a little break from card making to concentrate on Cross Stitch for a while. I've been dabbling with cross stitch for about 20 years but never managed to finish anything other than tiny projects.

There was one particular project that I bought around 20 years ago that just kept getting put in a bag or drawer for years at a time, then worked on for a week or so before being consigned to the bag again. I dug it out again recently and, spurred on by my 3yr old Daughter, I decided I WOULD finish it this time. It is called 'Fireside Toast' and features the Country Companions animals. I DID finish it and this is what it looks like before framing...

As you can see, where I kept it on the hoop it has marked the fabric but I'm hopeful that I can get a picture mount that will cover those bits.
I also completed a Cherished Teddies kit which was given to me when my Daughter was born. It's called 'Phoebe Bear'...

I've now started two new projects. The first is a birth sampler for my Sister-in-law, who is expecting her first child in December.

This is where I'm up to so far...

The other project is a kit I found on eBay for the silly price of £4.50 including postage. There must be over £20 worth of threads alone! It's called 'Panda Collage' and is part of the DMC Wildlife Collection. I hadn't realised quite how big it was until it arrived and it's huge! Much bigger than anything I've attempted before. When completed it will should look like this...

It took me about 4 hours just to sort all the different shades of floss so I've not had much stitching time yet. However, this is my progress so far...

Not much I know but I'm happy with it as a start. The pale blue stitches are all half crosses which helped speed things along. I'll try to provide weekly updates on my progress.