Wowee, right? It looks great and it’s definitely something I’m going to be splurging on a custom framing job. It’s also the first finish that I would consider to be a BAP finish. It’s a big piece!

I’m definitely a slow stitcher when it comes to BAPs and I stitch sporadically for the most part, so I’m so proud of myself that I’ve managed not to lose this lovely lady, get her dirty, rip her, or otherwise injure her beyond repair!  This will be the largest project I’ll ever have completed (my next largest would be the Asian Butterfly) and I’m so grateful to my mom — she’s agreed to have it framed for me for Christmas!

Now, I just need to sit down and get the tons of backstitching all done on her before I can show off my happy dance!

Half cross stitch always goes fast for me, so it’s just the cross stitch that will take me some time, still, but my goal is to be done her by June 2008.  I don’t know if it’s a doable goal, but I’d be so happy if I could gave her done by then.  It’s just going to take some concerted effort and stitching a bit on her every night of the week, if possible.

Once she’s done, I think I’ll look at developing a rotation to get some work done on my other pieces with the focus being the Precious Moments family possibly…

Can I just say, though, that stitching dark blue and black on dark blue aida is possibly the most eye-straining thing I’ve ever done!?

Now, for this week’s Stitching Blogger’s Question:

After you stitch a pattern or kit, what do you do with it?

After I finish either a pattern or a kit, I file it away in a special binder. I don’t usually re-stitch things, but I hate to just throw them out. I often think I should do a pay it forward or a random act of kindness, but really? I don’t know if anyone actually wants my leftover kits or patterns. And to be completely honest, I think every design I’ve ever finished has been a kit – and those I just have a tough time giving up!

Anyway, this happy dance is a Dimensions kit called “Live Simply.” It was fun to stitch and went pretty quickly; maybe 20 hours of work or so? In case you’re looking for it, it’s Dimensions #6975. Finished size for this one is 5×7.

Now that I’m done this piece, I’m back to working on Alluring Sorceress. Today I pretty much finished her cape, which means her cloak and her cape are done. Those are big pieces to the piece and I’ll be moving onto the rock she’s standing on to finish that. Once the rock is done, I have her dress (which is all white/creams, hence my putting it off until near the end), a little crystal ball thing, and then all the whole cross stitches are done. After that, there’s half cross stitch for a planet and shading, etc, backstitch, attaching the charms, and then she’ll be done! I’d like to have her finished by January 1, but who knows if that will happen.

The design is stitched on 14 count white Aida (though it looks more beigey here, and I like it this colour!), using whole stitches, backstitch, french knots, and a running stitch to do the border.

Hopefully the image works – I’m trying to use Gallery to insert the picture automatically and it refuses to align properly; there’s nothing I hate more than an improperly floated image to mess things up!

Edit: Well, THAT didn’t work. I suppose I’ll just have to insert things normally and by hand.

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For those of you who are interested in this sort of thing, I’m using the WPG2 plugin to integrate everything.  It was actually a very simple install and needed relatively little tweaking and configuring.  For the theme, I’m using one called WordpressEmbedded.  It’s a simple theme and needed some tweaking in the CSS to get it looking how I liked it, but for those of you who are looking for something simple and are comfortable enough digging through a little bit of code, this is the theme for you.

Anyway, there’s my work for the evening.  Soon this blog will be absolutely perfect. Yay!