So, um…

I think I mentioned some other project being an exercise in patience. That was a lie – a dirty, stinkin’ lie. Well, not a lie, but ignorance.

I hadn’t done cross stitching – real cross stitching – yet.

Last Friday, for my “weekend” project, I picked out a cross stitch kit at work and brought it home, all bright-eyed and bushy-tailed. Saturday, of course, I opened the kit and found a complex maze of directions, a tangle of threads, and a needle. While I was a little intimidated, I did not give up!

Reading the directions about three times, I found the center of my cloth, pulled out some strands of the appropriate thread and began the pattern.

I even had the mind to use one of the round frames that mom had sent me in the mail.

But about thirty minutes and seven stitches into the first color, I realized there was a problem. I was swiftly approaching the bottom of the cloth – much faster than I should have been. The problem was that I was not doing it right! Shocker.

As it turns out, when you do real cross stitch, you have to make tiny, tiny stitches, one over each tiny square. You don’t skip spots or anything. So I got to pull out the thread, using the needle to move back the way it came.

But once I had it figured it out, I was rolling!

Kind of.

Here is where I got after working off and on all weekend. I would say this represents about 4.5 hours of work.

I have three colors’ worth of shading done on one piece of the picture. Only about 97% left to go!

I might actually finish this by Christmas. And then it will be my gift to myself. And don’t worry. I will post updates as I have them.