WIP: Bluebell Wood

My current cross-stitch work in progress is a woods scene from a lovely book I bought on Amazon a few months ago.

I haven't gotten very far over the last two months, but cross-stitch is a long, slow, tedious craft. Despite that, I do enjoy it. I got tired of all the varying shades of purple scattered lower down, so I took a break to work on some trees. I'm currently filling in the leaves between the two lefthand trunks.

The book is by Maria Diaz and is a collection of over a dozen designs, many of which I would love to make for myself or for gifts. There is one in particular that my husband is dying for me to make, a replica of a Da Vinci panting.

The pattern I'm currently working on is titled "Bluebell Wood." I love forests and flowers, so I thought this was a good melding of the two, and nature scenes are my favorite type of art subject.

I am looking forward to finishing this project, though it may be a while before we can frame it. I think it will be very beautiful.

There is more than one method to following a pattern. Some are printed on the fabric, some projects come in kits with everything needed to make the project included, and then there's the method I use which is called counted cross-stitch. I buy all the materials separately and use the pattern combined with counting to know where to place the stitches. I don't think any way is particularly better than another. This is the way my grandmother taught me so it's what I prefer, though I would like to try a kit sometime just to see what it's like. Perhaps I would decide kits are the way to go!

Cross-stitch is a lovely craft, but it takes a lot of patience to work on larger projects. This one will be about the size of a standard sheet of paper. That means it will take a long time as I distribute my time between my many projects.

I'll post more updates!

Photo Credit: Katherine Elizabeth