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Thursday, July 30, 2009

Cross With Stitching....

Tessie is on the loose once more. She discovered that I was working on the pattern for the Celtic wall hanging to go in the stone box this morning and was not terribly pleased. She did keep here mouth shut on the subject though. I think that she is still feeling the consequences of three days in the stone box.

Letting her loose was a small price to pay for the two gargoyles that I gained. I should say regained. Walter ordered them from the Design Toscano catalog a couple of years ago as my Christmas present. They are a part of a set of five different gargoyle pens. Tessie immediately absconded with them and I hadn't seen them until she poofed them into the stone box with her yesterday. The other three are still missing.

I have a strong suspicion that there is a hiding hole somewhere in the house that she has stuffed with things that she likes. How else can I explain the things that go missing and are never to be seen again unless I ask her to help look for them?

When I started working on the rug this morning she appeared. She perched herself on my magnifying lamp and went to work. I noticed that she was working on a piece of cross stitch that I started a few years back. (The six year old lost interest and when she went back to look for it, it was gone.)

I asked Tessie where she got it. She claimed that it was all her own work, designed and stitched by her.

It is strange that there are really no stitches that weren't there when I stopped working on it last. Hmmmmm......I wonder if she could be prevaricating? It is also a Celtic pattern....I have no idea where I put it. I may have to use what is there and see if I can remember what it looked like.

This is what the pattern for the hanging looks like now. You are welcome to stitch the design. If you do, keep in mind that it is copyrighted and for personal use only. I designed it on my PC Stitch Pro cross stitch program. If any of you are interested in trying it, you can go to http://www.pcstitch.com and download a trial version to play with.

Tessie nicely volunteered to hold up the piece that I am working on to show you how I start. I always mark out the size of the rug on the fabric with a Pigma permanent marking pen. I use the .oo5 size in brown. It doesn't worry me that it will show when I am finished because that part will be cut off or covered with stitches. This gives me some idea how big it is going to be and how many more thousands of stitches I still have left to do. This is on#28 count fabric. There will be 784 stitches in a square inch. That means the whole thing will have 10,416 stitches......It isn't smart to count the stitches before they are done, but I can't help it. A long time ago I worked for a while as an inventory clerk.....I got into the habit of counting everything. It never wore off.... Bad habits are hard to break.

Anyway, I am almost finished with the first side of the first outside row.....This may take a while.

See you tomorrow.

6 comments:

Kathi said...

784 stitches in a square inch!! I'm not sure I have the patience for that! That's why I like counted cross stitch - you don't have to fill in the back! Lazy me!

Caseymini said...

Kathi, there is no law that you can't use colored hardanger as your foundation cloth. Just pick a pattern that has a lot of background and have at it! And you can use a smaller count. Usually #18 is the largest that most people use for minis. As a rule I use #22 or higher in count.

Jo Raines said...

I'm working on a little punch needle rug but ended up pulling out some of the stitches because I didn't like the darker shade of yellow I had used for that section. For some reason, punch needle perfection is alluding me!

Jody
http://minileapsandbounds.blogspot.com/

rosanna said...

Thank you for the link, I shall try it on Sunday when i have some spare time. I never count stitches before startingbotherwise I could depress myself. But sometimes When I finish to boast a little. I suppose I'm worst than Tessie. Hugs

Deni said...

Your a lot keener than I am thats is a surety, I couldn't even begin to think about all those stitches!
It will be lovely though when it is complete
What an achievement it will be, but I can see you do quite a few of this work

nikkinikkinikki72 said...

I agree. I couldnt for the life of me be brave enough for so many stitches, but it will be so worth it in the end!
Lovely design too!