Monday 4 February 2013

Cross stitch correction


I've really been getting stuck into the cross stitch again, [I last wrote about it here] and have covered off a few more pages, and finally passed the half way point. When working at such a scale, with so many colours and blends, it's so easy to make a mistake and so hard to notice it until further on. It wasn't until I had progressed quite a bit that I started to notice this group of dark brown stitches [top left corner] stood out suspiciously.


It took a while and a lot of counting but eventually I managed to match up these stitches with the pattern and identify which colour they should have been.


Then it took even longer to unpick them [I guess it's good to know all the time spent securing threads at the beginning and end works, just not so good when you want to pull them out!] Using a combination of a quick unpick, manicure scissors, a needle, patience and a dose of swearing, I got there.




Restitched in the correct colour. It's easy to see in this shot why it took so long to notice the error, this background section of the 'painting' does have a smattering of contrasting colours, just not quite as dark as the mistake stitches were.


So back to it. The background areas to the left and right, lower than the yellow, represent three weeks worth of stitching, approximately 8000 stitches! 

I think that leaves me with around 40,000 stitches to go. Whenever I start doing a quick mental calculation of stitches done, or left, the 'Seasons of Love' song from 'Rent' pops into my head. If, like me, you've never seen the musical, you may not know this reference by name, but it seems to be one of those songs that has planted itself in my brain somehow "Five hundred, twenty five thousand six hundred minutes, How do you measure, measure a year"...and I have a sneaking suspicion its courtesy of Team America or South Park more than anything to do with Broadway! 

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