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When I saw this kit at the craft store, I knew I had to have it! The painting is gorgeous and the cross stitching is just as beautiful, although some of the smaller details are lost. The finished size will be 16" x 12" and roughly 66,000 stitches.
Sixty-six THOUSAND. Let that sink in for a second. Basically, I've discovered that this project is 10 times bigger than the Day [9] logo, which took about 2 months to finish.
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| So much floss. |
Will I ever finish it? Eventually. Will I start other projects while working on this? More than likely. Will it be worth the time and effort? I have no doubt!
As with any kit, the first thing to do is get everything separated and prepped for stitching. With my kids running crazy, this process took around 3 hours.
After sorting everything, I gridded out the first page and prepared to stitch. I've found that using the gridding method for projects with lots of confetti (little, individual squares of color that aren't close to other squares of the same thread type) is really helpful. It also helps me count out better, since each of the squares is exactly 10x10.
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| First page fully gridded. |
I couldn't do all that work without at least stitching a little bit. The colors on this kit are all so pretty! I'm really looking forward to seeing this one take shape.
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| Somewhere around 100 stitches in. |
2 comments:
Hi! I know that this is an older post, but I found your blog searching for information about the Disney Dreams kits.... I bought the Beauty and the Beast one yesterday (it's my fave Disney movie .... well that may be an understatement!) I've cross stitched quite a bit and done a couple larger scale projects, but nothing close to this magnitude. Which looking through your progress posts is even more intense than I realized. Do you mark your grid on your fabric & the chart? Did you leave your threads on their cards? Any helpful tips? I'm still drooling over the package and debating if I should open it before finishing all the Christmas presents I have to make ....
Thank you for stopping by my blog!! =) I always love hearing from new people... I guess that's the real fun in blogging in the first place!
First off, I'm totally jealous that you have the Beauty and the Beast kit!! I haven't even seen one yet, but that's definitely the next big kitted project I'm going to be doing. I imagine it's just gorgeous!
For the Cinderella kit, the chart is already gridded out, so there would be no need to mark it on there save for numbering each of the rows and columns to make it a bit faster when trying to figure out where to start. This is the first time I've gridded something of this magnitude and it has been a real lifesaver, especially since I tend to miscount things and end up frogging a lot of work. I used a blue Clover marking pen, a ruler, and took my time to make sure the counts were correct. I'm told that this particular pen will still wash off even after being on the fabric for a long time, but honestly I've never used it so I'm just ever-so-slightly nervous about whether or not it will come out. Keeping my fingers crossed on that one!
The threads for this particular kit were not on cards of any kind. They were separated into 4 different bundles, but I had to sort them myself. I ended up using the plastic bag sorting system rather than a card one because it makes it easier to keep up with shorter threads and to travel with. I'm not sure if they did the Beauty kit on cards, but if they did that will save you a ton of time! It took almost a full day to separate everything, figure out what color it was supposed to be, and get them all into bags.
The biggest tip I can give you is to take your time, make sure your counts are correct -- I use a purple marking pen that fades over time to mark out what I'm going to be stitching ahead of time-- and don't get discouraged! This one seems to be the most slow-moving project I've ever done only because you don't realize how much you are actually accomplishing until you take a step back. That's part of why the blogging has been so nice! I can actually see all the work I've done. Also, I went out and bought a pack of smaller needles so I could preload threads onto them and have them standing by. It's a real time saver when you are working on a larger block of one color. The smaller needles also make it easier to do the half stitches (of which there are more than I expected!) and the back-stitching.
I also find other projects to work on on the side. I can't see sitting down and ONLY working on this one, but maybe that's just me. I work on it for a few weeks until I honestly can't stand to look at it and then work on something else for a while. I try to limit it to just one side project so that I don't stay away for too long.
Anyway, sorry if this got a big long winded. I hope that you really enjoy the Beauty and the Beast kit... if you decide to blog your progress I would really love to read it! =)
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