OhSewCrafty Blog

• Designer: Dimensions Gold / art by Richard Burns
• Materials: 18 count aida, cotton floss as kitted
• Size: 14″ x 11″
• Time to stitch: 64 stitchy days since May 2019

Presenting a BAP that I’m extremely proud of!  

So the chart is fine, big and in color as Dimensions Golds kit always are. I basically worked it in quarters. A large part of the chart is half cross, but considering how it’s done with 4-5 strands in the needle, typically, it actually takes longer than cross stitching with 2 threads over 1 aida square.  There is quite a lot of finishing work, a good amount of couching, all in the pale yellow.  It’s just one thread, couched, which is very difficult to make neat.  In fact, I couldn’t do it for the little rock wall in front of the house. The couching looked rather messy, so I frogged and backstitched that area (in the same color), which looked a lot better in my opinion.  

Plus, there’s backstitching in a few colors and finally, about 400 french knots in white and light yellow, mostly for flowers, also some at the base of the waterfall.  The chart also contains a lot of confetti; many ninja stitched popped up.  As I completed each quadrant, I went over it closely and tried to fill them all in.  But then I found several more during the end stage of french knots.  A few needed to be filled in, so I did, but others were covered by french knots and I couldn’t be bothered.  

The materials as kitted are fine.  Even the 18 count aida was rather pleasant to work on, I wouldn’t be surpised if the older kits used a higher quality fabric.  The cotton floss is precut in about 40 shades.  There were several blended colors too.  My only problem was with the flimsy paper thread sorter, which started to disintegrate almost immediately, so I put the floss on a Pako organizer, which was a big help.  

My favorite details are the rock bridge with lanterns, the thatch roof, diamond paned bay window, glowing light from the cottage, gorgeous sunset sky, the inviting path through the garden, the little waterfall, and swans gliding across the pool beneath.  Basically the whole thing!  

This scene really captures my imagination.  It reminds of the Yeats poem “The Lake Isle of Innisfree” and also of the time when I visited a wild part of Ireland, standing not on an island exactly, but rather a narrow isthmus of land between two massive loughs, and watched a pair of gorgeous white swans float upon the glassy surface of Lough Corrib.  I’m extremely chuffed with this finish and I look forward to starting another big full coverage project next year, sometime in the next several months.