I have been working on the second of two kits I was given for my birthday in January and finished the stitching today. It was packaged as a placemat, with tassels on the corners. At 20 cm square, I think this is a bit small for that.
It is counted cross stitch on very dark navy Aida. I took the finish photo (left) against a black cushion to show how dark it is. Against dark blue it looks black.
The accompanying notes are entirely in Japanese, but the chart is clear and the threads limited to three colours.
I began with it in a square stretcher frame with drawing pins, and marked in the centre lines and outer edges. I decided, however, quite quickly, that this was not going to work well for me, especially as my right hand index finger was recovering from an operation.
From there I moved to a quadrant. That convinced me that the most challenging part of this was the deer,
so I worked the other three.
Some of this was worked while I was on hostess duty at the Guild. As those visiting kept warning me, working on such a dark fabric was not ideal. I am also not a huge fan of Aida.
Nevertheless, this was enjoyable to stitch, mainly, I think, because, although it is all the same stitch, the elements are varied and rewarding.
There were a couple of places where I had to correct a miscount, but for the most part I was accurate. When I finished in the hoop I took it out and filled in the final stitches of the corner squares as reflected in the opening photo. There are, I now notice a few missing stitches on the border.
I had thought to make this into a pouch, with a zip closure. I'm not sure now. It fitted so well on the black cushion when I went to photograph it that I'm considering a cushion option. I need, whatever I do, to find the right colour backing. It doesn't look right on any black or navy I have in my stash. I'll report back.
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