Finished and Framed (Finally)

After months of on off stitching and lots of pricked fingers along the way, I've finished my Goddess of Prosperity cross stitch kit by maia (anchor).

I fell in love with this kit as soon as I saw it, I'm a big fan of Chinese wuxia films (lush, epic, fantasy drama, usually with lots of death defying martial arts, magic swords and doomed tragic lovers,) and this image really brought those films to mind. In particular, a favourite of mine, I first watched when I was around 13, it's called 'A Chinese Ghost Story,' and the goddess here reminds me of the beautiful heroine, a tragic ghost spirit enslaved by an evil tree demon, seeking redemption (check it out, it's quite silly but very pretty.)

 Here are a few close ups of the work in progress, she's such a big piece that it's easy to loose the details when I try to take a picture of the whole thing. I was filling in the backstitch here, which in many ways is more fiddly than the cross stitches that make up the bulk of the picture.

Here is a close up of some of the lovely floral details which really came to life when I started on the backstitching..



Here she is just before I took her off the stitching frame and went to get her stretched and framed. It was the first time I've ever had something professionally framed, I usually just do it myself but the finished piece was long and thin and I couldn't find a frame that really fitted so I decided to take it to a framers as they could custom make the frame as well as stretch out the work and make sure it was straight etc...

I think with big pieces that take up a lot of time and that you want to last; it is worth the extra expense but I felt pretty nervous leaving her in the shop as the process took about a week and I was anxious about whether I would like the finished frame. Thankfully, I did.

The finished project on the wall...

 

 

 

 

Halfway to Heaven

I haven't been able to do much since I hurt my dominant hand last week while practising yoga. I've watched a few films but it seems odd not to be stitching at the same time.

I watched a film called 'Murder By Death,' on Netflix which is very much "of its time," with some painfully hammy foreign accents and Peter Cook pretending to be Chinese. I thought it would be a murder mystery like Poirot or some other Agatha Christie style of film. It was supposed to be hammy and slapstick but seemed to be somewhere between Monty Python, without the cleverness and a Carry On film. 

I had to follow it with the French biopic of Edith Piaf, 'La Vie En Rose,' to feel better about myself. That was good, if a little bleak. Gerard Depardieu seems to have stopped aging a few years back.

 I also watched 'Ishqiya,' a really enjoyable Bollywood black comedy thriller starring the always wonderful Vidya Balan, she's such an interesting actress to watch and seems to have a good eye for unusual box office success stories. I look forward to catching the sequel.

 

 

 

 

Well this ends week one of the torn ligaments saga, hopefully after a second week of wearing the itchy wrist support of restriction, everything can go back to normal and I can start stitching again.

 

 

 

Here are some progress pictures of a big project I've been working on, I've done over half of the cross stitches but there will be a lot of detailed backstitching and French knots before it's completed.

 

She's an oriental goddess of prosperity, another Maia creation.

 

I loved her the minute I saw her, not least because the image reminds me of a long time favourite film of mine, 'A Chinese Ghost Story.'

 

Incidentally, Xena Warrior Princess owes a debt to that film for some of its plot lines.

Misako

The most ambitious cross stitch design I've completed to date, (dragon aside.)
A beautiful design from Maia, part of a set of kits inspired by traditional Japanese art with a contemporary twist. I love the Art Nouveau addition to the traditional oriental elegance.

The intricate background was a challenge for me, lots of careful counting was needed as well as a great deal of patience.
I find shading in the squares of stitches I've already completed on the pattern sheet is very helpful to remember where you are, so when you pick the pattern back up after a while, you know what you've done and how much you need to complete.
However, I may have to find a new method for when I start following some patterns from my embroidery books as the idea of drawing in any book makes me distinctly uncomfortable.

There wasn't a great deal of backstitch to do with this design, which meant once I finished the cross stitches, it didn't take long to finish the rest.
She took me quite some time to finish overall, especially as I tend to stitch on and off in general, sometimes spending weeks stitching regularly and sometimes letting projects sit in a cupboard for a few months.

I'm very happy with her though and hope to get her professionally framed at some point to best preserve all my hard work.

Super kawaii stitching - go!

 

Stitching desperately in to the early hours of the night I just about managed to finish this "kawaii" cutie in time to present it to a fellow Japan-loving friend for her birthday.

I love the little details of the flowers on her kimono, the French knots on her sleeves and the subtle white backstitching on her obi belt.

  

I Think I'm Stitching Japanese....

I have always been attracted to Oriental art styles and am something of a Japanophile, with a large interest in Japanese art, fashion, food, literature, folklore, films etc...              Cross stitch and embroidery in general has often featured Oriental designs; no surprise with the richness of textile history in Asia to take inspiration from; so there are a great many styles and patterns to choose from.  I stitched the cherry blossom design, quite early on in my quest to re-learn cross stitch.  It had some challenging fractional stitches but I loved the example of such a classic motif.

 

 This kokeshi doll inspired design was a quick easy stitch and so cute, I couldn't resist her. Having been something of a momiji collector, she reminded immediately of those cute little dolls.