Flamingo cross-stitch, Bless this Mess Death Star cross-stitch, and a Snuffleupagus embroidery

Hello! I'm so excited to have finally finished this project! At the end of 2009, I brought a cross-stitch kit to do on our honeymoon, but when I opened the packet a couple of months later most of the kit contents were missing. Oh no! That's what you get for not checking the contents before the returns period ends, I guess. >_< I was a bit disheartened, so I put it away ... for over four years. Yikes!

In May I was searching for a new project to work on and came across the 'kit' again. It only contained a colour guide but I had enough aida cloth and thread in my stash to make it and I figured I could do well enough without the actual pattern, so I gave it a go!

The most frustrating this about this pattern was that it is not symmetrical! I spent a lot of time trying to even it all up, but I think it was worth it as now looking at it doesn't cause me to twitch ~_^

  

I brought the frame from an op-shop for $2 (bargain!) and painted it with Kaisercolour in Sea Breeze. I love how tropical it looks! Kaisercolour have a lot of really lovely colours, I wanted to buy all of them! I'm going to have to plan more painting projects so I have a reason to buy them! ^_^

I feel like this project would be perfect for my bathroom, but I'm always worried about putting soft furnishings in there in case the humidity turns them icky, so it might end up on the staircase gallery instead.

 

I think the flamingo project is the biggest cross-stitch I have ever done and I am *such* a slow stitcher, so when it was finished I was like "no more cross-stitch for a while!!" and then I turned around and made another cross-stitch. Deary me!

 

This one is a little present for Scott and I'm pleased to report that he is very happy with it ^_^ I hope it's relatively obvious, but it's meant to be an incomplete Death Star.

I made a pattern too, so if you'd like to make your own you can! Just click on the image above to view and download ^_^

I used a solid grey for the outline, the line through the middle, and the outline of the laser and then metallic silver thread for the rest. Metallic thread is a massive pain to work with, but it *does* look pretty! ^_^

 

This hoop will be added to Scott's ever-growing Star Wars collection ^_^ One day (possibly when he's got his own room for everything) I'm going to have to do a photo tour for you all!

Lastly, I saw this Snuffleupagus drawing and thought that it would be perfect for an embroidery project. I chose a green and white raindrop fabric for the background, and did Snuffy in orange - a bit brighter than he is normally but I thought the green and the orange looked really good together.The photos I took didn't turn out that well, but in real life it is a little easier to see the difference between the background and the embroidery.

But not by much. Ahoy, eye-strain! >_<

 

I traced over a printout of the drawing for the lettering and the outline of Snuffleupagus and then used one strand of embroidery thread to do tiny little hairs all over him. Omg, right?

I think if I were to do this again, I would use a lighter background, but I'm pretty happy with how it looks nonetheless ^_^ Maybe I can just tell people that he's semi-invisible as a nod to his origin story? ~_^

I've got seven more projects to do before the Summer Nerd Games end on September 2nd, but I'm back at uni this week so I won't have as much time. I'm planning on three more embroideries, one crochet project, two plushies (which count as one project), and I'm undecided on two other challenges. Eeep! What do you reckon? Possible or not? ^_^

- Lisa x