#yearofstitches

First trip to the craft store and I came home after spending way more money than I intended (but that's always the case, isn't it?). But I had plenty of all the necessities of the project. Plus, I can never say no to another box of beads. lol

I fell in love with this etsy pattern when I saw it on pinterest. And it quickly became the aesthetic I built the rest of the piece around.

I got a lot of the cross stitch done on one of my days off (the above progress pics). The fiance was gone for the day and I had nothing better planned than to sit in my bed and cross stitch all day. It was the kind of self care I needed. :)

The colors of the DMC floss I used were: 3862 (brown), 3820 (yellow), 954 (green), 813 (blue), 553 (purple), 3801 (red--3705 was used on the dream catcher since they were out when I went back to the store to get more). And I stitched it on aida 18 count, using 3 strands of thread.

I actually don't have a lot of progress pics of the actual stitching of the middle of the dream catcher since it was a relatively easy pattern that worked up quite quickly. I could have finished it in one setting if I hadn't decided to start it right before bedtime.

I used a 3.25 mm hook and the thread was Premier Yarns--Serenity Garden Yarn in "Gems." I ended up using a 10 in diameter hoop, but I could have gone the next size up easily if I wanted a more stretched/taught finished product. But one, I was not making another trip to the craft store. And two, I didn’t want the dream catcher to completely dwarf the cross stitched piece.

Onto the feathers.

Remember back to the title of this post? The “days 12-30″? Yeah. A good chunk of those were me slowly finishing these bad boys.

I started off kind of rocky... the pattern just didn’t seem to quite work for me.  I'm not sure if it was the yarn or the hook size I used, but the number of stitches just seemed too dense for me and I did not like the way the feather was turning out. So I ripped out some stitches and improvised a pattern as I went. The first feather turned out a little wonky, but they started looking nicer after that. In the end, I was happy with my adjusted pattern.

Number two already looked better. And the rest followed suit.

With those done, I turned my attention back to the dream catcher. It was time to add all those frills--the finishing touches that really made it something special, in my opinion. 

With the ribbon, lace, and beads added, I was already loving it. 

Now I just had to plan on how I was attaching the feathers.

Then came the beading and braiding that really added those fine details.

I don’t have any progress pics of me adding the beading/feathers to the cross stitch piece. After the above picture I was in super craft mode. Which translates to me trying to get it all done before my hands cramped up.

But I was really glad I decided to pull some of the feathers and add them to the second piece. I think, in the end, it really tied the two pieces together to make them a cohesive wall art pairing.

Anyway. This post has already gone on long enough. If you want to see more pictures/angles of the finished object, see this separate post.