(Cross stitch) Be careful what you wish for

I had been working on what felt like a forever of patterns with many fractional stitches, blended threads or confetti placements.  I yearned for big blocks of solid colour and minimal factional stitches.  

The birth announcement/sampler for my nephew offered me just that.  His mother was and is a BIG Disney fan with a marked fondness for Winnie the Pooh.  I spotted a kit (best way to get the specially shaded range for use with Disney designs) that although not specifically a birth sampler  had room for me to add name and other details.

There it was big bold, just what I wanted and oh how I struggled to get it finished!  I got fed up fast with the big blocks of the same colour I wanted to move on, do something else, dot about, count in numbers under ten or twenty.

I bemoaned my choice and grumbled more over this than any of the more complicated patterns I have worked on.

Eeyore's Bounce

To keep myself going I worked up and down in blocks of ten, that was not a good move, I can see it on the finished piece, it it the first time I noticed the direction you work (even though the top and bottom threads of each stitch lay the same) can show when you look back at it.

I did not trust myself to frame it, both because it finished up quite big and because by the time I had finished it, I liked it very little and thought that might be reflected in the care or lack of I would take. So off it went to my friend the framer.  I even abdicated choice of mount and frame!

Here it is framed and wrapped to protect the edge.  Oh and the little V you can see at the bottom right, well that is a different project and I will be coming back to that at a later date. Happily my nephew (by the time I finished it he was old enough to express an opinion, shame on me) and his mother liked the design. I put a family tree on the back, although I note it is my mother who is the family historian not me.

Looking back on it, now that I am not sewing it, I can see again why I chose it, the design is very eye catching and fun, but I shall avoid any large Disney projects in future but I have not abandoned them altogether, smaller designs remain an option.