Sunday, 26 June 2016

Poppy Dance - Marianne Broome (HaED)

Good evening...good to see you again!

Ok, sit yourself down.  Don't pick up that brew and make sure you have someone with you to monitor you for shock symptoms.

At the start of May, it dawned on me that my mum has only ever had one piece of cross stitching from me.  By that, I mean a decent sized piece not just cards etc.  She loves poppies and has a poppy theme in the lounge - well at least she did the last time I was there!  So...after trawling through ALL my magazines (not something for the faint hearted) and wandering through the internet, I kept coming back to the same design - Poppy Dance by Marianne Broome (HaED).

This seemed like a bit of a stupid thing for me to love so much as I have about 8 HaED's - three started but not even done half a page on them yet.  Anyway, never one to let something like not finishing a design to put me off, I decided to buy it.  I already had a piece of 28ct jobelan and the threads, so off I went!

I worked it out that there are 153,300 stitches in it and if I wanted to finish it by my mum's birthday in 2018 (not 2017) I would have to stitch 260 stitches a day EVERY DAY!  Well, I started and counted and counted and counted.  Then I decided that I was fed up of counting and so worked out that I needed to do roughly a page every month.

Well here we are at the end of page 2 and actually 12 days ahead of schedule at the moment. I cannot put it down.  I am finding that I am getting up earlier in the morning just so I can stitch before I go to work and stitching pretty much every night too.  At the weekend I am spending loads of time stitching.

I have also discovered that I LOVE stitching one over one! In fact I think I will restart Shakespeare's Fantasy as I was doing that 2 over ? tent.  I have already stitched about 20% of page 3 and am now halfway across the top row.

I suppose I had better show you some pics.

Poppy Dance

This is the design from HaED's website.

And...this is my progress so far.

Poppy Dance  (p2)

14 comments:

Jo who can't think of a clever nickname said...

What a gorgeous design! How nice to see you make a blog post too. And use the correct abbreviation for HaED too LOL

Shelly said...

Nice start! I'm impressed that you have that many HaED's started. You can do it!

CalamityJr said...

Beautiful! Looking forward to seeing great progress.

KimM said...

Absolutely stunning design!
xxx

Mii Stitch said...

Oooh really impressive!!
Just keep stitching and have fun :)

Annie said...

Beautiful design and a lovely idea to this for your Mother. Good progress already. I don't think I would ever tackle an HAED, but I do admire those who take on the challenge!

Heather said...

Awesome design I love the bright colors! Good luck!

Justine said...

This will be a beautiful gift for your Mum. Glad to hear you are enjoying it so much - and to see a blog post from you!

Katie said...

I LOVE being in LOVE with a piece. You're definitely in love. Beautiful work. Hope the love stays so you can keep up that progress.

gominam said...

Talk about WOW. You're doing great on this lovely design, mum is going to be so pleased! Love it:)

Brigitte said...

Such a gorgeous project. And you have stitched already such a lot on it. It must be really fun.

Susan said...

Ohhhh, that is gorgeous! 1 over 1 is my preferred method for this style of pattern, so very glad I have a nice magnifier.

Faith... said...

That is a gorgeous design and I am sure your mom will love it! I hope you can stay on schedule (or even better - ahead of schedule) so it will be ready for her birthdayin 2018!

Mary - Lecoeurceltique said...

It's a lovely design and you've stitched alot of it in a short time.