Another Commission Stitching Project Completed!

This time round, it's a rush-rush job. All because of my idiotic ego. With 15,600 plus stitches, I had the audacity to deliver within 15 days! That will be around 1000 stitches a day and that is half the time I take to complete the other photo cross stitch piece previously in Feb.

This should not be a problem, especially with my speed of 110 stitches per half hour. Simple division shows that I would need to put in 4.5 hours daily. But I forgot the following show-stoppers.

• This is a pic converted from a photo. Therefore there will be 65 colours in it (on the average). How many large blocks of the same colour will you get in one pic? Sad to say, you can use your fingers on 1 hand to count. My speed is based on a block with the same colour, so no ending and starting of floss during that same half-hour. But in this piece, it will take an average of 5 times more to complete 110 stitches.

• You need time to get used to the symbols-colour-coordination in the chart. And some of the symbols are rather close eg. "T" and "T", "[" and "]", "(" and ")", etc. Glad that there is "/" but no "\". So, cross stitch designers, pls try not to distress the cross stitchers with such mistakes.

• Cross stitching is detailed work. Do you think you can work 4.5 hours straight and still look straight after that? There must be some rest after every hour, if not half hour. But if you are stitching shades of green, then you can still see fine after more than an hour.

I managed to get another 4 extra days to complete the work and I managed to complete it then. Phew!

Am glad I finished this work within the shortest of time (believe there are better and speedier stitchers out there) but in the process I have lost time with my family, my sleep and the worst is it kills my interest at cross stitching. Guess I will have to put my needle away for a little while.

Also, due to insufficient time, my stitching is less satisfactory and as such, I don't get that "satisfied" feeling I get whenever I finish a project.

If there is such a project in future, I will definitely not make the same mistake again. I will make sure I have enough time to do the work. So I will base on 400 stitches a day. Must remember that.