The kit came with a piece of fabric, a pattern, a pair of needles and threads in 34 colors. Since I had never done cross-stitch before, and was too proud to ask my mom, I had to learn everything from YouTube. It was fun--like coloring a picture, one pixel at a time. These first few rows of stitches took me several hours!
I later learned that I was supposed to start from the middle and then work my way outwards. It would have made my job a lot easier. But I was too excited to start, I didn't read the instructions until much later.
The cross-stitch project quickly became an obsession. It kept me awake at night, sometimes till 4 or 5 am. It occupied my thoughts during the day. If I had to go out, I'd itch to go home as soon as I could, so that I could continue working on my cross-stitch. I liked the therapeutic effect it had on me. It was the time I could get contemplative, letting my fingers move on auto-pilot while I entertained my thoughts and my dreams. I suppose it is the same feeling of tranquility that people get through meditation. Perhaps I was just getting old.At one point I made a decision to leave it at my mom's place, because it was so addictive, I couldn't get anything else done. So, I only got to do it each time I went to visit my mom, which was once a week. My initial goal was to finish the project in 4 months, but life got in the way. In the end, it took me almost a year.
Here are the pictures to show my progress:
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| I think the picture would have looked better if it stopped here, and minus the background color. It became ugly when I added the bottom half. |
And, ta-da! The finished artwork:
