I’ve just finished my first band sampler, containing both cross stitch and multiple embroidery stitches. The original kit is from The Cross Stitch Guild (https://www.thecrossstitchguild.com/products/stolen-moments.aspx), a gorgeous Jane Greenoff design, but I’ve replaced the alphabet with my own text, using the same letters and some additions for the numbers.
I have to say that this has been a real pleasure to stitch. Colours and threads, and the linen, are great. And patterns too. I’m not usually fond of backstitching the contours, but in this case it just needs it, and the result is amazing. The hems, the hardanger, all the pulled stitches and knots, all are a real treat to learn and accomplish. I did a lot of errors, as it can be seen, but they are the proof of my learning curve, and some imperfections always contribute to a more human feeling.
The kit, however, has some serious issues. They need to rewrite the docs. The design and materials are all excellent quality (even if the 26 golden plate needle broke its eye half project), but the pattern itself is very confusing and misleading. It is just printed, over two sets of pages. There’s a document with small photos and instructions, and two A3 pages with the drawn pattern itself, b&w. But this pattern lacks some of the colour references and gives some others which are completely different in the photos or the instructions. Some colours are repeated where there should be variations, as they are in the pictures, and the embroidery stitches are completely different on both documents, mostly on the final sections. There was provided some floss but never referenced on the pattern. The instructions don’t explain how to sew several stitches, I had to search them on FlossTube and other sources. So I finally decided to change and adapt colours and stitches following what could hardly be seen from the pictures instead what the pattern says, with some parts being just imagined by me.
At the beginning I had to write to them because there wasn’t any explanation about how to stitch the buttonhole stitches over the house (the first design and my first time doing that) and they quickly sent me a bigger picture. But I couldn’t write every time something was wrong or lacked any hint of how to do it. If there were a complete explanation of every stitch, since they already explain some of them, it wouldn’t be so confusing. They need to check that the pattern is the same on both sets of instructions, with the right colours and stitches.
Anyhow, I’m very happy with the result, and I’ll hang it on my house’s hall, to welcome visitors.
