Found & Finished!

The Only snow we have seen for a bit.....

   So back in 1999 when I was pregnant with my son, I started this wonderful counted cross stitch Santa. It was a Designs for the Needle kit that came with blank cloth, threads and a chart. I used to do counted work all the time, this is the 4th big Santa....I like to start a the bottom and work up, so he was done up to the first ring on the lantern, just above the first polar bears eye. We lived in Upstate NY then, and soon after moved out here to Colorado...so it got rolled up and stuck in a box.
  That was YEARS ago and I just forgot about him for a few years, poor fellow.  About 5 or 6 years ago I found HIM, but not the kit with the chart. Back into a box he went....then found him again last year, and that time actually looked for the chart but couldn't find it. He is BIG, on a rolling scroll frame I wanted to use for something else....so he has been sitting out to remind me to look for the chart!  Once I got my beaded basket finished the last week of Dec, I literally tore the house apart looking for that blasted chart~ took me about 3 days, but I found it!!!!!  WOOP!   And, even impressing myself, I got the entire thing done~ now I can use the frame for what I want~ I knew if I took him off it before he was finished, hed NEVER get finished!

  Honestly speaking...I have never disliked a chart so much in my entire life!  I do not recommend this kit to anyone!  The chart and the picture do not not not go along with each other at all~ so much so that I scrapped the chart altogether for the back stitching and french knots and just winged it.  For example...the gold bells on the pack~ half of them were red according to the chart symbols....and the blue part intermixed with red and blue~ I was merrily going along with the chart in my cross stitches...and thought, wow, this looks like a bell....what the heck~ red??? and blue????  So I had to rip out a huge section, which I HATE!   And thread....I have never ever ever run out of thread in a kit either~ but this one had 4 colors I ran out of...and not by a squeak either~ I needed nearly half a skein more of a red that was in the border than what was provided....and am only using 2 strands!  Ohh....but I guess they made up for that, giving me 7 yard long chunks of the nasty PURPLE that was ONLY sposed to be used for the rocking horse!  BLEK! A Purple horse in the midst of such other pretty colors...as you can see, I made mine grey!