New HAED, Courage

Ok so the first piece I tried gridding was a piece of 20-count black lugana I got on eBay. It was big enough to use for 2 different pieces, the mermaid with the aqua hair and a HAED storykeep, Courage. I've had this pattern and the corresponding one, Strength, for a while now. Actually a little over 2 years, since 9/22/09.

This is what Courage looks like. It's actually only got 11 total colors, one of which is black. So since I'm using black, I'll just have 10 then.


This is after about 8 or so hours of stitching! The gridding does seem to help find where to start things, provided, of course, that the gridding is accurate. But so far, so good.

There is a looooooot of #817 or the # symbol. I mean a looooooot! I definitely will need to go to the store and get some more of that color! I've done a good start to it, most of what I stitched was #817 and I only have 1 1/3 pieces left. (Meaning a full piece and 2 strands.) But unfortunately, AC Moore did not have any 817 today. :P I suppose I'll go on my way home from work Monday to Michael's, I think I may get 2 skeins as there is so much of that color used. I think this is going to look gorgeous! I might think about filling in the dragon at least, possibly with maybe 2 strands of black blending filament? Not sure about that tho. I do think I'll need to possibly do a running stitch or a backstitch along the outside border as the framers would maybe not get it right otherwise. It's supposed to have a bit of a black border.

Now . . . onto the "new HAED" portion of the blog entry. They have released a map of Middle Earth! As in from the Lord of the Rings books/movies! And the super cool part of it was that I had gotten The Hatchling (the one which makes me think of Anne McCaffrey's Dragonriders of Pern) and QS Pirate Dragon (which makes me think of Girdlekrep the kobold from the Pathfinder game I play in) and it said on there to email Michele if there were any design ideas I'd like to see. So I did just that. And I got an email reply stating she's had one for a while and it was just released! omg . . . just like Christmas! I hopped on, even though I was not planning on buying another one, and THERE IT WAS!!!! omgimusthaveitNAAAOOOWWW! So yeah, it had to come home to me.


I think once I stitch this (no telling on how long it will be before I can even consider it!) I will be the envy of cross stitchers, nerds, and gamers everywhere. They will bow in awe of my nerdness . . . I will be queen of the nerds . . .
(ok maybe not)