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The Great Wave off Kanagawa cross-stitched!
There was quite a bit of interest in last week's thread and I'm happy to say that I'm finally done with this project!
It has taken about a month and a half, it's full coverage 100 stitches in diameter - 18 cm using 14 count aida - and thankfully fit perfectly into my grandmother's hoop! The pattern is by Sarah Baumann (NeedleMinderLair on Etsy)
Anyway, here's The Kawaii Wave off Kanagawa!
Beautiful, I like the kawaii aspect!
My old bookmark was /r/CrossStitch... so I'm happy to see it starting to leak over here.
Thank you very much for the love everyone <3
It's gorgeous. I'm relatively new to cross stitch. Is it rude to ask to see the back to see how you finish your work?
Sure thing! https://i.imgur.com/gwvUBoi.jpg
Holy wah!!! I have such a long way to go (my backs are utter rubbish!!!)
Thank you: great motivation.
The trick is to hurry up and frame it so nobody can see 😅
Would love to see what you've stitched, if you are okay with sharing?
ATM, I'm too embarrassed. Maybe later. I'm actually proficient at crochet, but TIL I really suck at cross-stitch...
This is wonderful! I love the colors!
This is beautiful work, well done!
I love it! As someone who is interested in learning cross stitch, but has difficulty sticking to long projects, do you have any tips for newbies, and how to keep motivation?
As someone who does non-cross stitch embroidery, I second @smoontjes's suggestion to look for premade kits at your local craft store. They're usually great at providing you with everything you need for that one project and they tend to be a very manageable size. r/embroidery has a great list of places to get patterns and kits -- even though this isn't focused on cross-stitch, many of the sites will have options for both.
First of all: be patient. It doesn't take very long to learn because cross stitching probably the easiest embroidery technique out there. I learned it as a child but I bet there are a ton of good tutorials and videos out there. It takes a while to get good at it though, and it will also be a while before it becomes an autopilot sort of thing. But when it does, cross stitching feels very zen, almost like meditating. I've found it often helps a lot in terms of mental health - it is a welcome distraction from a bad day.
Go to your local crafts shop, they probably have beginner's kits. Or you can find something on Etsy - my main advice about this is to pick something that you like! It's very boring to stitch a design that doesn't do anything for you. Stitch your favourite Pokemon or make a quote from your favourite TV show. But yeah, kits contain everything you need for a simple beginner's project - fabric, thread, needle. That was how I got started again, having not stitched since probably 6th or 7th grade. I remember it taking a great deal of concentration to begin with, even though those kits were some very simple one-colour patterns!
It's only two and a half years ago that I made this and this for example, that are only a few hundred stitches in total. It takes practice to improve of course, but it barely felt like practice because I enjoyed it so much - and I mean, don't stick to it if you don't enjoy it? Motivation is automatic, I've found. So the last 6 months I've done projects that are many orders of magnitude bigger, like this that's around 15000 stitches in total and this that's well over 20000, not counting the backstitching and french knots. However I definitely felt these were too big, both taking months to complete, and my enjoyment kind of fizzled while working on them.
I guess I'm trying to say just start small and don't worry! Grab a fun little kit to begin with, watch a tutorial or two, sit down and relax, and go to your happy place.
Edit: r/crossstitch has a very in depth FAQ, if a little confusing to navigate
That looks amazing! I built the Lego set not that long ago, and the podcast Lego made for it gave me a much deeper appreciation for the piece. Excellent representation!
I just had the opportunity to visit the exhibit around this at the Museum of Fine Arts in Boston, and I love seeing how many different interpretations and remixes of the piece across so many different mediums. Love your take on it, thanks for sharing it with us
Lovely
It's a painting so classic some might call it cliché, but I've always loved the Great Wave.
Wonderful design! Do you operate a shop somewhere?