Week 31 Beauty and the Beast

I have been doing some finish work on this one this week, so I will let you take a look-see :)

Everything to the left of the balcony is done being back stitched and french-knotted. I finished the castle last night and started on Belle - she has a face now!!! I need to finish her and do the rest of the characters on the balcony, plus all the french knots and other backstitch on that side. Then I need to do my boullion rose because I just think the rose as it is is kind of bleh. I want to do something to make it stand out more and be more than what it is now.

I am not going to do a lot of close up pictures this time because I want to save them for when it is completely finished (hopefully later this week!!! EEEEEEEE!!!!), but I do want to show a close up of the french knots. They are actually really fun to do, and so far I have done around 580 of them. I am about 1/2 way done with french knots. :)

Remember, if you click the pictures they will show bigger. Duh :)

I also made a couple of adjustments to the colors I used during this stage, that I will post more about when it is finished. Mostly to add more contrast, or with these flowers above, the light pink knots and the other pink knots were going to be almost the same color so I wanted to be able to see more of a difference.

Anyway, hopefully another update will come later this week when I can report a finish... ;)

Week 29 +5 Days Beauty and the Beast

Surprise post! I finished everything but backstitch and french knots on Beauty and the Beast!!!!! All 62,208 stitches of it! I have been obsessing over this a little bit this week, so I got done earlier than I thought I would. At the beginning of the week, I thought that I probably wouldn't make it by Sunday, then even yesterday morning I thought I would have to just post by the end of Sunday. Then I stitched and was not very productive with anything else at all yesterday and today, and VOILA! BAM! Here she is:

And a close up of the balcony and some of the castle:

There are still hundreds and hundreds of french knots to go, and SO MUCH backstitching, but the end is in sight! And then I can say, 'Look, I spent hundreds of hours on this so I can hang it on my wall. MARVEL AT MY AWESOMENESS!'

Week 29 Beauty and the Beast

I stitched... a bit... this week :) I was hoping to get the big urn and those flowers done this week, but I was able to do even more than that! Closer and closer and closer she goes:

This week I will finish the greenery to the left of the lamp post, and then the final base stitching stretch begins :) Just the lamp post and the greenery to the right of it, and then backstitch! And then french knots! And then I have to figure out what I want to do for a border and such, but the pattern part of it will be done. 

This has been such an amazing project to work on. Much, much more in depth than anything I have ever tried, and I am excited that I will finish it - I am not much of a project finisher in much of anything. Then I can start my drawn thread sampler and work a lot on the blackwork sampler. And of course I will probably start the "Once Upon A Time a Princess Was Born" birth announcement for my daughter... since she's 3 now... :) And I have Snow White and Little Mermaid and Sleeping Beauty still to do of these patterns... And and and and and - But all of that is on hold until this one is done! 

Week 28 Beauty and the Beast

I am so close to being done with this one! It's so exciting! All of the characters are completely stitched now (except for back stitch, of course). This next week will be lots of greenery and flowers. If I can keep up with my pace (not likely) then I think I can be done with the base stitching in 3 more weeks, probably more like 4 or 5. Still, after 7 months of stitching time, one more month doesn't seem too bad :)