The Cypher Cross Stitch - Master Post

The Cypher Cross Stitch Master Post

The Cypher Cross Stitch Part 1 - March 1, 2014

The Cypher Cross Stitch Part 2 - March 2, 2014

The Cypher Cross Stitch Part 3 - March 4, 2014

The Cypher Cross Stitch Part 4 - March 10, 2014

The Cypher Cross Stitch Part 5 - March 11, 2014

The Cypher Cross Stitch Part 6 - March 12, 2014

The Cypher Cross Stitch Part 7 - March 15, 2014

The Cypher Cross Stitch Part 8 - March 17, 2014

The Cypher Cross Stitch Part 9 - March 20, 2014

The Cypher Cross Stitch Part 10 - March 24, 2014

The Cypher Cross Stitch Part 11 - March 26, 2014

The Cypher Cross Stitch - Part 11

Hark upon the gale, y'all.

This project was finished last night on Tuesday March 25, 2014, one day ahead of schedule. Of course, I originally thought I would finish this by March 8 - over two and a half weeks ago!

I still need to iron and frame it but that's not going to happen until May. As far as I'm concerned, the cross stitch is finished.

I'm taking the rest of the month off before restarting on the Celtic Cross Stitch.

The Cypher Cross Stitch - Part 10

~William and Mary, loved of old~

As of Saturday March 23, 'William' is finished! That leaves only the royal crown to complete before Wednesday. I got this.

The Cypher Cross Stitch - Part 9

"William" is half done and I'm over 3/4 finished.

Those top loops are difficult.

I hope to have the rest of the 'W' done by Sunday. 

The Cypher Cross Stitch - Part 8

BOOYAH. 'Mary" is complete as of 11:55 Sunday night. I made my deadline with minutes to spare.

Look how nice and symmetrical that is. It actually looks like the cypher.

The Cypher Cross Stitch - Part 7

Definite progress: the left side of "Mary" is done.

By Friday morning it looked like this:

And later that afternoon:

My goal is to have the right side of the "M" done by Sunday evening. 

The Cypher Cross Stitch - Part 6

Halfway there! I am conveniently ignoring the crown at the top until suddenly I can't.

It's starting to look like the actual cypher! This only took about a week and a half. Maybe? My new deadline is March 26th. That shouldn't be so hard, right? Right?

The Cypher Cross Stitch - Part 5

Almost half way done - I think there's only an hour and a half left to do on the bottom half.

I'm not sure why it looks crooked, even though the dimensions are correct. It's not just the frame.

I need to take better pictures - these shadows are annoying.

The Cypher Cross Stitch - Part 4

The first thing is that this is not 2/3's done. Obviously. My time estimates for cross stitching are never what I think they are. 

The left bottom loop took about an hour, for reference.

The funny part about this progress was that I noticed a minor mistake in the bottom ribbon and as I was thinking about how to fix it, I made another minor mistake. Why is this my life?

The Cypher Cross Stitch - Part 3

Small mistakes are indicators of larger problems.

I found out why I needed to add one stitch to the end of four rows a few days ago - the entire left side was right-shifted by one stitch. I was five hours past that mistake when I realized it but only one hour into the project when I did it, so what side should I undo?

It took two hours to pull out those stitches and another hour and a half to redo them.

That greenish color on the left? All gone

Then I had to put the stitches back in. The pattern has shifted to the right by one square but as long as the rows are correct, that doesn't matter.

1/4 done, two days later. I'm shooting for 2/3 completion by the end of the week, hopefully without any more major mistakes. It's better to take care of bugs early before they become a huge problem.

The Cypher Cross Stitch - Part 2

I worked for about two and half hours on this on Saturday and I'm not making as much progress as I would like. I think I can work faster than I truly can.

It didn't help that two hours in, I discovered four of the longer rows were off count by one stitch. I had a mini-heart attack until I discovered that I could add the missing stitch onto the end of four rows instead of undoing it all. Doing it a second time would have been worse than the first time. 

The Cypher Cross Stitch - Part 1

I know, I know. It's been five months since I last worked on the Celtic Cross and I'm starting a new project? Did I even finish anything last year? Well, no.

I keep meaning to work on the Celtic Cross but when I look at it at school, I say "Nope!" and when I bring it home on breaks, I always forget the pattern.

I have the pattern for this and the break to do it. I have until May to finish this, the Cross, and a prayer shawl. I'm hoping this gets me back into cross stitching.

My goal is to have this piece done by the time I go back to class.