How often do you start something without finishing it? It doesn’t matter if it’s colour coordinating my wardrobe, cleaning the spare room or having a crack at that vintage dress pattern, our house is cluttered with half-hearted promises and good intentions.
That’s why I’m elated to have finally finished a craft project I started three and a half years ago. The idea was that this embroidery, a pattern designed by Subversive Cross Stitch to celebrate the Royal Wedding in 2011, would be ready for our own wedding in May of the same year.
Looking back, it’s no wonder that Mr Ship-Shape laughed in my face when I told him this. Needless to say the piece, which is a little larger than an A3 sheet of paper and was a twist on an iconic design that, at the time, had just been rediscovered*, never really made it past the starting blocks before our wedding day.
Plan B was to finish it in time for our second wedding anniversary – the traditional gift of which is cotton – to present to Mr Ship-Shape. Despite getting half way through (each line of stitches took around an hour), our second anniversary came and went while I palmed off a lack of gift on the dodgy postal system. Bad, bad wife…
Fortunately after picking it up and putting it down numerous times, I finally completed it this month, just in time for our third wedding anniversary! It’s incredibly satisfying to see it framed and ready to hang (big thank you to Niche for preparing it in time) and I hope we’ll have it in our home for many years to come.
I’m looking forward to sinking my teeth into some new creative projects soon, but I think smaller ones are in order…
*The fact that versions of this phrase have adorned every notebook and apron on the high street since 2011, to the point of overkill, has not escaped my attention…
Congratulations on finally finishing it, that must feel like an achievement :). I have so many things I start and then never finish. I make the excuse of time constraints but really it’s because I have the attention span of a gnat. xo
Thanks Sarah! It was such a relief to finish and see it framed Now all I need to do is find a place to hang it…
Eeep, well done for finishing it – I would’ve given up. It looks really cool, even if the phrase has been somewhat overused. ;)
Thanks! Yes, curses for not finishing it when it was actually on the cusp of cool. Hopefully in fifty years time I’ll be bang on trend again ;)
Looks lovely!
Thank you :)
I see your 3 and half years and I raise you 12! :-) I started a cross stitch sampler back in 2002 as a celebration of the Queen’s Golden Jubilee – it’s about a third finished I reckon! Well done on completing yours! :-) xx
12!? Yikes! Fingers crossed that you finish it – if anything it was a weight off my shoulders once I handed this over to the framers x
Hi I tried to find this to purchase from Mr. Xstitch but could not. Do you have the chart? If so, would you email it to me?
Hi Catherine, sorry for the delay in replying to you – you can download and print out the chart here: http://www.subversivecrossstitch.com/KeepCalmPDF.pdf