Kicking off the new year with the first of many cross stitch birthday cards.

To start things off is a custom design by me. My niece turned 19 today and is finishing up her first year of college. She also enjoys puzzles. I’ve been working through my collection to get them to her to work on (if they have all the pieces).

Due to life distractions this cross stitch took a little longer than normal. The stitching was pretty basic, only two colors. I used a dark blue for the lettering. I tried variegated purple for the puzzle pieces. It wasn’t the variety in color that I had hoped for, but there is a little.

Once the stitching was finished it was time to raid the paper drawer. This was harder to figure out what pattern or color to use since I didn’t have any sort of vision for this card beyond the cross stitch design.

In the end I chose polka dots. It just seemed fitting for my niece. I have no idea why. It seemed like a better choice than many of the options I looked at.

Next up was cutting out the paper and square to frame the cross stitch. I have one ruler that has millimeters on it which was necessary for more precise measurements. I’m probably strange thinking that metrics are easier to use and measure with than inches. Could also be my dislike of fractions. Either way I was able to get the measurements needed to create my polka dot frame. The measurements weren’t perfect, but pretty darn close.

Stitching

Started: November 12th
Finished: November 20th

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