Setting the Scene

It was about 615pm last Tuesday night when I last did some work on the cross stitch. I firstly had to make the decision as to where I would do it, the lounge at the flat or my bedroom. I decided to do the cross stitching in the in the lounge as this would mean I could be sociable and watch the T.V. I then proceeded to gather the cross stitch from the chester draw where all my cross stitching resources belong. I grabbed the scissors from the pencil case in my back pack and went to the lounge. Seeing one of my flatmates sprawled out on the 2 seater couch left me with the only option of the 3 seater. I took a seat on the left hand side, as it gave a better view of the T.V., and grabbed a cushion placing it next to me in the middle seat. This still left a place for another flatmate to come and sit down later. I asked the flatmate if it would be alright to turn the T.V. on as he was on this laptop, he didn’t mind. The next decision was to find a channel we both wanted to watch, once in agreement I then continued to set up my area. I put the scissors, colours and chart on the pillow. I chose to used the brown coloured thread that I had been using last time and tied a couple knots in one end so that when I did the first stitch with this new thread on the canvas it wouldn’t come all the way though or pull out at a later date. I licked the opposite end of the thread as to make the two strands stick together as this made it easier to thread it through the eye of the needle. I threaded the needle then looked at the chart to see where I was to continue on. I work in a certain way to ensure that all the crosses run in the same direction. Each cross consists of using four holes on the canvas, Bottom Right, Bottom Left, Top Right, Top Left. To make each stitch I put the needle through the Bottom Right corner coming through from the back on the canvas, then down through the Top left, back up through the Bottom Left on the back down through the top right corner, creating just one cross. I continue this following the pattern of the Bears’ forehead until the thread has almost ran out. Before this happens, I flip the canvas over and thread the needle through some of the other completed threads as to "tie" it off. This ensures that it won’t come undone later. Then cut the thread. The needle is then ready to be threaded again if I choose to continue on. I work on the cross stitch for about an hour, while watching T.V. and chatting to the flatmate about how our day had been. During the time doing the cross stitching, another flatmate had returned home and came into the lounge taking a seat in the only spare seat on the 3 seater couch. She asked what I was doing, so I showed her the picture of the completed cross stitch to give here an idea of what the finished product would look like. I also showed her what I had completed so far and she said it looked "awesome". At this stage I was starting to feel hungry so I packed up my things, putting the cushion back the way it was and putting the scissors and cross stitching resources back in their rightful places before making my way to the kitchen to make dinner.