Cuteness is not enough. There must be cake!: Margot, the Treasure Keeper

This is the pattern.

It's no secret that I love to cross stitch. A few months ago my cousin asked me if I would stitch something up for her, and naturally I said yes. She sent me the pattern and I got to work. I had fun working up this project, there was a little hitch at first when the supplies neglected to, in a convenient spot, add to the list some crucial metallic thread for back stitching, but crisis averted when I figured it out and ordered the needed threads online, which is far easier than driving over a half hour just to get to my nearest cross stitch store. Anyway, I thought I would have some fun while working up this piece. I took pictures every time I worked on it. I would text these pictures to my cousin so she could see the progress. Then I decided that when I was done I would make this blog post and share the pictures here!!

Out of sheer curiosity I kept track of how much time it took me to make it. I began on December 16, 2014 and finished it on April 11, 2015 for a total of four months. Now, there were some days I wasn't able to work on it and so counting just the days, I worked on it 64 days, which roughly translates into two months and four days. But I also didn't work on it every second of those days, mostly working on it when Meow-meow was down for his nap, or after the kids were tucked into bed. I did work on it a bit more towards the end in an excitement to finish it. So, total hours spent working on it was about 132 hours (132 hours and 18 minutes to be exact, or as exact as my tracking skills get me). That would be about five and a half days if I worked non stop. If you break that down into an eight hour day, it would be 16 and a half days of work. Nathan did the math that if I made minimum wage which is currently at $7.25 per hour in Utah (at least that's what Google told me), the price tag for this piece would be $957.00. However, I cross stitch for the pure fun and joy of it and not to make money. Although, if anyone wanted to pay me to make a piece or buy one of my pieces, I wouldn't say no. Well, there are a few pieces I would have a hard time parting with. Any artist knows just how much of yourself you put into your work.

I hope you all enjoy this photo adventure of seeing a cross stitch piece come together as much as I enjoyed making it. And I'm already working on my next project.