Project Recap [Balloon birth announcement]

Sometime after I moved back to New England, I was digging around in the basement closet when I uncovered a cross stitch kit. I hadn’t stitched anything since February, so I figured I’d give the kit a try, never mind the fact that neither I nor anyone I knew needed a birth announcement. The kit is Simplicity’s Balloon Birth Announcement (05514), featuring a circle of hearts and flowers with balloons, a duck, and two bunnies. It was purchased from the Windsor Button Shop for $4.25, marked down from $8.50. Since the purchase of the kit, Simplicity has been acquired/sold at least twice, and I believe the cross stitch portion of their business is now managed by Dimensions. Windsor Button, if I found the right shop, closed in 2013 after 77 years of business.

The kit contained a 12” square piece of white 14-count Aida, 100% cotton floss in all required colors, a needle, and the paper chart and instructions. The pattern required the more typical full cross stitches and backstitches as well as lazy daisies and French knots. The chart was easy to read, though I still can’t find where/if they marked the number of strands you were supposed to use for any of the stitches. I ended up doing one strand backstitch and lazy daisies and two strand cross stitches and French knots, which worked okay. Some of the lighter colors are a bit light worked with one strand, but I think increasing the strand count would have made it too crowded and the flowers/leaves would have lost definition. They did have instructions for how to do all the stitches, but I ended up looking up YouTube videos for the lazy daisies and French knots just to make sure I was doing them (mostly) correctly.

Additionally, like a decent number of kits, the floss came in a bundle with no labels. This kit doesn’t have too many colors, so they can get away with it, but two of the yellows are very hard to differentiate it you’re not in strong daylight, then the darkest yellow looks orange and the orange is very reddish. Other than that, the quality of the Aida, floss, and needle seemed good. I did make a mistake in centering, so it’s not quite exactly centered, but they provided a 12” x 12” piece of fabric and the pattern is about 8” in diameter so there’s still enough margin on all sides for framing.

I started working near the end of June and finished shortly after the middle of August (June 22-August 19), so it took me just under two months. [I actually finished the cross stitching in about two weeks and it took the rest of the time for all the other stitches, including a solid week of just French knots.] Because of the backstitching/lazy daisies/French knots, there was a lot more stopping/starting threads and travelling across the back than I usually do, However, I did enjoy using/learning stitches other than cross stitches, even the French knots. I might even try an embroidery project sometime. As usual, I substituted double running stitch for the backstitch and I also changed some of the backstitching to make it less blocky. Other than that, I followed the pattern as written, and overall, I thought it was well put together and I like the finished product more than I thought I would, though I still don’t know what I’m going to do with it.