Over the past year or so I’ve lost my cross stitch mojo a bit. I used to be obsessed with it. I started cross stitching when I was in sixth form as a welcome distraction for my mental health to help me get through my A Levels. Since then it has helped calm me through uni study, the early days of my teaching career and through motherhood. When my children were babies and had gone to bed, the couple of hours cross stitch time was my time to feel like I’d created something. Over the years I’ve ended up loving crochet more and more but I’ll never stop cross stitching.

When The Queen passed away last September, I saw a couple of lovely kits from Bothy Threads on sale. I was taken with the corgi and crown one partly because my daughter’s friend has a corgi and we sometimes dogsit her. She is a gorgeous dog and it was a coincidence that she was actually staying with us for a few days just after the Queen died.

Bothy Threads kits are also my favourite cross stitch kit company. I buy a lot of their kits and have several in my stash to complete. So I knew that the “Thankyou Ma’am” kit would be easy to follow yet would have clear instructions and charts.

A recent criticism I would have of Bothy Threads is that they usually provide more than enough thread to complete their projects in the kits but this hasn’t been the case with the two most recent projects I completed last summer: Love London and Love Paris. I ran out of four different shades of grey thread. This has happened a lot to others. Although Bothy Threads’ customer service is top notch and they always send some more replacement threads free of charge, surely this would cost the company more in the long run than providing enough in the kit in the first place!

The kit arrived from Bothy Threads super quick back in October but it wasn’t until later on that month during half term week that I finally got it started. I was staying at my Mum’s house for a couple of days so I made a start on the picture on the evening while I was there.

With a cross stitch picture I always start at the centre and work my way outwards. I know everyone has their own ways of doing things and some even have special wash out pens to mark the grids on to keep track of where they are. I personally haven’t tried this but I do it with counting. Sometimes this works, and sometimes it doesn’t. I did end up having to frog a bit of the crown part.

I managed to get about half the picture completed during October half term week but then once I got started on a crochet blanket (might have been the Fireside one I was doing at the time), the cross stitching got put to one side.

But I was determined to get the picture finished before I went back to work after the Christmas holidays. Some more stitchy time was so much needed and I managed to do this.

Until I got to the beading!

Don’t get me wrong. I love beading and the effect that seed beads give to the overall effect of a cross stitch picture. With “Thankyou Ma’am”, the beading is used to look like jewels or pearls on the crown. I don’t mind beading, but oh my days trying to thread the eye of the beading needle was well nigh impossible with my poor eyesight and the needle eye being so difficult to see. The beads were also tiny and got stuck in my fingernails. After about half an hour of trying to thread the beads and them rolling off my lap down the side of the sofa, I put the picture away and decided to try again at the weekend when I could sit at my dining room table without interruption.

It ended up being February half term week when I remembered I had my corgi picture to finish! I laid the picture out on the table, had all the beads in a plastic pot and the overhead light on. Job done.

Now to find a special frame or hoop for my picture. I am really happy with my memento of Her Majesty The Queen and with her favourite breed of dog.

Love Sam xx