Parrot On Parade - finished!

Hi all!

Yes, I'm so excited and you did read that correctly, Mr Scruffy is finished! He was determined there was no way he was going to be taken off my frames so I had to face the oh so dreadful task of having to continue him until he was completed! Talk about suffering for your art!!

Here's where I left him at the 40 hour mark:

And now all finished:

Parrot On Parade by Bothy Threads

Stitched on 16ct Sand Dune over-dyed aida by sewitall.com 2 over 1

Stitch count 113 wide by 137 high

Started - 13th January 2019

Finished - 10th April 2019

Total stitching time - 51 hours 10 minutes

The remainder of the stitching took just under ten hours, so with only the backstitching remaining I plodded on, deciding it wasn't really worth posting about him at 50 hours when there was so little left to do.

I'm sure it will come as no surprise when I tell you I genuinely loved every stitch that went into him, so much so that I would definitely stitch him all over again! He's just so full of character and the colours were absolutely gorgeous to work with.

I mentioned when I started this project that I don't normally use the threads provided in kits. However, since Bothy threads don't use DMC, and colour matching their threads did not yield particularly accurate results, I did in this case.

I was impressed with the threads in general but, more than that, I was very impressed with the amount provided. I may have used 16ct instead of the 14ct aida they supplied but, even so, look at how much is left!

And for the statisticians among us, here's a fun visual representation of the percentage of each thread actually used:

I think the graph speaks for itself, showing that I used less 50% or less of 14/17 threads. Swap over to 18ct and there would be more than enough to stitch him a second time with the remainder. Very generous indeed!

From my online framing store I've already found a frame which suits him perfectly but am not going to order it quite yet - the store offers free postage when a certain amount is spent and although I have three frames in my basket I haven't quite reached that limit. Once Hogwarts is finished, though, I will have enough so I can guarantee there will be a framing spree towards the end of the year.

So, for now, Mr Scruffy goes into my Box Of Shame and my attention will turn back to Hogwarts In A Bottle. I hardly stitched on it at all last month so it's definitely time to make amends! Agreed?

Take care,
Rachel x

PS I'm a bit behind with reading blogs and replying to comments; bear with me, I haven't forgotten you!