The Birth Announcement by Teresa Wentzler. This is for my son's birth in December, 2004.

First picture date unknown.

Picture date August 6, 2005. There *seems* to be light glinting off the thread, but there are no metallics in this piece yet.

Picture date August 27, 2005. All cross-stitches are now done. All that's left are backstitching, specialty stitching and beadwork.

Observations to this point: The stitching on this one so far is pretty straight-forward, as far as I'm concerned (blending doesn't bother me, neither do fractional stitches). This is the first full TW piece I've gotten to this stage on. There is no petit point work on this piece. I tried to 'walk' my stitching in 'paths' so that I never carried across empty space.

Pictures date April 23, 2006. Done the eyelets and a backstitch border in the center that will also have whipstitching around it (!). I've put it on stretcher bars now. I hope that will make it easier to do the metallics and beads.

A close-up of the eyelets in the border. Fuzzy, but visable.

Close-up of that backstitch border. Brightened for contrast (it's 2 strands of ecru on cream linen...)

Observations to this point: Well, I was wrong about no petit point: the text is all over 1. I'll do that next.

Picture date 4/23/06, part 2. Here is the backstitch rope border (2 strands DMC Ecru), with a single strand of DMC 422 (a gold shade) whipped around each backstitch. It's INCREDIBLY subtle! (It's kind of hard to see, though. Maybe I'll borrow the camera from work and take new pictures.)

Picture date 5/29/06. Okay. I've started the text.

Observation: Over 1 on 32 ct linen is HARD ON THE EYES. Ouch...
Also I've made one slight alteration to the text design. The capital 'v' had a backstitch bar across the top that closed the opening. To me, that does not make a V (should be open). So I've removed that bar. That may make it less 'artistic' as a letter, but you can now tell it's a 'V.'