Here is one of the projects I will be working on in rotation with my castle project. Sorry the picture isn't better, but this is best one I could find of the model. It will be for my friends Mandy and Wyatt who are getting married this July. This is done by The Sweetheart Tree. It is 72x197 stitches and I will be stitching it on 32 count hand dyed dark tan linen from Silkweavers. It has a LOT of fun specialty stitches, so should be a good break from the straight cross stitch of the castle. Some of the specialty stitches are: Rhodes Heart, Couching, Scotch Stitch, Oblique Herringbone, Tent Stitch, Small Smyrna Cross, Lattice Work with Tacking, Diamond Eye Stitch, Bargello, Four Trip Half Diamond Eye. It also has a lot of beading. I'll start this one as soon as I get the rest of the materials - I'm just waiting on the beads and the Perle cotton thread to come in.
You certainly couldn't have chosen a better contrast in design to the castle. This looks gorgeous and should be a great piece to try out all those special stitches.
Enjoy.
I usually don't like wedding and birth samplers - at least not most of the more modern style. This is beautiful though - so unusual and with all those different stitches a real challenge. Look forward to seeing this one progress. It might even tempt me into a wedding sampler myself, which would be something!
I finally got started on this one. It is VERY detailed so I didn't get a lot done yet, just the full and 1/4 cross stitches at the top, some of the backstitch, and the couching over silver cable. Here is how it looks so far:
That's a lot of different type of stitches... It will look great when completed 
There's nothing better than a good friend, except a good friend with CHOCOLATE! 
