Heath Ledger cross stitch project - out with the old, in with the new

I am extremely thrilled to be able to announce that I've finished my longest ever standing, cross stitch project.

I'vee talked about my phases before and I'm not ashamed of having a minorly short attention span when it comes to sticking to one craft or another. They all remain very dear to my heart, which is the one and only reason I managed to get this 7 year project, finished.

After years of struggling along, it was only in the past few months I learned the value of guide lines

I had real trouble with this kit - it was really hard, on dark fabric with 30+ colours in various shades of brown.

All of these colours looked the same to me, I'll be honest. I couldn't identify them by eye, so it was very easy to go wrong.

The patterned areas were the hardest - those are the areas where all of the colours become very sinilar indeed, with a veritable lack of contrast to add to the already challenging design.

But hey ho, I've finished it - and I'm thrilled with the results, even if he most certainly needs a wash, and the loving touch of a caring custom framer. His time will come.

This crumped masterpiece has a few minor pixel errors, but I'm still extremely proud to have finished such a tricky kit

I learned throughout this project just how much a symbol of our generation, Heath Ledger had become.

It sounds silly but at least once a week, the girls in the office and I recant excerpt from Ten Things I Hate About You with very fond memories - mostly teenage girls at the time.

The dark ending of Heath's career in the Batman film was bitter and twisted - a very sad end to a troubled young man of great talent. I have selected a quote from The Dark Knight in which Haarvey Dent talks about how one should die a hero, and not live long enough to become the villain.

A fitting brass plaque to accompany him I think.

So yes, glutton for punishment I sure am.

I've picked yet another kit from the same photo-realistic designers, Designs In Thread. I guess I'd liken it to picking another epic.

Heavens knows why I've gone from working black-on-black to white-on-white. Not intentional, I swear it

John Lennon's poetic lyrics have spoken to me since I was very young, and this felt like a good time to pick a real idol of mine to immortalise in another needlework project.

As a huge fan of Stephen King, I also have a kit for IT the clown, but the fella won't have it - he says there would be nowhere suitable to hang it [fair enough].

Instead a pallette of cool greys and not warm browns, I'm thinking that picking an accompanying quote for the final framed piece could be rather fun.

My favourite recording of his at the moment has got to be the Real Love recording, sneakily recorded by Yoko and butchered in a cover for a John  Lewis advert years later. I've never liked Tom Odell. Was it Tom Odell? Whatever, those guys all sound the same to me.

I am starting to get the impression that I've started with the best bit of this kit - with Heath Ledger I started at the nose and seemed to work anti-clockwise from there, filling the corners.

With John there's lots of hair to be stitched, and that's all very dark and quite hard to see.

I've had to put it down this evening for lack of not being able to see the damn thing in domestic light (must, must, must invest in a decent craft light). And having a very stiff neck for no placable reason.

This one is only four pages where the previous was 9 - and a hefty 45 x 45cm where John will most certainly be much smaller.

But there's no danger of the artist dying while I make this one - Heath did, sadly. So I sort of ended up making it in his memory although thatg was never the original intention.

So in the meantime while I have probably another four years to pick a quote from a Lennon song to accompany this cross stitch project, here is Real Love - the way it should be heard. I wish i could pick Real Love as the quote but erm... it's a bit short, don't you think?