slowly but steadily filling in the dark blue. i contemplated not doing it because it's difficult but i will persevere! it definitely will look better with the dark blue as well. sorry about the difference in image height btw lol....
click me for previous progress notes
9/11/25 - not going to be many in-progress pics for this one... i actually restarted it entirely since the last entry because i didn't like how sparse it looked with 2 strands. so now i am doing three! i learned how to do a loop start with an odd number of strands so that definitely helped, even if i think it's messier than an even number. also i take back anything good i had to say about working with black aida. my stitches are so messy and my eyes are tired. i've gotten into the real hell now: stitching a close-to-black color on black aida. what the fuck. it's so hard. you can't see it well in the pattern picture, but there's a dark blue color in every castle window + around the castle itself, as well as down around frisk and monster kid. i've been working on this primarly at work in my downtime and i think i have to do it exclusively at home now because there isn't sufficient lighting at work to see what the hell i'm doing.... but it does look cool so far! i really love the contrast of the lighter blue against the black aida.
5/19/25 - this pattern comes from the official undertale cross stitch book! i was so excited to finally buy it after seeing some really cool patterns from it done with black aida. one thing i'm not sure about is if i should have done a slightly lighter black fabric, but so far the color combination seems ok. the finished piece is also going to be smaller than expected, so maybe one day i'll redo it on a lower count fabric. i'd also like to see if using 3 strands makes it look fuller, that's my biggest concern with it so far.
IT'S DONE!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!! i changed the backstitching on the books a tiny bit because i liked the way it looked more. i also was gonna do the flame backstitch with 1 purple and 1 glow in the dark strand of thread but then i realized i wouldn't be able to do loop starts and quickly gave up on that idea. i think it'll look good like this too though! umm now i need to buy a blacklight LOL so i can show it off properly when i actually give it as a gift. i'll upload a pic here too showing off the glow when i can. also look forward to me figuring out some kind of layout that will allow you to see all of the progress pics with their corresponding notes ^_^
9/11/25 edit: the layout in question is here! it's a wip and a little wonky, but hopefully works well enough for mobile!
click me for previous progress notes
7/21/25 - look how much progress i made rahhhhhh!!!! all that's left now is the colors i ran out of and need to go buy more of still, and the black surrounding them as i've learned that pulling lighter-colored thread through the same hole as black thread leaves black fuzzies on the lighter color. so i do black last now if i can help it. oh and i need to do backstitch... aka re-learn how to backstitch. i decided to do the candles in teal instead of the dark green the pattern called for, as i think it looked closer to the example image of the pattern and i like it better than way. soon i can work on other projects!
6/21/25 - lots of progress now! this color has been fun to do since it's filling out some sections completely and bringing the leaves/branches together. it's exciting to see the finished design come more into view! i'm trying to figure out the best layout for this page that will allow me to show my previous progress pics as well... tbd.
6/5/25 - FUCKKK i had to rip out the leaves in the top left i just did because i miscounted by one. you know what they say.... count three times, end up stitching six anyway or something. i can't wait to be done with this lol. idk where the image for this one went so it'll just be the same as the previous.
6/1/25 -
progress is slow because i really dislike rethreading my needle, and the
rest
of this
color requires me to do it pretty much every 2 minutes... x_x and i'll have to move
the fabric in my hoop eventually to get the top and bottom done so i'm procrastinating
that too. i also realized there were 5 stitches in the bottom right that were the wrong
color somehow. looking forward to being done with this color!
i also forgot to mention that i'll be giving the finished piece as a birthday gift! i have
about 3 and a half months left to finish by then. i started at the beginning of the year
and i'm really glad i gave myself this much time to do it.
5/19/25 - i ran out of two colors..... it's because this is my third time
restarting
this piece -_- my first try i miscounted so bad and didn't notice until i was like
75% done, and i would have had to rip out at least half of it to fix it. my second
try i decided to use 3 strands to see if it had a fuller look than 2, but after
stitching with 2 strands for so long, 3 felt too thick and hard to work with so i
quickly started over again... i definitely prefer 2 strands on 14 ct now, especially
because i can do an easier loop start.
i plan on doing the fire surrounding the cauldron in glow in the dark thread! on my
first try i blended one strand of GITD and one strand of the color the pattern calls
for, and it looked green enough under the light but i'm not sure if it's GITD enough
for my liking. i did some tests before starting and it seems like blending 2 GITD
strands and 1 green strand gave the brightest result, but i DID just decide to stitch
with 2 strands so... 1 of each it'll have to be. tbh the green is more important
anyways since the finished piece probably won't be under strong enough light to
always GITD (but hopefully it does? that would be cool).