Andromeda: Starting

Hey guys! The other night I decided to go ahead and start on Andromeda, and I am so excited! There's nothing quite that like new project feel, is there?

The first thing to do was organize all the materials, of course. I put all the "special" items in a tin box (Kreinik thread, beads, beading needles), and the regular DMC thread in a plastic ziplock bag:

And the next thing was (gulp!) figuring out the fabric! This took forever. First, I had to measure out the fabric and the pattern and then figure out where I wanted to start Andromeda.

Then I had to figure out just how in the world I was going to stitch in hand with such a huge lump of fabric. For context, this is a 19 x 27 inch piece of linen (32 Count Permin Linen Twilight Blue, if anyone's curious). As it turned out, it's not that hard, but it took me a while to get the hang of it. I basically just rolled the fabric below my starting point like with my previous project, held the fabric with my left hand and stitched with my right.

And then, oh then... I had to learn how to actually stitch on linen, didn't I? Because I've only ever stitched on Aida up until now. So that was fun! Actually I mean it. It was fun to to learn a new skill and feel like I've bumped myself up to the Linen Cross Stitching Ranks, whatever that is. A rite of passage, if you will. Because if you're going to stitch a Mirabilia, you might as well do it right, amiright?

And you guys... it wasn't that hard! I think I had built it up in my head and I was actually terrified going in, but nope! It's easy enough. I was very, very careful of course and went super slowly, but that's part of the fun of learning, isn't it? To just enjoy the process.

So I had tons of fun with that. And also... just look at the design! I'm so in love with these graceful curves! I think I've found my new cross stitch thing.