Review: Dimensions Daydreams Cross Stitch Kit - Cardinal in Snow Design

The Daydreams Cardinal in Snow kit includes the following:

• 14-count blue Aida fabric
• six-strand cotton embroidery floss
• tapestry needle
• Cross Stitch pattern and finishing instructions
• custom mat and frame

The kit is packaged in a sturdy box that protects the framing elements. This also protects the floss and fabric from light damage.

The floss is of excellent quality and there is plenty of it included. No worries about running out before finished, even if you have to do a little frogging. There were no problems with knotting or breaking and the color values are consistent.

The fabric is of medium quality, but since it is mostly covered with stitches, that does not affect the look of the final design. The fabric was rather small. Even a half inch on each side would make working with it easier.

The Cardinal in Snow design is complicated. Half stitches and cross stitches of various thickness (from one to three plies) are used. The pattern uses a different symbol for each thickness and color making it easy to avoid errors though I still managed to make a few!

There is also quite a bit of blended needle work in this design. To make this easier, I added my floss colors to my needle and stitched out one needle's worth at a time. If I had a little extra blended floss left, I stuck that needle in the pattern beside the symbol. You could use a small piece of paper with the symbol written on it if you don't want to puncture your pattern. (My patterns usually end up tattered, so a few holes won't hurt.)

Gridding was an essential part of stitching this design. I used Easy Count Guideline to mark the 10x10 squares on the fabric before I started. By gridding my fabric, I was able to pay more attention to the half and cross stitches and how many strands of thread to use. I still managed to make a few mistakes, but they were not stitch counting errors.