The Nativity by Heaven & Earth

NS last week and just HAD to have it. It looks quite challenging and I wou ld appreciate any words of wisdom you all can give. Thanks much...Ruth

To answer your original question, no, I'm not working on it & don't know an yone who is. Sorry.

On the LNS subject, who would have thought that Grants Pass, Oregon would h ave such an outstanding LSN? :-) UniqueLee Yours is right off the freeway, sort of - "right off" is a relative term in rural areas. It is at least e asy to get to for people driving through southern Oregon on I-5 & is only a bout 30 minutes north of Medford. It isn't in "downtown" Grants Pass so we do have to actually plan to make a special trip to go there but she has a great selection and will order what she doesn't have. She started out in a closet sized area of her husband's water delivery business and now we teas e that HE is going to end up in the closet as the needlework shop takes up more and more space. He has a great attitude about it, though, and will ev en step in to take money if we drop by on days when Lee isn't there. :-) Sh e's even traded me eggs for fabric on special occasions when money was tigh t but I had eggs aplenty. :-)

I haven't done any H&E designs, but I have done some of their House Mouse ones and their charts, IIRC, are pretty straightforward. Here's a link to the nativity for those who are interested:

It's a gorgeous design! What I've notice in the catalogs that have their designs is they are done *over one*!!! That's why they're so detailed. And huge! Give yourself a couple of years to complete this one, Ruth, unless you have lots of time to stitch. Just remember...it's all done one stitch at a time! :)

Just curious...how many pages is your chart?

NS last week and just HAD to have it. It looks quite challenging and I wou ld appreciate any words of wisdom you all can give. Thanks much...Ruth

Joan, there are 35 pages in the chart! Printed on 8 1/2 x 11 paper. Each page has 98 stitches lengthwise and 80 across. I'm gonna have to enlarge t he pattern because the symbols are pretty darn tiny, which scares the heck out of me, having to put the enlarged pattern together and stitching it the right way. Should be pretty challenging for me. Since it's done on 25 ct fabric, I don't think the over one will bother me, especially with a good m agnifier. My eyes aren't what they used to be.

Recently finished projects: Celtic Summer, Winter, Autumn, Spring and Noel Current Project: Morning Song

By the way, you're not the "Ruth from Happy Camp" are you? I suspect not, unless you've moved since then, because the Happy Camp area is burning right now and, if you were there, you would be evacuating and not settling in to stitch! :-)

No Liz...I live in San Antonio TX USA. I think when I first found most of you I was in Poulsbo WA. That was a long long time ago, on another newsgroup.

I'm not surprised!

Maybe you've already thought of this, but I would suggest putting some kind of mark on the pattern so you know exactly where to line the pages up when enlarging them.

Wow, you do like the big, complicated designs, don't you? :)

NS last week and just HAD to have it. It looks quite challenging and I wou ld appreciate any words of wisdom you all can give. Thanks much...Ruth

Thanks for the wonderful suggestion.l I hadn't thought about it and that p art, the part of putting them together after enlargement scared the crap (s orry for being vulgar) outta me! Doing something that big and with such ti ny stitches scares me enough, but the thought of having to frog because I s crewed up the alignment of the pattern...well, I didn't really want to have to do that. I will follow through on your suggestion and thank you so muc h!

NS last week and just HAD to have it. It looks quite challenging and I wou ld appreciate any words of wisdom you all can give. Thanks much...Ruth

Yes Joan. I was a Navy wife with too much time on my hands so I picked up Teresa Wentzler's Carousel Horses and decided to teach myself how to cross stitch. Guess I started off complicated. LOL Got them done though and the y look fabulous. (my daughter has them now). Other works I've done include the 5 panel Nativity, and Floral Finesse, (the one that has something like 390 DMC colors and all over one, a lot of TW designs also. I love challen ging charts, they make me think and concentrate on something other than pai n. Although they do tend to take me awhile to finish.

Yeah, I guess you did! There aren't many designers more complicated than TW!!!! :)