Welcome to the Jungle: First Post - Completed

I was going to work on Ophelia, but while working on my sister's blanket I realized I really should finish another project for my youngest nephew.

This is a discontinued pattern, I was barely able to find a picture of it at all, and the original paperwork was lost.  This originally was being stitched by my mother.  She got frustrated with it, she kept counting wrong and just couldn't get through it.  So I offered to take over and finish it off.  However, it was completely lost, what she had already stitched and the chart as well.  Luckily I had a working copy of it that I was using to chart the name so it wasn't completely lost.

It's being stitched on 14 ct Aida in order to match the one made for his older brother.  That's not really a problem, however, this chart contains an obscene amount of ¼ and ¾ stitches.  Now, if I see these stitches I get a fabric where I can go over two.  Also, working on this made me realize just how much I don't care for Aida fabric anymore, I am a much bigger fan of evenweave.

This is one of those projects that I should have done multiple posts on, but I just kept stitching instead of posting, so I apologize for the insane number of pictures.

I picked up everything I needed on my way to my parents' house where I started working on it.  Then my sister and nephews showed up, and the little one, who I'm making this for, was curious:

What'cha doing Auntie Em?

I finished the name really quickly:

Kellan then decided he needed to help me (which didn't go quickly):

But it'll be a nice story to tell him, he helped with his own cross stitch.  It took three or four times longer to stitch, but he wanted to help so badly so there was no way I could say no, and he's just too cute, it was worth every extra minute.

After his help, with the large light green leaf, I got through the leaves much more quickly.

My favorite animal makes an appearance:

And he gets his back stitching:

As you can see in the previous pictures I was using a purple hoop to stitch.  I usually use a much smaller, red, hoop, especially on the smaller count HAEDs.  I figured since this was a larger count the larger hoop would be better/easier.  I was wrong.  I didn't like how big it was.  It just seemed massive and it seemed more of a chore to stitch.  So I went back to the red hoop, even though I knew I'd have to move it a lot more.  I started stitching much faster after that.

Back to my preferred red hoop I made a green froggy, with some of the blue back stitching to help me figure out where he's supposed to go.

And now back stitching:

Now, you'll notice on the sample picture there's a blank area on the bottom left above the frog.  It seemed to be the perfect place to add the weight and height as I had done on his brother's.

Anyone notice the missing back stitching?  I did fix it, I don't remember when I fixed it, or why I didn't take a new picture.

The next animal foliage

This is the new home of a rather yellow giraffe.

Now some back stitching:

There are three mistakes in the giraffe.  I only remember where two are, and I'm not telling!

I did the rest of the blue lines so I could find where the blue birdy went.

And he got his back stitching, and for those eagle eyed readers, yes, I initially forgot a row on his tail feathers.

The title of the piece. (Viewed with the top of the giraffe's head.)

Last inhabitant's leaves.

A little brown monkey.

He gets some back stitching which was the last thing to do.

Apparently all animals have swirly cheeks or noses... I never knew that...

And here it is in it's entirety!

It definitely needs to be ironed.  We already have the frame for it.  We wanted it to match his brother's so we bought it shortly after he was born.  Unfortunately, we have no idea where it is at the moment.

Project Stats:
Pattern: Welcome to the Jungle (Discontinued)
Pattern by: Bucilla
Started Stitching: March 4, 2016
Finished Stitching: May 4, 2016
Fabric: 14ct. DMC Aida
Floss: DMC 2 over 1
Percentage: 100% complete
Stitches: 7,519 out of 7.519

While doing the stats I noticed that it took me exactly 2 months to finish, but most of the work was done in the last week, April 26th through May 4th.  Off to a different project.  I think it's going to be the HEAD Challenge #2.