From Concept to Creation

Last year, I noticed that Rochester had been getting less and less snow every year. I decided to look at the numbers, and they verified my suspicions. Slowly but surely, on average, there has been a downward trend.

Being a fan of temperature-based stitching projects, I set out to see how I could visualize this data. I came up with the idea of different color/size snowflakes, and got to work drafting them.

Next, I had to figure out a layout, so I went to the drawing board. I took several pages of cross-stitch drafting paper and taped them together to get a large enough canvas, and laid out my preliminary plans.

Next, I had to transfer the template onto fabric. However, once I did that, I didn’t like how the snowflakes were perfectly aligned, so I used photo editing software to move them around, and then added small markings to indicate the center for each snowflake in a new staggered position.

I then created reference drawings to help make my stitching of the snowflakes easier.

I finally got to the stitching phase, and once all the snowflakes were added, I was both excited at the project nearing completion, but also upset because I felt that something was missing (other than the title, which I knew I still had to add.)

I decided to add some partial snowflakes on the corners, as well a border to help separate the legend from the 50 years of snowflakes. Then once I added the title, it started to feel like it was truly done!

The last step will be a light washing and ironing, then mounting the piece on a foam core, and finding a frame with a mat. Honestly, this is a piece that I would have normally taken to the nice lady at Joann’s who would mount and frame it for me, but they already did away with that position last year, and now they’re completely going out of business. I figure that might be a sign to just learn how to do it myself!