550 hours.

That’s how long it took me to finish this enormously huge project (an 18″ square) of cross-stitching the overworld map of the Dark World. (It’s still less time than I spent on Majora’s Mask.)

Originally, I bought the chart for my sister and (now) brother-in-law’s wedding. But, it needed to be finished by August 15.

Of 2013.

…Yeah. It didn’t take me long to realize that wasn’t going to happen. (Don’t worry, I made them something awesome.)

After a rough start, I put it away for five months, only pulling it out when I wanted to avoid working on other projects. Then, in December, after I made ALL THE DESTINY CARDS, I decided to be brave and pull the Dark World out of its hibernation. And, outside of a two month break in Feb/Mar, I worked on it solidly throughout the year.

It was like a child to me. I refused to leave it at home. When we went to a restaurant, I asked for a table for five. I was tempted to name it, but even I thought that was going to far. (OK, so I totally think of it as Stitch Stitchington.)

It was a test of patience at times. I spent far too much time with DMC color 613 — nearly 14k squares out of the 65k on the chart — which resulted in me adding a new name to the map. Death Mountain, meet the Clouds of Doom.

Over these months, the support I have gotten from the people of Instagram, Twitter, and Tumblr have been, well, amazing. So, thank you to all of you. You guys are totally awesome! ❤ The comments, likes, fav, RT, etc., helped push me through the days when I was convinced I would never be finished.



But, I am.

And now I’m not sure what to do…

…but something tells me that I’ll find something crafty to make soon enough.