A Project A Day – Counted embroidery work is my main hobby and I have a huge stitching stash. Some of these projects are huge and take years to stitch, and while others are quick projects, I often spend months without stitching at all. So while I have hundreds in my stash, only a half-dozen ever see attention any given year. To address this imbalance in 2012 I will each day write about one project languishing in my stash.
Spellbinders by Cross My Heart
Copyright Jeanne Rye-Zettel, 1999.
Spellbinders by Cross My Heart
Chart: The chart is printed in an 18 page A4/Letter sized stapled booklet including cardboard cover. The Wizard chart is over four pages; the Sorceress chart is over six pages. This is an older chart. It is computer-drawn, but many of the symbols are quite similar and used adjacent. This is a pity when the publisher expressly forbids the making of a working copy. They do provide a full page of instructions how to complete each of the different types of stitch used in the design.
Stitches: Pattern uses whole cross stitches, fractional stitches, backstitch, longstitch and beads.
Materials: DMC stranded cottons, Kreinik blending filament, Mill Hill Beads and Mill Hill Treasures. Stitched on Zweigart 28ct “White” Linen and Zweigart 28ct “Wedgwood Blue” Lugana.
Designer’s Notes: None.
Why I was attracted to this design: I bought this chart so long ago. At the time there were so few serious fantasy charts on the markets that I bought every chart I could find when I managed to visit an LNS.
So why haven’t I stitched it? I bought the chart due to a dearth of charts in the fantasy field at that time. I wasn’t happy with the Sorceress’ face but felt I had to compromise my tastes to have some fantasy to stitch. I was wrong, because I never picked up a needle on this. Every time I looked at this chart, I wrinkled my nose at the Sorceress’ face and put the chart back down. It’s time I let this one go.
Free to good home. Mention in the comments why you would like it and how you found your way to this blog. I’ll close this part of the comments in one week.
Where can you buy it? This chart is long out of print. There are several copies currently selling on various auction sites as well as eBay.com
Discussion questions: Tell me about a chart you bought as a compromise once – you couldn’t find the exact chart you wanted so you bought something close but not quite right. Did you stitch it? If not, do you think you ever will?
Goth Tigger 
I have not compromised in quite that way, but I have bought ‘smaller’ charts because I was unsure of my ability to get a bigger piece stitched in time for the gift it was intended to be. Yes, I did stitch them, but at the same time, wished my abilities had allowed me to do the piece I thought was ‘better’ instead.
And FYI, the outer frame on the sorceror matches the one I framed Silent Night in that you gave me, LOL. Now you know! 🙂
“This is a pity when the publisher expressly forbids the making of a working copy.”
And just how would the Cross Stitch Police know if you’ve made a working copy? I fully understand and appreciate copyright but this is self-defeating! If the symbols are so similar and you can only make sense of them by coloring as you go and you don’t want to mark up the original, the publisher’s policy goes a long way towards discouraging one from buying the chart. Could MLI have had a hand in this?
Anyone else notice that her face looks like a monkey? Sorry…… stepping quietly back into the shadows
At least with MLI, you can trade in your old marked copy of the chart for a new one which no other designer does
Teresa Wentzler does. Stepping back also
Dragon Dreams also used to send out fresh copies for marked when Jennifer was printing on that horrible green cardboard. I don’t know if she continued the practice afterwards.
And yes Rosanne you have picked the exact reason why these have not been stitched -the Sorceress’ face. I wonder if it was supposed to be a homage to The Scream?
I’ve read every post of this project and every time you have mentioned that the designer does not allow making a working copy I have had the impulse to write something in the lines of Tina’s comment. Would you really follow such a “command”? It is so unreasonable.
Btw, I believe this is the first time I comment here. I’m Zlatina from TSS 🙂
I get quite obsessed by stupid designers who say you cant make a working copy. Are these the same anal people who tell you that you cant change the colours or the fabric because its THEIR design and it must be stitched exactly as they command? I know what my comment would be to them and I’m sure it would bring tears to their eyes.
I try to present two different parts in these posts: factutal information about the chart and then my opinion about what I like, what I don’t, what I’d change etc.
The “working copy” comments are part of the information section. To me it is as worthy a detail as the readability of the symbols or whether there is an overlap between pages, because each of these is a decision that the publisher has made. A decision that we usually don’t find out about until AFTER we have bought the charts. None of the glossy sales sites ever give this type of info so I wanted to highlight it.
What you do with that info is entirely up to you.
Oh Kay, I would be in so much trouble with a designer that says you can’t change a piece. I don’t think I have EVER stitched a design exactly as charted or on the ‘right’ fabric unless it was a model. If it is for me, I do what I want to with it. I have completely recolored whole designs if I didn’t like the ones listed or if I felt a different set of colors looked better with the fabric I chose.