Santa cross-stitch

Hello fellow bloggers! What a year it has been so far. Have been busy working plus took on extra study (to do in my "spare time") in order to benefit my current position at work. So I have now successfully completed a Certificate 4 in Accounting. It was well worth doing but quite time consuming which meant my hobbies had to be set aside for a while. But now that my course is finished I can get stuck back into my favourite pass times again :)

I have managed to make a fair bit of progress on Santa since my last update. Check him out:

Am currently working on the bottom left hand side of the window frame, which is a smaller section than the above framed panels which is exciting. Looking at the pattern there doesn't seem to be too much back-stitch so I should be well on the way to finishing this gorgeous design :) 

I actually found this Dimensions Kit available for sale at Everything Cross Stitch, they have a large range of beautiful cross stitch kits which I must admit I have been admiring lately.  If you were interested in creating this design keep in mind the cross stitch threads supplied with the kit did not seem to be enough, I have had to buy more of every colour! I have checked back at the instructions a number of times to see if I have misread and unknowingly used too much thread but I don't think I have... Anyway, after numerous trips to the local craft store I have managed to match the colours to those in the kit, at least as close a match as possible. I'm not too concerned if the thread colours are not an exact match as there is a lot of colour blending in this design so it will not be too noticeable if the colours are slightly different :)