~ What A Fascinating Challenge it Turned Out to Be! ~

I track things down on the Internet … that is just the way it is in today's times.  I search and surf to my heart's content, finding what I need to know or do…eventually. 

The problem was to keep my mind open, as I could not set my mind to just one little thing to search for.  If I did, it wouldn't be difficult for me, as I would already know a little about it. 

Makes sense to me, anyway.  So, when I decided keep an open mind when tracking down a difficult cross-stitch design -- I knew it would be a challenge.  A challenge to me to find it, and to do the design when I found it! 

The first thing I usually have to decide on is the search engine to be used.  Just one engine wouldn't do it -- nope.  I have to have LOTS of them searching at once in order to save time, picking up little tid-bits of findings that wouldn't be in the main stream of the Internet.  Those are what I was after for this project. 

And I don't search the first page or two…we usually go "CLEAR" to the back, where most people avoid going.  Anyway, the ones I almost always use is the "dogpile.com" search engine or the "mama.com" search engine.  Another thing I like to limit myself is with the PayPal option as that is how I pay; others prefer a charge card limitation only.  This is personal decision made by each person.

I typed in "difficult card cross-stitch designs online" and found nothing on Mama, even after I put a dash between cross and stitch, until I went to Dogpile. 

And I found Mystic Stitch about halfway down the first page.  And believe me, this was some of the best things I have seen for a long time.  By clicking on the website address, http://www.mysticstitch.com, you can go to their page full of cross-stitch patterns to order or to simply browse through. 

I only use PayPal to pay for my purchases on the web and thankfully it was available for me, I just had to have such a beautiful piece of artistic work.  Also, available was a DMC conversion chart for the threads also from Anchor and J & P, through Adobe.  You could print them out and use them for many projects other than on this website.

Some of the artistic subjects to choose from were small designs (very hard); animals; Christmas, fantasy gallery, eclectic, floral gallery, landscapes, poster-size, religious, spring-summer, vintage, winter-fall, world culture, and artists.

Each ordered pattern book was spiral bound, easy to read floss charts, instructions for the care of the finished product, with finished sizes given for 14, 18, and 22 count.  It had heirloom quality results at the end, and a zip-lock bag for all the supplies to be kept. What more can you ask for?

I was particularly interested in the artists' section, where it was all alphabetized for easy access.  Many of the names I didn't recognize, but several I did

~ Breakfast Buzz ~

. 

But the flowers were the absolutely hardest works I have ever come across -- they were either in art form or photographs.  The one I liked, "Breakfast Buzz", where a butterfly was sitting on the center of a sunflower had 54 color schemes to work through.  I thought it might be harder due to the fact it was a photograph, so I looked in the art forms.  Well! I was wrong...  

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