My York Minster Project, here-on-in to be known as The Monster!

So my Mum loves Cathedrals and, in particular, loves York Minster.

I love cross-stitching (and craftiness in general) and have made a few patterns myself to stitch up and thought "Why don't I do York Minster for my Mum?"

Well, I picked a picture, made a pattern and went for it, before I really thought about how big it was going to be. I think the size of it stems from my love of history and such things as tapestry hangings and the Bayeux Tapestry.

This is the picture I created the pattern from:

This is the pattern:

 (Yes, that's my living room floor!)

This is the fabric with the threads:

 This is the fabric once I'd prepared it to start stitching:

(I did this by back stitching all along the two edges that weren't hemmed so as to stop any possible fraying. I then marked out the amount of fabric that I had calculated in for framing.)  

And this is what I've got after exactly 34 hours and 10 minutes of stitching:

I've been taking note of how many hours I'm spending on it as it will have a total of 788,463 cross-stitches by the time I'm finished. For those of you interested, the width is 897 stitches and the height is 879 stitches and I'm working it on 18 count Aida.

I'm pleased with it so far. I've managed to keep it neat (front and back) and not made any glaringly obvious mistakes! *touches wood for luck*