I was at a restaurant watching the end of the auction on my phone. I couldn’t believe how much the price went up in the last few minutes! Amazing!
I would estimate each character took around 10 hours, so maybe 490-500 hours altogether. I cross stitch while I watch TV in the evenings (I can’t just watch TV, I get bored) and I finished 1-2 characters per week. The afghan was definitely a big project, but it’s not the biggest I’ve ever done. I’ve run out of wall space so I mostly do petitpoint (miniature needlework) for my dollhouses now. Ironically I’m currently stitching a miniature carpet that will be about 6.25" x 9.5" when it’s finished, and it has about 16k MORE stitches in it than the finished afghan! (The size difference comes from the type of fabric – there are a lot more stitches per inch in the carpet than on the afghan – and also the fact that the carpet is a sold block of stitching versus the afghan, which has so much blank space.)
If you’re curious what the petitpoint looks like, you can see some of them in a gallery here: http://www.greenleafdollhouses.com/forum/index.php?app=gallery&album=6292
There are two reasons I didn’t want to keep any of the money. One, I have made the charts available for personal use only and I didn’t want to be a hypocrite by selling what I had told other people not to sell (even though Ron told me it would be okay if I did). And two, because this project was never about money for me. I got paid for my PR work on Thimbleweed Park – that’s my job – but the cross stitch was something I did for fun and for the community, and I didn’t feel right getting paid for that as if it had been part of my job. Plus I believe that the Foundation is doing important work and it made me feel good to be able to help them out.
But I never expected it to sell for this much! I’m pretty overwhelmed by how it turned out. I hope the winner loves it as much as I loved making it.
