Jane Austen Shrine is Completed!

Okay, calling it a shrine is exaggerating ... but only a little bit. After my amazing Jane Austen and the Plight of Women class in the Spring, I decided I wanted to showcase my Jane Austen books and banner (purchased at the Jane Austen Centre in Bath on our honeymoon) because I was proud of them and because I decided having the books there with the banner would make it seem less random in our green room.

Side note for extra pictures:

This is the door of the house where Jane Austen lived for a while in Bath. Some dentists or doctors or somebody owns the property and would not sell it to the Jane Austen Centre, but it is just down the street.

This is a drawing of Jane Austen done by her sister.

This is "probably" Jane Austen, according to the inscription.

Close up of the inscription, but it is still blurry.

When we visited the Centre, Matt noticed they had cross-stitch patterns in the gift shop. I decided that would be a really cool souvenir because I'd get to make it myself but it would be from England. Well, it is really cool .... but had I known it would take me this long to finish, I might have pondered a little longer before buying it. I finally finished the cross-stitch, just over a year since I started it.

Whew. That seems pretty ridiculous, I'm sure, especially once you see the size of it (about a 5 x 6 circle of stitching). It wasn't really difficult to do the stitches, but it was difficult to follow the pattern. I kept having to look and recount. I also didn't work on it consistently. I'd work on it for 3 or 4 days in a row, a bit each night, then it might be a few weeks until I got it out again. Here towards the end though I think Matt thought I was the slowest cross-stitcher ever. Seriously though, it was tedious and I think it could really wear on my eyes to do much more. However, I'm extremely pleased to have finished it and I'm excited to have it hanging with all my other Jane Austen items.

Jane Austen Cross-Stitch!

My cross-stitch completing the "shrine."

Whew. So happy to have finished up another project, and such a special one.