Berry President Counted Cross Stitch Cotton Thread Kits Beautiful Rich Color Flowers Happy Tree - Four Seasons (Four seasons)

I haven't done a cross-stitch project in probably 25 years. I got this one because I wanted something to do to de-stress after work that was more productive than just watching Netflix. I've now completed one of the four panels. Here are my pros and cons.CONS:- No instructions! This product is from China, and the instructions are in Chinese. The limited amount of information in English was confusing enough that I had to spend quite a while googling things before I could start. (To save others time, this project is on 11CT cloth. They recommend 3 strands of embroidery floss for the full stitches and 2 strands for the back stitches.)- The color coding on the cloth is initially terrifying. There's a key, grid lines, and random Chinese characters in addition to the color coding for the stitches themselves. The colors are so bright that I was initially worried that the finished product would have marks all over it. Based on reading reviews for similar products, I found out that the color coding is water soluble. I soaked the finished panel in cold water with a little Eucalan for about 10 minutes. All of the color coding came out, and none of the embroidery floss bled.PROS:- The color coding is mostly easy to follow, eliminating the "counted" part of counted cross-stitch. Some of the panels do have two similar colors, but there is also a paper pattern to help with any color coding that's unclear on the cloth.- The design is intricate enough to be engaging without being so hard to follow that it requires full attention.- There was plenty of embroidery floss included in the kit. I had leftovers of every single color. If you do happen to run out of a color, the paper pattern lists the DMC code for all the colors.- Needles were included in the kit.- The edges of the cloth had all been edged with a Serger, so there was no unraveling as I worked.- The grid lines were helpful for matching the cloth to the paper pattern when I did need to reference it. Again, no actual counting!Overall, I'm very happy with how the first panel turned out, and I enjoyed completing it. I would give this five stars if there had been more complete instructions in English, especially about how to remove the color coding at the end.

This kit is amazing for the money - 4 printed canvas patterns & all the thread you need to complete each one. It takes a few minutes to work out how the key to the threads works as there are no instructions in English. I have completed a few of these before so knew to split the threads into strands of 2 before starting to work. And there are parts of the pattern that need to be worked in chain/ stem stitch which is not clear in the key. For these reasons I would say it is not a kit for beginners. I have nearly completed my first one & have really enjoyed it. Some of the key symbols/ colours are quite similar to each other so I would recommend a good light if you are working on this in the evening.

I bought this to do during lockdown as I am shielding. Great size and colours are lovely. Doing the summer one as a gift for a 40th birthday gift.

This is the first time I have done cross stitch where the pattern is already printed on. Seemed a bit odd at first as there are some very bright printed colours on the aeida for cotton that is lighter in colour? I wasn't sure what it would look like when finished. However... I'm nearly finished Winter at it does actually look quite nice. Will post pictures once finished.

Wow!! What a bargain. Cannot believe the quality of this for the money. Four huge cross stitches for the price of one!!

This set is great - the colours are good, and the print on the aida is perfect. You also get a chart so you can redo them on your aida if you so wish. I'm on the last one, and then I'll just need to rinse them to get rid of the dye.