It was my best friend's birthday yesterday, and I wanted to show off the progression series of the cross-stitch project I made for them! :D
I combined the symbols for Water, Earth, Fire and Air from Avatar the Last Airbender with their respective I Ching symbols, because we are both fascinated with those things! ^_^ (I mean, Air is with the Heaven symbol, but it's opposite to Earth, so it still kinda works.)
In the center are Tui and La, the fish that resemble Yin and Yang in Avatar. For the other I Ching symbols (Wind, Thunder, Mountain and Lake) I decided to not take them literally, and instead use symbols that were more important to my friend and me.
Positioned to be opposite colors of the fish, I placed a black cat and a white rabbit. They symbolize how we like to imagine our spirits / personalities in animal form. They are the cat, and I am the rabbit. ^,^ (No, I will not elaborate.)
In the remaining spots, I put a pink heart for me, because whenever we text I always use this 💖 emoji to say I love them, and a rainbow heart for them, because they are LGBTQ+ and tend to use all the colored heart emojis to say they love me.
I thought the piece felt a little empty, and I learned that my friend wants to learn music, so I added a rainbow of random notes and musical symbols! And when I went to Michaels to find a frame for the whole thing (pictured below), I found this beautiful and sparkly metallic thread that reminded me of rainbows and fireworks, and I knew I HAD to implement it into the piece, because my friend would love that! ^_^
The whole thing took me about a month to complete, working on and off between life and video editing. ^_^ My friend is one of the most special people in the world to me. This cross-stitching is something I adored every moment of creating, and I couldn't be more proud. And I'm so relieved they got it on time for their birthday, because apparently whoever delivered it messed up and sent it to the wrong house, even though my friend confirmed that I clearly wrote the correct address on the package! XD
Thanks for indulging me! ^_^