Happy 53rd Birthday DRC!

Today June 30th is the 53rd Anniversary of the day the Democratic Republic of the Congo (formerly Zaire) received its Independence from the Belgians!

To celebrate I challenged myself to design and complete this Patriotic Heart cross stitch based on Kincavel Krosses pattern.  And I am happy to report that I finished this project on time!  This is also my third finish for this year.

Here she is...

I am so happy with how it turned out!  I plan on making some more of these to send to Congo friends and trying out other flag hearts especially the Norwegian flag design.

It felt so odd stitching this on 14 count AIDA after working on 25 count evenweave for so long on Birds SAL.  This took a bit longer than I had hoped to complete I started it on last Sunday and worked on it little by little until it was completed on Friday!  I hope to make it into an ornament but I will probably make more on a smaller fabric count.

It worked out that I had a scrap of fabric from my original start of the Monkey Birth Sampler that I was able to use and I can stitch at least one more on it.

Anyways if you are interested in learning more about the DRC Independence Day click on this link.  I was lucky enough to be living there when they had their 50th Anniversary.  In our neighborhood hundreds of flags lined the street along a parade path and we got to observe a marching band playing from the 6th floor of the building I lived in.  Luckily it was not a day of rioting as it could have been and the day was celebrated peacefully in 2010.  I will always remember this day of Independence mostly because the main boulevard in downtown Kinshasa is named Trente Juin (June 30th in French).  There is actually a celebration here in Norway taking place at the Multicultural Museum, but this is also the day of the huge American Independence Day Party in Frogner Park.