Review: Candamar Disney Cross Stitch Kits

Candamar designs has released a series of counted cross stitch kits called the Disney Dreams collection. It is a joint venture between the Walt Disney Company and Thomas Kinkade, the artist behind the original drawings.

There are a total of four beautiful designs all with your favorite characters. "Pinocchio Wishes upon a Star" shows Pinocchio discovering a beautiful bay. "Snow White Discovers the Cottage" shows Snow White in the woods finding the little cottage owned by the Seven Dwarfs. "Tinker Bell and Peter Pan Fly To Neverland" is a birds eye view of the famous twosome flying over London on their way home. And finally, my favorite, is "Cinderella Wishes upon a Dream" is Cinderella and her Prince at a charming bridge with the famous castle glistening in the background.

The finished size for the kits varies from 16"x12" or 5"x7". All kits are on 18 count Aida cloth and include the cloth, thread, directions, and a needle. I bought the Cinderella kit and this is what I have to say about it.

The first thing that struck me was the amount of colors. I'll admit that was one of the things that attracted me to the kits in the first place, but the Cinderella pattern has at least 60 colors. The second thing that struck me was the fact that the kit did not include thread separators. Other kits I have gotten included simple pieces of paper with holes punched in them so you could sort all your colors. I then had to put everything down and make my own which was, needless to say, very annoying when you want to get started on such a big project.

Then as I sorted my colors, I noticed that they had sent more of one color, and none of another color. Now this meant that I have to send a request to the company to have the color they forget sent to me. So far, I am not impressed that I now have to pay more money for something that should have been there in the first place. Speaking of thread the kit includes pearl and gold filaments. These create a glistening effect that is very cool however working with the thread is obnoxious. These filaments tend to fray easily so you much keep the lengths much shorter than usual, meaning you have to " reload" you needle more often.

The map for the stitches is a little overwhelming, as it is separated onto 3 separate sheets. The symbols are almost all black and white so you must really pay attention to number of stitches for a particular color. The pattern includes cross stitching, back stitching, 1/2 and 3/4 stitching, and french knots. Needless to say, this is a challenging pattern. The instructions for how to do each type of stitching is very clear, which is great for people like me who have never done french knots, and they do give good tips, like keeping the pearl filaments short in length.

Overall I do very much like the pattern despite the actual kit setbacks. However I would say that it is not worth the $40 asking price on the Candamar website. I was able to get a much better price on Ebay and recommend you do the same as well. For Disney Fans, this is truly a piece of art and is the best (and most complicated) of the Disney cross stitch patterns I have seen.