The Exemplary 2026
King’s College, Cambridge by W. Richard Hamlin
The Linda Calsing Award (History and Travel)

The Chapel is a favorite spot. I purchased the kit on my first visit in the 1990’s. I like the exterior (and frequently seeing it on English TV mysteries), but am especially fond of the ceiling, the huge Reubens, and the choir, which I listen to live on PBS every Christmas Eve morning. But the kit had many half cross stitches—horizontal and vertical—meaning the rows did not all line up; the backstitching was in 9 colors and 1 to 3 strands; and the monochromatic blue sky seemed to overpower the buildings.

The biggest change I made was to mix one strand of the designated color for the sky with one strand of a variegated thread that contained a fair amount of the same color. I did select the darker portions for near the buildings. I was careful to alternate threading the head and tail of the variegated thread to soften the shading. Also, as I approached the end of each strand, I skipped a few half or whole stitches and put several half or whole stitches in the 2 or 3 rows below. When I had finished, there were a couple of places where the color breaks were sharper than I liked and I went back and added an additional top stitch to some of the stitches. (It is not standard, but I was happier with the finished effect, and, because I pulled those top stitches quite tightly, it did not seriously affect the overall texture.)

I also substituted one dark blue thread for one of the 2 grey called for in the chapel windows to differentiate them from the other windows and to create the bluish tinge I remember. The grass was to be the darker of the two colors from the leaves, but I chose to mix one strand of each of the greens.