Cross Stitch Collection 228

I have a lovely new follower on Twitter who complimented me on my blog - what a great way to start a day! It also immediately kicked me into gear and made me realise that I`ve been neglecting my posts here, again, for quite a while now... My feeble defence is that I`ve had a couple of emergency jobs lately, one self-inflected and the other a `real`, i.e. magazine one (I had to quickly finish a project another stitcher had started, then she was taken to hospital). I`m about to post it back today and I thought before the next two arrive - they way things work, this month I`m getting 2 projects at the same time -, I`d better tend to my blog before I get snowed under again.

I`ve got more piccies for you, yay!! Cross Stitch Collection 228 came out last week and my autumn cottage is in it - I simply loved every minute of working on this one! Not only because it`s by my favourite designer, Maria Diaz, but because it reminded me of our little white cottage in Hungary. So, without further ado, here are the progress photos I took in June... :)

A tentative start with roof and gate...

Some foliage added...

Getting stonewalled...

Beginning of the `shepherd`s warning` sky...

All the little crosses finished...

And the completed picture with backstitch :)

Dream a Little Dream update

I`ll be honest here: I`m having a naughty weekend. Nothing kinky, I just decided to have a few days off, despite the fact that I`d sent the latest commission stitch back on Thursday and that the next one turned up with Friday`s post - luckily, with a very generous deadline, so I thought I`d better get a move on with the DALD sampler. Even though I started it over two months ago now, this is only my third go at it, due to magazine commitments, so here`s a wee recap of the progress:

Go #1: Just a few hours, to get a taste of this sampler malarkey :)

Go #2: Finished the house in the middle and started to stitch the motifs along the fold lines of the chart
so that I could separate it again into four A3 sheets for easier handling

Go #3: This weekend I concentrated on the top right A3 - getting there!

 Elsewhere, in the knitting world: I took the plunge and FINALLY tried my hand at entrelac! I have no idea (yet) what it`s going to be - depending on the finished size, it might be a scarf, or a bag, or maybe a cushion cover - but at the moment I`m just enjoying seeing the design grow, so whenever I`m not too tired after stitching all day, I knit another coloured row in the evening. As you can see, there have been 3 such evenings so far:

First attempt at entrelac knitting, a.k.a. The Mystery Project

Cross Stitch Gold 105

Those of you who are lovely-sweet-kind enough to follow my occasional ramblings or mere outbursts on Facebook as well, might remember that a few months ago I moaned a bit when I started my fifth hour of stitching French knots with metallic threads (I know, I`m such a wimp!). Anyway, the result of this Metallic Marathon is in the shops now - my beautiful little advent calendar picture which I absolutely adored working on, despite those few (one hundred and thirty-four, but who`s counting?) French knots. And that`s not all: issue 105 of Gold features Lesley Teare`s unconventional, super-girly Christmas stocking - also stitched by yours truly. So let`s see some before-and-after pictures, shall we?

A nice and easy stitch for a `last-minute` stocking 

All made up, complete with some funky fabby 

And a more traditional Christmas scene, with 134 (!) metallic French knots

The finished advent calendar, complete with the 25 numbers I stitched - I love the idea of these tiny drawers!