cottage kitten - The World of Cross Stitching 253

Since I`m almost back to normal flu-wise and, happily, I`m at least several days away from that panicky stage where the idea suddenly hits me that I was hugely mistaken when I thought I was getting on surprisingly well with my current project, I have decided to post about the latest publication before I end up like with the last one, losing track of time.

I`m not sure when Issue 253 of WOCS is coming out, probably next Mon or Tue, but I`ve already received my subscriber copy and I was pleased to see that my little kitten is on the cover of the magazine.

I tried to look up who the designer is but could not find it - there is an image in the mag of the original artwork that has been translated into a cross stitch chart but to find out more about the artist, it seems I would have to register with Image by Design, which I don`t want to do (not that it`d be too much of a hassle, but because I`ve registered on so many sites lately that I`m running out of password ideas).

I know I always say this but I loved working on this project. Which is probably a good thing, come to think of it: it might even be a prerequisite of being a model stitcher, the ability to find something lovable in every project, otherwise cross stitch would become a chore and that`d be pretty dismal. And there was plenty to like in this one:

First and foremost, I love stitching in blocks, both in shapes and colours. This project had `daily blocks` on the one hand - the kitten, the curtain, the leaves, etc. - and on the other, nice big chunks of blue, yellow and greens, when I could just thread a dozen needles and off I went. I admit, I`m not the biggest fan of tons of backstitch, although I don`t hate it as much as some, because as I have said it before, I like the way it brings the pieces alive and besides, it usually means I`m towards the end of the project, near the finish line. There was plenty backstitch to be done here - if I remember correctly, those leaves almost reduced me to tears 😉 - but I quite enjoyed adding the details to the fur and especially the beams (how clever is that play with shadows under the window ledge and the thatched roof? Love it!). Anyway, the whole project took 85 hours and since I only had about two weeks for this one, I didn`t stop to take photos as often as I usually do; however, I still have a few pics that I managed to string together in a mini video to save scrolling time. Hope you enjoy it, happy stitching!