koalas - The World Of Cross Stitching 265

Well, it`s been a long wait (I stitched this piece in August last year and it`s almost February 2018) but my cute mom-and-baby koala pair is finally in print! Woohoo! 😍

This lovely realistic design by Amanda Butler took 55 hours to stitch (hmmm, as I`m typing this, I just happened to look at the magazine and it says 65 hours. Strange. Makes one wonder why I have to time myself if it`s only used as a ballpark figure but hey..) 😉 So anyway, it took "roughly some time" to stitch and I`m so pleased I can finally see the finished picture in WOCS 265. 😊

I only took a few progress pics along the way because, frankly, they looked a little creepy until the eyes got stitched 😆 but after that they started to resemble their own gorgeous selves (and the baby`s "rude" toe cracks me up every time I look at it!) 😂 And now, I`d better get back to my penguin - yep, back to Christmas stitching... after all, as I have just said: it`s almost February! 😉 #what12days #12MONTHSofChristmas

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55 hours

fluffy Spring lambs - Cross Stitch Gold 144

This week issue 144 of Cross Stitch Gold is out in the UK shops and I was pleased to see my cute little baby lambs on the cover. 😊

This design by Clare Buswell was such a joy to stitch - I mean, just look at those faces! 😍 Plus, I love daffodils - luckily for me, there are millions around where I live so from February to April, there`s a sea of cheerful yellow flowers near our house. I also loved the subtle shading of all those lovely greens - some of them were cross stitched in 1 strand for a lighter effect. The project took 53 hours to finish and I only took a few progress pics because there wasn`t such a great big difference between the stages.

And here they are, nicely framed in the mag: I think this nice, crisp white frame is ideal for an image that`s so quintessentially "Spring", and the pale yellow mount accentuates the daffodils splendidly:

Also, this was the first time I used Madeira Lana thread; it reminded me a little of the threads that were in that Riolis kit of a Dachshund that I stitched for my uncle a few years ago. The lambs got fluffed up (?!?) in-house, so I was very curious to see the end result... OK, if I`m honest, I can`t tell the difference between my pics and those in the magazine but to be fair (both to the thread and to the person who "attacked" my lambs with a brush), I was expecting a more radical change, something that would transform my little white cross stitches into this:

So compared to my expectations, the end result is not that spectacular but it`s undeniable that one can tell the difference, i.e. that these are not cross stitches in mere white stranded cotton. I took a couple of close-ups of those areas, hope you can see them OK and until next time, happy stitching!

City of Romance and some glasses cases

Happy New Year, everyone! First blog post of 2018, woohoo! :) Issue 327 of Cross Stitcher has just come out and lookee what`s on the cover: the Emma Congdon design I stitched a few months ago.

I loved stitching this City of Romance: loved the theme, the colours, the blocky stitching, the lack of backstitch, everything. You know that feeling when you enjoy a project so much that even when it`s finished and you`re already working on something else, you still have flashbacks of yourself stitching this one, and the memory makes you smile? That. ;)

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83 hours - finished! :)

Now that Christmas is over and my parents have received their presents, I can also show you the 3 glasses cases I`d made for them. My mom got 2 with bears (one for distance, one for reading. Glasses, not bears) and for my stepdad, I stitched a manly Spitfire:

I also ordered 3 pairs of those springy metal things that you sew in the top of glasses cases so that the glasses won`t just fall out - but uncharacteristically for me, I guess I never read the Ebay ad properly because a few weeks later, 3 lots of FIVE turned up from Hong Kong, so as soon as I have time, I might go into mass production of glasses cases. (It might be a while though. I had my work cut out with these three, if I`m honest). But I`m quite proud of the end result and what`s more important, my parents were very happy with them too:

And I`m especially chuffed with the spring action, as demonstrated here by my little hand:

Thanks for scrolling down all the way here, happy stitching! :)