singing mice and Aladdin

Yesterday I had two new magazines delivered (yay!) so I`ve got some pics to share. 😊 First up, the cover kit that is the free gift with this month`s Cross Stitch Crazy (issue 249). It`s another cute Margaret Sherry pic, this time of three little mice singing Christmas carols - and there`s even a wee red hoop in the kit to frame the finished stitching, how cool is that? 🤗

And from today, issue 151 of Cross Stitch Gold is available in the UK shops, with my Carol Thornton cushion in it of a cat that I affectionately named Aladdin - you`ll see in a minute why. Coz from just the tabby, it might not be that obvious...

15 hours

But then this happened:

24 hours

And even though I knew he was lying on a cushion or rug, all I saw was this:

But then I started to add the paisley border and it looked less magic carpety and more Christmassy:

30 hours

Finally, after 70 hours, it was complete:

And I love how turning it into a cushion transformed it: I`m surprised every time I look at the finished item how different it looks with the edge of the design touching the cushion`s piping and those four paisley corners were made to measure! 😍 I`m a big Carol Thornton fan (as it happens, I`m stitching another one of her pictures for a later issue of Gold atm) and I`m already excited about the wintry watermill I see in the preview of issue 152. I loved that beach cottage that was in a recent Gold too, and also her autumn watermill - who knows, maybe I`ll start a wall of "Buildings by Carol Thornton" one day, when I have loads of time (ha! Ha. HA!). Happy stitching!

private zoo - thanks to Superpostie 🤗

Oh my, oh my, oh my! Still dizzy from hyperventilating a bit and legs still shaky from all the happy dancing I`ve been doing - but look at what postie`s delivered! 😮😍

Remember the tiger, the koalas and the lambs I stitched a while ago? Well, today I got them back... *continues to scream the house down*

Aaaaaaand it`s October! 😲 Which means: Merry Christmas, everyone! 😆

This week, issue 274 of The World of Cross Stitching hits the UK shops, and the Cover Star (their words, not mine btw!) is this super sweet design by Margaret Sherry of three kittens in Christmas stockings. Well, that`s the official title anyway - but I think that wee mouse steals the show hands down! 😄 I`ve got a few progress pics for this project, my favourites being the two between 30 and 32 hours - that`s when I added the green backstitch to the needles of the tree and I lurved the difference it made.

7 hours

14 hours

19 hours

30 hours

32 hours

35 hours - finished! 😊

And here they are, nicely framed in the magazine:

Now, I can also share some pics of the Durene Jones Cover Kits Galore Event that is happening these past couple of weeks: last week, the latest issue of Crazy came out with "our" robin gift tags (more on those in a mo) but first, the snowman bauble kit that is the free gift with this issue of WOCS.

When I saw the wee pack, for a split second I wondered if I just dreamt that this had two sides - but no, if you check the bottom left corner, there`s the back of the snowman. 😊 And if you`re really eagle-eyed, you may also spot that the finished bauble has metallic BS added that`s missing from my original pics - the threads didn`t arrive in time so the team had to add the snowflakes, etc. in-house (there you go, a little behind-the-scenes info for ya). 😉

So as I said, last week issue 248 of Cross Stitch Crazy was published, and its cover gift is also by Durene Jones: a set of 8 little Christmassy robins that have been turned into gift tags. I loved stitching these, as well as the front-and-back snowman - they were fun, festive and cheerful, just the kind of project to put me in the Christmas mood, no matter what month of the year. 😃 Happy stitching, everyone!