Forever Friends, more Rome and Van Gogh, snowman on a box and loads of Disney

I don`t even dare look at the date of my last post 🙈 Although if I go by WOXS time, it`s only been one issue... but by Disney time, it`s been 4 or 5 or 6... meh, anyway, here I am again! 😁

So after some delays this month, issue 302 of The World of Cross Stitching is in the UK shops now, and the cover kit is this cute Forever Friends teddy with his little heart: 🥰

My mum says he should have pulled that scarf up a bit to cover his nose 🤣 - I dunno, this seems to be how the majority of people I see in the shops wear their masks, Tesco`s full of these Poirot wannabees in their moustache protectors 😂 Anyway, talking of facial hair: I`ve stitched myself a little Van Gogh portrait to go with my collection:

The chart is from Artecy, it`s part of a Van Gogh sampler, which I might sew one day as a whole OR use the individual smaller designs for mini pics like this (I have more of these wee canvas + easel combos). I am also the proud owner of several of these stitchable trinket boxes (because I kept ordering the wrong size 🤦‍♀️) but eventually, I found the right one for this snowman design by Durene Jones:

I already have another design picked for one of the larger boxes, it`s a tiger head and will look awesome, now I just have to squeeze it in between all the other projects I`ve started or am about to start: apart from the Thea Gouverneur `Rome`, I`ve also started an autumn cottage by Carol Thornton AND I`m just waiting for the fabric to arrive for a fractal lion that I charted for myself *wilfully ignores mentioning other WIPs like the Museum Shelf or Starry Night* Um, but I have a page finish on Rome, yay! 😉

I take a pic with my phone at the end of every day I manage to work on this, so apparently, I`ve had 11 days so far to play with this project since I started it in September. Of course, I would be on Page 2 by now if I haven`t started that cottage, but 1. I wanted something on easy 14ct aida to give me a break from the 36ct linen, and 2. my chart for the cottage is on the Pattern Keeper, whereas Rome is on big A3 sheets of paper full of miniscule squares that I`m marking with highlighters (and as we all know, after a few hours, it`s hard to tell if a circle has a smaller circle inside or a dot 😵😖🤪

Anyway, usually by the time I`d make up my mind which project to continue with, another Disney lot comes in and that`s me sorted 😂 I`ve had a look on the Hachette Partworks website and seen that the images of magazine covers are uploaded (up to issue 19, I think), so I`ve made a little montage of the projects I recognise (the step-by-steps of each character from the 4 big samplers are published over every 2 issues, the rest are various projects from hoops to buttons, from stockings to cards). Hope you`ll enjoy the mini-vid, happy stitching and have a wonderful holiday season - see y`all in 2021! 😊

freebie extravaganza

No huffing, just stating a fact: I have just about given up on being able to follow which pieces I stitched for what publication are out now and where! 😂 With the very sad demise of Cross Stitch Crazy and Cross Stitch Gold 😞, some of the projects I did for those two magazines several months ago may (or may not) appear in the publisher`s remaining craft title, The World of Cross Stitching. The situation is further complicated by the randomness of where extra cover kits appear, depending (I guess...?) on where you are in the UK, whether you`re a subscriber or you pick up a copy from your local newsagent, etc., etc. So, in light of all this, the best I can do is to keep my eyes peeled 👀 and make a list of all the familiar-looking designs that I come across, and then post about them here occasionally. 😊

Thus today`s first pic is of the cute little Popcorn Bear that was an extra freebie with last month`s WOXS (I received my subscriber copy of issue 300 but I only found out about this cover kit after seeing a photo of it on FB). 😁

Yesterday I got my copy of WOXS 301, and there are a couple of projects in this issue that I stitched a while back: the angel tree decoration that`s the cover gift and 3 Margaret Sherry cards that were originally for Crazy. The angel, designed by Heather Nugent, was a fun stitch on plastic canvas (and I`m not ashamed to admit that even after Heather explained it to me - with illustrations! -, I still couldn`t picture how this front-and-back design will work, but it does!) 😃 After finishing the front, the plastic canvas has to be flipped and the two wings stitched on the reverse, then by cutting along the lines that are marked on the chart, the wings slot together and voila, there`s the finished angel with no messy back showing! 😲 #magic

Still more Christmas: 3 Margaret Sherry illustrations in WOXS 301 that were converted into cross stitch by the talented Fiona Baker, who also designed 4 Christmassy blackwork cards (originally meant for Gold) that are now available in her Etsy shop (here) so I add a pic of them here too. 🎄

Finally, I wanted to add one more photo, this one from Disney Cross Stitch issue 7: a lovely hoop design by Durene Jones of Marie from The Aristocats - but just this morning I`ve learnt that another one of Durene`s designs (and my stitching) is `out there` now: some issues of the latest WOXS also have `our` Christmas cat as an extra freebie, so I`ll add a photo of that one too. 😉 Hope you`ve enjoyed seeing them all, happy stitching! 😊

WOXS 300 bells and gifts, lions and unicorns, Tigger and Dumbo, Mona Lisa and Rome

The three-hundreth (300!) issue of The World of Cross Stitching is in the shops now, so I can finally share Fiona Baker`s two lovely Christmas designs that I stitched a while back:

I love 1) anything Christmassy, 2) designs that combine cross stitch and blackwork, and 3) multi-purpose projects. And since the cute bell and tartan gift designs are to be made into cards that can also be used as tree ornaments, they definitely tick all those boxes for me. 😉

Talking about WOXS - do you remember the girl with unicorn from issue 297? I posted here about Anne Stokes` artwork, translated into a cross stitch chart by Fiona Baker, at the time when the magazine came out - and look who`ve found their way back to me? 😍

I`m so happy to be reunited with them, I`ve already ordered a white frame/grey mat combo - similar to what they used at the photoshoot -, so as soon as it arrives, I`ll just have to wash and iron the fabric and it`ll be ready to go on the wall... to join my lion, designed by Durene Jones, that I`ve also managed to finish recently, yay! 🤗 Here`s my progress video - for once, I managed to place the image roughly at the same place whenever I took a photo, so the last few seconds of the colours gradually filling out the spaces between the black lines look almost like stop motion animation. 😊

As you can see from the last pic, I`ve made some modifications: I omitted the FKs in the eyes and the whiskers because what grabbed me in this design in the first place was its stylised quality, so after some inner debate, I decided not to add the realistic whiskers. And instead of turning the finished piece into a round cushion, I opted for framing it in a hoop, which I bound with dark brown ribbon (with the help of my patient hubby, who held the hoop for me while I went round and round the plain wood for about 20 minutes). 😊🦁

Stop motion animation reminds me: remember these 4 Disney samplers I stitched for Hachette Partworks?

Since they are published in weekly instalments, with one character per every 2-3 issues, each of these 35 characters have to be restitched in a one-colour-at-a-time step by step fashion:

The other day, this cute little stop-motion ad came up in my news feed on Facebook - so here`s 🐘🐘🐘 Dumbo 🐘🐘🐘 from issues 3 and 4, one colour at a time! 😃

What else has been happening? 🤔 I`ve bought a new chart for myself - noteworthy only because I hardly ever do, thinking I`d never have the time anyway, which is still the case, only I couldn`t miss the half price sale at HAED, so... ta-dah! 😆

I have no idea when I`m going to even start this, especially as now that some kinks have been worked out with Pattern Keeper, my Starry Night chart is a go, too! 🤪 Meanwhile, in Rome:

So far, I`ve managed to spend 2 evenings working on this - and 4 (FOUR) days going through my entire DMC collection (several times!!) to try and match the pre-sorted threads that came with the kit:

Don`t laugh at my cushions - I almost never stitch kits so I don`t need fancy needle keepers, etc. 😉 I`m happy to report that it might have taken ages but eventually, I managed to identify all 119 colours of the design, so now that ominous line in the instructions about using them sparingly doesn`t daunt me so much - not that I`m not frugal with my threads anyway, but tangles, etc. happen and when you have 1 length of a colour, that`s not ideal (who wants to be under pressure when they cross stitch, anyway?) 😉 And on that note, I`m off to sew a few more little Xs, thank you for visiting my blog and happy stitching! 😊

Scottish tartan lavender sachet, Rome and more Disney

I have a finish that I can share as soon as it`s done! 😲😱😂 This weekend, we`re celebrating my mother-in-law`s 85th birthday and, among other things, she`s going to get this lavender sachet:

I bought this kit a couple of months ago when we took the first road trip of 2020; we went up to Loch Ness and came back the next day via Aberdeenshire where we did a bit of castle spotting. As soon as I saw this little cutie in the Drumnadrochit gift shop, I thought of MIL: she`s a passionate collector of lavender sachets and the kit included that too so not only did I have fun stitching it, I didn`t have to hunt for dried lavender once it was finished, either. 👍

I promised more Disney pics in the title and I will add them in a minute, but first here`s a quick peek of my newest treasure: I don`t often buy large kits (because I have plenty fabric and threads so I tend to buy charts instead) but recently I saw this picture and fell in love with it:

It is a large (80x50 cm) design of Rome by Thea Gouverneur and as well as being stunning, it also features almost all the attractions we visited last summer, so I can`t wait to start on it - I`ll be remembering the summer of 2019 every time I look at it. 😊

OK, more Disney. I wasn`t going to post so soon but the editor from Hachette Partworks has sent me some official photos and they`re such beauts I have to share. 😉 So from my last post, you may remember the sampler(s), the 4-part cushion and the two Alice in Wonderland pictures...? Well, this is what they look like when a professional photographer does them justice. 😃 Stay safe, peeps, and happy stitching!

pots of gold, Disney galore and fun with lions

Another month, another post - and, as usual, this is prompted by new publications (honestly, I have no idea what I`m going to do in future now that both Crazy and Gold are no more 😭 - probably forget to post on this blog for months 🤷‍♀️).

But for the now, there`s plenty going on in the UK cross stitch magazine market: first up, issue 13 of Jamie `MrXStitch` Chalmer`s awesome XStitch Magazine is out, and in it is this cute little rainbow design:

It`s been my first ever Climbing Goat Designs stitch and I loved it, not only because it was a nice`n`easy full XS only design but also because the colours are gorgeous and they really pop on the `Cloud Summer Sky` aida I`d ordered from Sew It All. 😊🌈

Also out this week is the first issue of the new Disney cross stitch series by Hachette Partworks. I stitched the 4 samplers, designed by Durene Jones, that are the backbone of the series that`ll also feature other Disney charts every week (some of which are also mine). I`m not sure of their order of publication but I`ll add pics here of the ones I`ve already seen advertised either on the telly or on Facebook:

Fair warning: the following will be loads (and I mean LOADS!) of pictures because I thought, since I`d taken individual photos of every character, I might as well add them here - there aren`t many other places where you can see closeups of them all, even if some might be not-so-perfectly lit. 😉

Sampler 1:

Sampler 2:

Sampler 3:

And, finally, Sampler 4:

I have also seen the 2 Alice pics advertised as coming in an issue soon as extra:

Finally, in the tv ad 👇,

there is also a quick appearance of this fun cushion that I just affectionately called Lego-Mickey - even though I didn`t always feel affectionate when I had to hand-hold that massive piece of fabric (I put the remote there for size reference) but I do love to stitch nice big blocks of colour, so all in all, it was a winner. 😉

Wanna see more pictures? *pretends not to hear loud screams of NOOOOOO!*

I`m not going to add one of the Museum Shelf HAED just now - I`ve added only 2-3 lengths of thread in total to where it was the last time you saw it so there`s not a great big change. 😕 However, I decided to spoil myself with a nice, relaxing (i.e. NO confetti in sight) project from Durene Jones`s new bookazine:

I`ve had my eye on that lion ever since it was first published but I misplaced my magazine (and I can`t even remember now if it was in WOXS or Gold). But now I`ve got this Durene Jones Special and I had the fabric and threads needed, so last Wed I started and - you know you and a chart must be a good fit if you can`t put it down! 😉 - I`ve just finished all the 6000+ black sts and I`ve got a few hundred of some yellows too so woohoo, I`m almost halfway there! 🤗 I`m so excited, can`t wait to see it on the wall, I`d already bought the 12" hoop that I want to use to frame it. Hope you`re all having this much fun with whatever you`re working on atm, stay safe and happy stitching! 😊