summer cottage, unicorn, sunflowers and more Rome

You wouldn`t believe the last 2-3 weeks I`ve had! 🙈 It all started so well: I dug out Rome and enthusiastically threw myself into stitching, but I also wanted to make the most of being temporarily commission-free, so I equally enthusiastically started working on projects around the house that I never have time for, from going through drawers and cupboards to painting the bathroom and the bedroom... and then, just when I had the bedroom half emptied, the front door blocked by big bags and boxes of stuff ready to take to the charity shops, my few hundred magazines neatly organised and two of the three bookcases taken out... I first had a sciatica flare-up (piriformis syndrome, to be precise) and I couldn`t move for days, then out of the blue, first I got the dreaded lurgy (not covid, the other one that`s like flu) and now my two boys are sick too. 😞 Luckily, though, I`m well enough now to look after them and just as well because the `holiday` is over, and I thought before I get too absorbed with work again, I`d better post here re. the most recent publications, the first of which is WOXS 322, with Susan Bates`s summer cottage on the cover:

This lovely colourful project took 75 hours, and after finishing the XS on Pattern Keeper...

... I added the backstitch detail - and just in case the difference doesn`t jump out at you from the first two pics, I add a photo of my paper chart that I marked with felt pens, I think the amount of backstitch shows up better on that.

Also out this week is issue 20 of XStitch Magazine, with this magnificent unicorn by Climbing Goat Designs that was a joy to stitch - I love the clever colour choices, the confetti sts blend so well that there`s more glimmer to this design than to many projects I`ve stitched where I had to add metallics for some extra sparkle.

Apart from not being able to sit in my craft chair for many days, then having a fever, and now having this weird side effect of the lurgy that makes my eyeballs ache (#WTF?!?), a lot less private stitching got done than I`d have liked - but to ease myself back into `stitchy mode` gently, I finished this little cover kit because I needed a needle case...

... and pre-lurgy, I also added more to Rome. I`m actually quite pleased with how it`s coming along, the Spanish Steps are almost completely finished now, and once page 10 in the bottom right is done, page 5 in the top right corner should be a doddle, just a few vertical lines, basically. Hopefully, I won`t have to wait too long before I can work on this again - here are a couple of pics of where I picked it up at the end of May and where I am just now, happy stitching, peeps! 😊

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! 😊