castles and butterflies - Gold 156 and Crazy 256

Oh, how cool, just noticed that there are exactly 100 issues between these 2 mags! 😁

And they`re both in the shops now so I can share a few pics of the Carol Thornton castle I stitched for Cross Stitch Gold and the lovely butterflies by Cheryl McKinnon that`s this month`s free gift with Cross Stitch Crazy.

This project was custom-made for me: not only do I love Carol Thornton`s paintings-turned-into-cross-stitch-designs, but landscapes are my favourite cross stitch subject AND I love castles (we usually try to organise our family holidays around visiting as many as we can... which is not a difficult task in Scotland btw 😉). The project took just shy of 100 hours, mostly thanks to the confetti-heavy foreground of the flowers, but I loved every minute of it. Here are my progress pics strung together in a mini film:

And here are the lovely butterflies that are the free gift with issue 256 of Crazy, complete with purple hoop - I like it when there`s a different finishing idea for a project (but of course, this could be made into a card as well). Happy stitching!

Spring cottage and zombie love

Issue 155 of Cross Stitch Gold is out now and in it is my next Carol Thornton - I love her paintings and I think they translate really well into cross stitch. You might remember the ladybird I did recently, or her Christmassy cat lying on a cushion from last year, and there`s a castle also by her that`s already featured in the preview of the next issue of Gold (but more on that when the time comes).

For now though, the Spring cottage. Even though I had to rush like mad to finish it (I stitched it at the beginning of December and there was a lot going on at the time, so I had to do a few 16-hour stitchy days before the deadline) but my overall memory is that I loved working on it. Landscapes are my favourite subject matter anyway and I particularly like quaint wee cottages+horses+Spring flowers, so this was an ideal project for me. Because of the rush, I only stopped a few times to take a photo of my progress - here they are:

40 hours

100 hours - finished 😊

Those crooked chimneys cracked me up: I couldn`t help thinking of Spongebob every time I looked at my little "excited" cottage:

And here it is, beautifully framed in Cross Stitch Gold:

In other news, I finally got organised (even though I still don`t know where March has gone???) and now that I`ve obtained Issue 7 (the "Love" issue) of XStitch Mag, I thought I`d add a picture of the little zombie I stitched for them.

WARNING!!! The following is not of the cute teddies and sweet kittens variety so if you`re not into brain-eating zombies, please stop scrolling here! 😉

🧟‍♂️🧟‍♂️🧟‍♂️🧟‍♂️🧟‍♂️🧟‍♂️

This has been my first ever The Witchy Stitcher design and even though I wouldn`t have chosen the subject matter for myself, I thoroughly enjoyed the technical aspect; it`s a well-constructed pattern that flowed easily, which is always a plus for me among all the confetti-heavy pieces I often work on. And my son`s in the process of binge-watching The Walking Dead, so he appreciated my being so trendy. 🤣

That caption makes me giggle every time. 😆 This wee zombie only took 18,5 hours to stitch and I like how photographer Stacy Grant chose to frame it with torn black paper. Hope you like both of these - very dissimilar in style - cross stitch projects, have a lovely Easter and Spring break, and happy stitching!

Immediate Bonanza

It so happens that this month, three of Immediate Media`s titles have one or two of my stitchings featured and since I`m having a rare day off today, I`ve decided to create a mega-bumper-blog-post. I`ll try to rein in my tendency to waffle but please prepare yourselves for lots and LOTS of pictures. 😉

Sticking to their chronological order, first up is issue 253 of Cross Stitch Crazy, with these 8 little cuties:

These Lucie Heaton designs were so much fun, I mean how often do you get to stitch something that takes less than an hour, uses only a few colours and still turns into an adorable teddy? 😉

Still on the subject of cover kits, the free gift with this month`s WOXS is one of the two Durene Jones designs I stitched for issue 279:

Similarly to the double sided snowman I stitched a few months ago, this decoration has a front and back too - and it had a real "Easter egg" in store for me because even though I was looking at the chart for about 12 hours, I only noticed the wee chick hiding there at the very last moment, as I was adding the backstitch. I was grinning like an excited toddler! 😂

The other Durene Jones design in WOXS 279 is this beautiful set of a floral table runner and two coasters. The table runner took about 70 hours to stitch and I loved working on it - Durene is so experienced in making the stitcher`s life easy with her shading so that one can hop from one colour/area to the next with ease.

Having done one corner, I just flipped the fabric upside down and repeated the same motif at the other end:

Finally, I added the border and stitched the two accompanying coasters:

OK, so they weren`t the easiest to photograph (should have taken a panoramic photo perhaps?) but here they are in the magazine, finished with a white felt backing:

Finally, this week Cross Stitch Gold 154 hits the UK shops and in this issue, there`s the gorgeous ladybird by Carol Thornton that was one of the best therapeutic stitches I`ve had in a long time. It took 86 hours to finish but frankly, I could have gone for another 86, just using up one skein of 819, 3865 and 3866 after the other (I thought the ladybird itself would be the piece de resistance, and it was in a way, but I found those big petals surprisingly soothing). Occasionally, I remembered to stop to take a photo and I strung these together in a mini film, from the initial tribal motif 😄 to the gorgeous finished cushion, and I even sneaked in a picture of the back too because I liked how that in itself looked like a pastel drawing or a watercolour painting. Thank you for scrolling all the way down here, hope you liked the pic-fest and happy stitching! 😊

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!

sunflowers - Cross Stitch Gold 148

This week the new issue of Gold is out and in it there`s this lovely bunch of sunflowers, designed by Fiona Baker.

I love, love, LOVED everything about this project! I`m pretty sure I`ve mentioned before that sunflowers are my favourite (she said, with tongue firmly lodged in cheek 😜), so the subject matter was ideal, to start with. I also love the cheerful Smurf-blues of the vase and the butterflies that complement the cheerfulness of the flowers, and I loved working on the natural evenweave - oh, and I love the finish too, it looks awesome framed in that hoop! 😃
Good news: I`ve managed to find a movie maker app, woohoo! (I`m saying it as if it was hard. No. Finding the app took about 8 seconds, it`s just this is the first time in ages that I actually had time to look into the matter). So here are my progress pics strung together in a mini-film - enjoy! (It`s probably better to switch on Full Screen first so it`s not too tiny.) 😊

tiger - Cross Stitch Gold 147

Finally! I was soooo looking forward to seeing this in print! And considering I stitched it around Christmas last year, it`s been a long, very long wait. 😉

Peekaboo...

Marilyn Barkhouse`s artwork, titled `Emerald Regard`, was expertly converted into a cross stitch chart by Fiona Baker, and the clever sewing team turned it into a stunning cushion:

I won`t lie: it wasn`t my easiest piece ever... but probably one of the most rewarding. Think of your idea of an `easy stitch` - and then take the opposite of everything that`d entail. 😂 Aida? Nah, let`s go for evenweave. White? Nooo, black, so that the holes are harder to see! Two strands? Meh, the loop start is overrated anyway - let`s go with 3 strands; that way, at least there`s more chance of the threads twisting and making bulky stitches...? Sure, and what about backstitch? Keep it to the minimum? No way! Let`s stitch every single hair on that tiger`s neck individually - some with 1 strand and some with 2, just to keep it interesting! 😂

But. If you`re the kind of stitcher who likes to be kept on their toes and/or wouldn`t mind to put some hard work in for a stunning result, then this is the project for you. And it takes less time than you`d think: 70 hours for the cross stitch and another 8 for the backstitch, so even if you can only do an hour a day, you`d have a cushion like this in about 3 months...? I`d say: yes, please! 😉

I`ve got a few progress pics for this project - random photos this time, because instead of taking one every 5 hours, I only stopped at `major points`, mostly when I started a new patch or group of colours. Oh, and while looking through my pics, I came across one with my high-tech bandage solution: working with 3 strands took its toll on my poor fingers so I devised this impromptu shield out of a Juicy Fruit packet and some sellotape (don`t worry, it was a temporary measure until I got some proper plasters and since then I`ve even invested in some silicone finger cones). So I thought I`d include that pic as well, hope you`ll enjoy the slideshow (since I can`t make mini-movies anymore 😔), happy stitching!

5 hours - first go at black on black, just to see if I can see 😂

25 hours - getting the hang of this 3 strands on black caper 😉

40 hours - elation as the bottom right corner is completed 🤜🤛

45 hours - Houston, we have a nose!

62 hours - YAAASSSSS! Finally got to the eyes!!

70 hours - XS done. Not bad, but just look at what a difference adding the BS makes! 👇

78 hours - FINISHED! All the fur, whiskers, everything`s in place! #bestfeeling

Rofl @ this casualty of war 😂

lovebirds, princes and fairies

Now there`s a title I never thought I`d write - sounds a bit like a collection of fairy tales, doesn`t it? But no, it`s just a list of some of the cross stitch pieces that have been published lately. First up, Lucie Heaton`s cute little fairy gift tags that are the free gift with this month`s Cross Stitch Crazy (241):

They were a lovely quick stitch, a very enjoyable day-off from the larger project that I was working on at the time, and the finished tags look super sweet:

Next up is issue 146 of Cross Stitch Gold: the free gift in this magazine is mine too, a sparkly bookmark to commemorate the upcoming royal wedding.

And finally, in the same issue of Gold is this gorgeous pair of parrots (both the lovebirds and the bookmark were designed by Fiona Baker). I enthusiastically started to take pictures of this project every ten hours, thinking it`d take much longer but those bands of oranges, yellows and greens were so satisfying to stitch that I simply couldn`t put it down and it grew surprisingly fast. Still, I have a few pictures for this one, hope you`ll like them and until next time, happy stitching! 😊

10 hours - 1 bird

20 hours - 2 birds

34 hours - XS finished

37 hours - BS detail added

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!