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! 😊

Cross Stitch Gold 109

I might as well come clean: I have no idea how it`s already the middle of February. All I remember is, it was Christmas, my parents were here, then they flew back to Hungary on 12 January and I started to work like crazy on my latest commission for Collection (a massive, 180x180 picture by Maria Diaz with stunning detail, partly thanks to the miles of backstitch and 320 French knots, eek!), for which my deadline was 3 February. Eventually, I was a few days late with this one, due to a cold `epidemic` that swept through the whole family (Gregory brought some bug home from school and I got it from him, then DH from us), so in my capacity as a patient-and-nurse, I lost a week or so of precious stitchy time. Luckily, I managed to more or less make up for it by stitching solid 10 hours per day for the past couple of weeks. Now I`m working on a Durene Jones gorgeousness for Gold - and this reminded me that the current issue of Gold has my bunny wabbit in it so here I am to share.

Another confession: I didn`t take progress piccies for this piece, only one photo of the finished piece, front and back. Now before you accuse me of `stitchers` snobbery`, I couldn`t care less what the back of anybody`s work looks like - I know it`s a hotly debated topic in many stitchy circles but I, personally, don`t care how others work, I just try to make mine as mess-free as possible (couldn`t do it any other way with my slight OCD, lol). Anyway, thanks to Amanda Gregory`s clever design, it was almost impossible to make a mess of this rabbit`s back (until I started the backstitch, that is), and I liked the mirror-effect so much I took a photo of it.

   

It`s such a cute little bunny, isn`t it? I stitched it just before the run-up to Christmas, around the time when the shops started to put their festive CDs on, together with their fake-tree decorations, and in the middle of all this, I was stitching for Easter. Never mind, in return I`ll be working on Santas and snowmen in June.

Talking about Christmas, I did some knitting while my parents were here - remember that big entrelac rectangle? My Mum claimed it for herself, and despite all my efforts to persuade her that I can`t turn a rectangle into a garment with arm and neck holes, she insisted that it`d make an excellent vest (=sleeveless jumper) for her. So with plain blue, I knitted a back for it, i.e. another rectangle, then started to sew up the two halves but got so frustrated that we packed up the whole thing into her suitcase, in the firm belief that if anybody can turn this into something wearable, it`s my Gran.

And for her, my Granny, I knitted a Fair Isle tam, similar in colours to the one that`s been her favourite for these past 15-20 years, and which hat is about to leave her after this rather lengthy partnership. Here are some pictures of my colour combo, a variation on this pattern, proudly donned by my lovely Gran who, you won`t believe this, is 80 years old - she hasn`t changed in looks for the past 20 years and no, it`s not just because she`s `always wearing the same hat`, lol! I hope to be as wrinkle-free as she is when I`m 50, let alone 80!

Easter decorations

Today my Mum and I finished the Easter decorations for the table - hurrah! They are uber-expensive styrofoam eggs (a pound for a dozen), over which we - and when I say "we", I mean "she" - stretched the little cross stitched patches I made (I found the patterns in Cross Stitcher 250). Aren`t they cute?

Sorry for the picture quality but professional photographer I ain`t...