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! 😊

sunflowers, tv cushion finish and museum shelf update

Issue 359 of Cross Stitcher is coming out next Tuesday but the digital copy is already available so I thought I`d better add my piccie of the Maria Diaz sunflower fields here before I forget - the way my sense of time is getting warped these days, by the time I remember `next Tuesday`, it`ll probably be mid-August. 🤪

I love everything about this picture 😍, the feel of it, the colours, the fact that it`s a whole field of my favourite flowers, the blue skies, the depth created by clever use of half stitches and even by leaving some of the fabric unstitched... everything! It took 35 hours to complete, which surprised me a little bit for a 22x16 cm picture that uses only 25 colours - I guess I spent a few extra hours on the confetti of the greens and yellows in the foreground and then the backstitch around the petals. 😉 But I def enjoyed every minute of it - so much so that one day I plan to stitch this for myself too.

And while on the subject of making things for myself: I finally, FINALLY, finished the cushion cover that I`d imagined for my cross stitched tv test card! 🤩 I`m really chuffed with it, even if it took me over 5 hours of faffing about, involving everything from searching for bobbins to taking apart and then putting together again the sewing machine. However, after a few hours of struggling, I emerged victorious - I`ll even include a boring pic of the back here because I`m almost as ridiculously impressed with the slip cover (for I would never even dream about tackling the insertion of a zip! 😳) that I managed to sew the right side out as I am slightly awed by my mitered corners at the front - I really can`t stress enough what a great achievement this cushion cover is from someone who doesn`t like to sew! 😂

Finally, I`ve had a bit more time to work on my HAED Museum Shelf 🤗 I`m up to 48 hours and the bottom right corner is starting to look good, especially since I`ve finished Nefertiti and a bit more of the frame 😃 I`ll add the previous photo I took at 22 hours and also what it`ll look like finished, as a reminder 😉 Hope you`re all staying safe, happy stitching! 😊

kimonos, harbours and museums

The new issues of both Cross Stitch Crazy (268) and The World of Cross Stitching (294) are out now so I can share some pics of my pieces in these, yay! 😊

First up, the free gift with Crazy this month is this lovely Chinese girl bookmark, designed by Durene Jones:

I enjoyed working on this cover kit: I love the shading of the skirt and her hair, and it was fun to see all those floral motifs come to life as I was adding the backstitch. It took 7,5 hours to stitch, and I think it looks gorgeous framed by the cherry blossoms of the card.

In the new WOXS that`s out today, there`s this stunning picture by Emma Louise Art Stitch:

It is called St Ives Harbour, and it`s been one of the most unique projects I have stitched so far, its style is so different from anything else I`ve done but I love it - I hadn`t heard of this designer before but now I`ll be looking out for more of her work in future. For a medium sized image, it took quite a few hours (62 to be exact) to finish, and many of these were spent adding black backstitch lines around the stones in the wall and around each window pane, but it was so worth it for this final look. Plus, there was a bit of confetti in the foreground and half stitches in the sky, so all in all, plenty to keep the stitcher entertained (actually, I was surprised to see how long it took, those 60 hours felt more like 30).

Finally, here`s the latest update on my HAED Museum Shelf. I`ve been quite busy for the past few weeks so I only just got back to it yesterday. Consequently, there`s not much change since the last photo - I just added a bit more to the frame on the right. Here`s the first pic where I picked it up (that was taken at 10 hours) and I`m up to 22 hours just now. Hope you`re all doing OK, stay safe and happy stitching! 😊

floral hoops and HAED update

Issue 293 of The World of Cross Stitching is out now and there are two beautiful floral hoops in it by Jenny Van De Wiele that were a real joy to stitch.

If I remember correctly, they took around 10 hours each, so they`re fairly quick projects to whip up for a birthday, Mothers` Day or as a housewarming gift.

The finishing team had this interesting idea of turning them into 3D pieces of art by extending the flower stems beyond the edge of the hoop, and there`s a handy tutorial too in the magazine on how to do this.

Finally, due to other commitments, I had to put my HAED aside, but I`ve done about 10 hours on it so far. Since I always start stitching from the centre, I almost made the same "mistake" (which couldn`t be helped, really) as with the tv test card that got really bulky and heavy towards the end (I stitched that on 16ct aida, 4 over 2 to enlarge the design because I wanted a standard sized, 70x50 cm cushion). So in order to hold as thin/light a roll of fabric in my left hand, and for as long, as possible, I skipped and hopped to the right edge of the HAED design and the plan is to go from right to left in more or less equal width vertical strips - um, as you can see, I already failed 🤣 because at the bottom I just keep going leftward until my thread runs out of a particular colour but hey. 😉 Hope you`re all staying safe, at home, and enjoy your stitching! 😊

perforated paper cards, a finish and a new start

Well, it`s been a couple of months but I`m back with a new post - hope you`ve been all doing smashingly in the meantime. 😉

Cross Stitch Crazy 267 is out now in the UK and the free gift is a perforated paper card kit - just the one, mind, so you`ll have to choose between the blue tit and the teapot (both designed by the very talented hands of Durene Jones). I was lucky enough to stitch both, so here they are:

Yesterday, after two months (but in reality, after 60 hours in total), I finally finished Emma Congdon`s tv test card design that I fell in love with as soon as I saw it in Cross Stitcher (issue 349). I already bought the brown fabric to use for the back of the cushion I want to make but knowing me, it might be a while before I have a finished product so I thought I`d better share a pic now, before I forget. 😄

And before you say, `but how long would it take to go round the 4 sides and make a cushion cover?`, first of all, I don`t like sewing and second, I already started on my next project, which is much more fun than sewing boring straight lines... 🙄😉

OK, I`ll be realistic here: it may be a little while before I can show you the finished picture - according to the pattern tracker, I have 200 sts down, 75,000 to go 🤪 but one day, it`s going to be this HAED pic called Museum Shelf. Until then, happy stitching! 😊

Indian elephant and Van Gogh

I almost did something else again! But if I don`t post now, I never will. *puts on determined face*

I`m so busy having fun with my own stitching these days that I keep forgetting about other stuff I`m supposed to be doing. Not to mention the wee man`s school programs - and crocheting: have I mentioned I`ve learnt to crochet sunburst granny squares? I enjoy them so much I`ve started mass-producing them:

I`ve decided it goes faster if I do the same round on all of them - but when that gets too boring, I switch back to completing each square individually, it makes a change to swap between colours and stitch types. Hopefully, one day I`ll have enough squares to make a blanket.

So. There are some publications out there this week (last week?) that have my pieces in them, including this gorgeous Indian elephant in Gold 139, designed by Carol Thornton.

I love the vibrant colours and the straight lines that were especially soothing to stitch, as was all the filling in with that gorgeous pale yellow. Elephants are my favourite among favourite animals, so I was really pleased when this project came my way.

5,5 hours

11,5 hours

20 hours

32 hours

50 hours

67 hours - finished! 😊

I don`t always take pics of the back but I love how tidy those straight lines make this look

There`s also issue 257 of The World of Cross Stitching in the shops, and this month`s free gift is the beautiful butterflies card... that I think I`ve posted about already but here it is then, as a recap:

This week I was also excited to be able to pick up my parents` "Christmas" present from the framer - it looks just the way I pictured it in my head so I`m over the moon with it and I hope they`ll like it too. I`ll find out in about a fortnight - and when I come back from holiday, I can finally put some photos of it up here too.

What else? Finally, after 5 long years of owning the HAED chart of Van Gogh`s Starry Night, I managed to get round to having it re-printed in the library - I thought, why struggle when I can have the chart on A3 pages? So I had them done and last week I was ready to go:

I started from the bottom right corner and after 7 days I had my first page finish:

But then as I was showing it to folks on Facebook, I began to realise that I wasn`t happy with the colour scheme. 😩 I chose Starry Night not only because I love Van Gogh but also because blue is my favourite colour - as opposed to purple, the only colour I don`t like. I put my chart and a picture of the original painting side by side...

...and decided to abandon this project for the now. I think I`m going to chart it for myself, using blues instead of purples, and I`ll try to make it the right size so that I can still use this nice big piece of aida, which is still going to be quite large, even after I cut this stitched bit off (as there is no way I can unpick it). But so as not to be without Van Gogh in the meantime, last night I started his Sunflowers (I`ve had this Maria Diaz design for ages, it`s in the July 2009 issue (172) of Collection).

And while I was working on the bottom right corner of the purple Starry Night, I also realised that if I`m going to spend months and months stitching such a confetti-heavy piece, I`m going to need something (crafting-wise, I mean. At the same time, I`m also translating but that`s a different kind of challenge and satisfaction), so I`m going to need something that gives me instant gratification, i.e. a project that`s made up of blocks that can be finished in a day. So I had a look on the internet and found this amazing blackwork sampler (called `Save The Stitches`, free to download from Elizabeth Almond`s website), and I already have the fabric and threads - I`m going to use stranded cotton 301, 415 and 3821 instead of the metallics and no beads, either, I want to keep it simple and non-blingy. So in a few months/years/decades, I should end up with something like this:

How gorgeous is this?? 😍 I think I`m going to start this today 😉 Happy stitching!