Kate Knight cushion - Cross Stitch Gold 130

I`m so chuffed that I can finally share pictures of this gorgeous design! :D I stitched it in February-March - it didn`t take 2 months to stitch (actually, it was a fairly quick one at 70 hours) but there was a little delay due to fabric hiccups. I loved the first one I got, it looked a bit like washed denim but it was evenweave; unfortunately, I realised pretty soon that it`d be more suitable for freehand embroidery. The warp and weft of the fabric was so dense (or fluffy?) that I couldn`t see the holes not only with a white pillowcase on my lap but I actually put a lamp (= a torch in a box with a see-through lid) under it - NB. Don`t try this at home! I still couldn`t see the holes but nothing else on top of that, I almost blinded myself, rofl.

So after a quick discussion with the editors, we decided that since I don`t have 3 or 4 years to finish this one project, we`d better get some `more standard` evenweave from Zweigart - and I`m so glad we did! The new fabric was perfect not only because of the holes were easier to see but also because the darker navy blue was closer to the shade of Kate Knight`s original artwork and it made the colours of the birds and the leaves stand out even more dramatically.

I took this photo to plead with the editors, lol: the one on the left shows the progress after 2 days of stitching;
the one on the right took 2 hours on the new fabric ;) #Irestmycase

I`ve decided not to make a `film` this time: since it only took 70 hours, I only have 7 photos, taken every 10 hours. I thought in this case it`d be pointless to stop after every five because it`s one of those designs where not much seems to be happening between progress pictures. Once the middle section was done and I stitched the first shade of green on the leaves, it was just a matter of going round and round, adding more and more shades in cross stitch and backstitch. So here are my photos first, and finally the picture of the cushion in Cross Stitch Gold, one of my favourite finishes of all time! :)

Union Jack Mini Cooper - Cross Stitcher 305

In all the excitement of the Bank Holiday weekend, I almost forgot that issue 305 of Cross Stitcher has been in the shops since last Friday, with my little cover star on it, a classic Mini Cooper, complete with British flag roof. This adorable design by Jane Prutton took 30 hours to stitch, and I have a before and after backstitch photo of it - I love how much difference adding the details has made to this project! :)

I also received my subs copy of Cross Stitch Gold the other day, and although there is still a long wait until the next issue comes out in the middle of June, at least there`s already a sneak peek here of the gorgeous Kate Knight cushion I was working on last month - squeeeeee, can`t wait to see more! :D Hope you`re having better weather than we do just now, it`s a sleety snowy rain that comes on every time I hang out the washing... meh. Enjoy the rest of the long weekend, happy stitching! :)

Kate Knight cushion in The World of Cross Stitching 211

The latest issue of WOCS contains one of my works, the one I simply nicknamed `orange tree` - it might be the Tree of Life for all I know, I just went for the most obvious (it is stitched on a gorgeous, tangerine coloured fabric, maybe Lugana, as far as I remember, but I might be wrong there). As usual, this has been a while, too - actually, it kinda seemed to go on forever: not only because it wasn`t what you`d typically call a stitcher-friendly project (out of the 86 hours it took, I spent over forty just doing the backstitch, and most of this you won`t even notice, e.g. the fiddly individual petals on the 70-odd blue flowers and green leaves around the frame), but also because I started it before my 3-or-4-week summer holiday and finished it after we came back, so it seemed that I`d worked on it for months. :)

I have quite a few progress photos for this project but I`d like to apologise in advance for the quality of some of these. I must have taken them in the evenings, under a reading lamp, or maybe behind drawn curtains - I remember it was very hot when I was stitching this, so I frequently had to darken the room just so that it wouldn`t feel like an oven. Anyway, here they are:

Every journey begins with the first step: a tentative start on Day 1
(photo DEFINITELY taken in sunlight streaming in through window)

Still at the stage of figuring out the best way to go about this design :)

And the solution: stitch dark outlines of flowers as reference points
(plus all 3 shades of green for leaves, so no need to come back later)

Backstitch defining not only flowers and tree but wee birdies as well :)

The above-mentioned fiddly backstitch: one shade darker blue for the petals
and 2 different shades of green for the tiny leaves

And, finally, the finished product - gorgeous, even if I say so myself :)