mini-makes

I have been busy stitching large stuff lately, from Indian elephants to the Mother of All Christmas Stockings, but in between these big projects I`ve managed to finish a few smaller designs too, so I thought I`d gather them up and make one decent sized blog post out of them all.

First up, a recent issue of Crazy had this butterfly shaped frame with it as a freebie and I wanted to stitch it as soon as I saw it. My mom was here for a fortnight while the wee man was off school for the Spring/Easter break and I knew she`d go back home in time to celebrate my gran`s birthday so I had the perfect excuse too: I stitched it for her 84th.

While I was working on this, I remembered that there was another white wooden frame freebie in an earlier issue of Crazy, so I dug through my freebie bag and found it, a heart shaped one - I stitched this one for my mom, as a belated birthday present because we couldn`t be together in February.

I`m always pleased when I can give them matching gifts - for Mothers` Day (which is in May in Hungary) I got handbags and chocolate for them - I hope the carefully wrapped parcels survived the journey in mom`s suitcase because they can`t open them till 7 May. 😊
For Mothers` Day here in the UK at the end of March, I stitched another freebie kit for my MIL,  a card from the Diary of an Edwardian Lady series. It was a bit FK-heavy but even that didn`t matter, I was so elated to be able to start AND finish a project on the same day. 😂

And then sometime around March, there was another freebie kit that came out in WOCS, a Fizzy Moon card that I`d stitched... or, to be precise (and to sound like Thomson and Thompson), HALF a Fizzy...? 😕

Of course, it made much more sense when I saw it made up as a card: he`s peeking from behind a door! 😀

Apropos teddies: the other week I saw a random advertisement on my page from DMC and it looks like their new printed cross stitch kit range is up and running. I stitched this Tatty Teddy from their Me To You series and I have to say, this has been the most joyful way EVER to stitch a Tatty Teddy because for the first time, I didn`t have to bother with the BS-heavy fur as I only had to sew the present with the ribbon and those few flowers. 😁

I`m not a great fan of printed cross stitch per se, I think it`s very hard to be exact during the printing process and my OCD flares up when I see out-of-line... lines, I guess, but I have to admit that this is the quickest and easiest way to have a framed Tatty Teddy picture on your wall while feeling that sense of achievement that you get from a finished piece that you have stitched yourself. 😉
Have a lovely Easter weekend, people, and happy stitching!

Cross Stitcher 302

In the latest issue of Cross Stitcher, there are three mum-and-baby animal pairs that I stitched towards the end of last year. I loved working on these, they were a nice wee breather between larger projects and amidst the preparations for Christmas. Plus, I love Diane Machin`s pastel colours, they always have this soothing effect on me, which was especially welcome during those hectic days, and what could be cuter than baby animals with their mommies? It`s a pity I only had to stitch three of the patterns but there are lots more in the mag so they could be turned into a sampler even, or any number of little presents e.g. for a baby shower - as you`ll see below, in the magazine they are featured as baby toys and decoration for a basket.

Surprisingly, I have a couple of days off just now, so I`m very excited to be working on my own stuff for a change: it`s going to be a photo conversion for someones` Christmas present - if you think it is frightening how organised I seem to be, I`m not really, I just reckon if I can only pinch 2-3 days here and there, I`d better start preparing for Christmas 2016 nice and early. Also, just today I got nominated for the 7-day cross stitch challenge that`s doing its rounds on Facebook, so I`m going to spend a pleasurable hour or two rummaging through my old photos now - if you follow me on FB, you might see them popping up there, starting from tomorrow. Happy stitching, folks!

Picture taken by my official photographer, DS :) #WeeManPhotography

George, the handsome hippo

Do you remember Gloria, my glorious diva of a hippo? Well, I put her up for sale in my Etsy shop, and a couple of weeks ago someone saw her and - as expected - fell in love with her. Only problem was that this lady wanted a boy version for her (yet) unborn nephew, and preferably in grey. So I slightly amended the original Alan Dart pattern and came up with this:

I think he`s just as gorgeous as his big sister - pity the lady who`d ordered him never contacted me since! I hope she still wants him... then again, I wouldn`t mind keeping him at all! I`ll keep y`all posted.

Elsewhere, in my little dreamworld of freedom (=I haven`t had any commissioned stitching for over a week now), I stitched this freebie from the latest Crazy and made it up for my MIL for Mothers` Day - I hope she`ll like it, I wanted something cheerful (she had a heart operation a few weeks ago and she`s still not 100% but she`s getting there). So here are some colourful birds to cheer her up:

And as there`s still no sign of any model stitching in the pipeline for the noo, you won`t believe what I`ve unearthed from the bowels of my cupboard: La Scapigliata! Yes, I started working on it last night and I hope to finish it before the next commission arrives - again, I`ll keep y`all posted of my progress. Happy stitching!

Cross Stitch Card Shop 94

This will be such a flying visit that if you blink, you`ll miss me. I`m in the middle of another Maria Diaz design, a huge Paris scene (cca. 13x13", about 33000 stitches, tons of backstitch and 320 French knots), plus 6 Lesley Teare cards - all to be finished within the next 10 days so I`m stitching from dawn till dusk, with only the occasional tea break (on the upside, though, I`ve lost some of the Christmas blubber, yay!).

Anyhoo, as I`m slurping my tea just now, I thought I`d share some (rather creased!) piccies of the Mothers` Day cards that appear in this month`s (?) Card Shop - I haven`t seen the actual magazine yet but I know it`s in the shops... I think...?

*stares into middle distance with a confused expression, having no idea which day of the week this is supposed to be, then shrugs and, without even noticing, picks up needle to continue with the cobble stones*

timelessness

I have the weirdest `out-of-sync` feeling today. This is the first Sunday of May and as such, it`s Mothers` Day in Hungary: my Mum and Gran can finally see the Country Diary of an Edwardian Lady cards I stitched for them a couple of months ago. I keep reminding myself to phone Mum`s house this afternoon, where my whole family will get together to celebrate - and all the while I`m stitching Santa Claus for a magazine! And as there`s no other imminent sign of this being anything else but an ordinary Sunday, I`m sitting here in my PJs amidst all these suggestions of special occasions like Mothers` Day, Christmas and May Day. (Even the latter only half-counts in our house: Gregory`s off school tomorrow but Hubby has to go to work :( So much about a long weekend!). And somehow I didn`t feel extraordinarily (intergalactically?) powerful yesterday either while shopping in ASDA, although I`d had several messages of the `May the Fourth be with you` kind.

On Friday I did get La Scapigliata out of its box (HA!!!!). I have to admit, after a year-long hiatus, I was struggling to find my place on the chart, especially as I was working from two photocopied halves on different scales... so I spent the whole day making a new, complete copy of the original* and then painstakingly transferring the squares I`d already worked. Now I have only one chart to work from but by the time I finished with all the paperwork, I hardly had time + energy left to stitch, so this photo will not be too different from the one I last posted about a year ago (still, who remembers that, right?). Oh, and I`ve just realised that I probably cut the fabric too small... happy days! Good job I`ll stitch another version after this - but more of that later... I`m such a tease, aren`t I???

*It is from The Ultimate Maria Diaz Cross Stitch Collection.

knitted hedgehog

I have realised something today: hedgehogs are like buses. You don`t see any for ages, then two come along at once. After the Ed Hedgehog I stitched the other week, I couldn`t resist knitting this little critter when I saw the pattern here. 

How sweet is that nose? And the ears? I just love it! Needless to say, Gregory has already claimed it - oh, I almost forgot to mention: he`s home again, this time with a sore ear but luckily the Nurofen is already kicking in, so he feels well enough to watch endless episodes of Garfield (yes, you guessed it, I have to either knit or crochet him one...) and demand `healing` biscuits (???) on a regular basis.

If my updates are a bit less frequent in the next few weeks, it is because model stitching jobs are like buses too: at the moment, I`m working on some Angela Poole cards for Cross Stitch Collection and this morning I got my next assignment for Cross Stitch Gold, a mammoth mandala-type design by Durene Jones, it`s going to be gorgeous, a 180x180 circular cushion cover. Can`t wait to start but first I wanted to finish this hedgehog, plus I`ve got a reindeer to make (have I told you I`ve enrolled in a free Craftsy class? I have 2 days left to learn a bit more about crocheting). I have finished the two Mothers` Day cards for my Mum and Gran - I can`t show you the photos yet but they were WOCS freebies, both from the Country Diary of an Edwardian Lady series. Oh, and talking about magazines: on Saturday I picked up about 25 issues of Cross Stitcher from a charity shop for the hefty sum of £2 - yay! So if I have a spare minute (haha!), I have those to go through too. Hope y`all are busy doing your favourite things too, happy stitching!

this week`s finishes

I can hardly believe how long this week`s been and that we only reached Sunday just now! I don`t even remember where I left off the Snotty Saga - probably at Wednesday, when my poor, still sick Hubby went back to work, and Gregory and I almost made it to the door of the school but then we had to turn back, he had such a bad coughing fit (lol, first I typed "fitting cough" - I`m a bit distracted, watching Blues Brothers 2000 while I`m writing this). So anyway, I took him to the doctor`s and it turned out he had a chest infection and promptly got the miracle cure, antibiotics. I kept him home for the rest of the week (maybe that`s why it felt extra long?) but I`m happy to report that, judging by the star jumps and break-dancing routine I`m witnessing just now, he`s definitely going to school tomorrow.

I`ve got a few more finishes - so much so that I think very soon I can get back to my abandoned La Scapigliata!! I only have two more cards to make for Mothers` Day (the Hungarian one, which is in May, but I have to finish the cards before my Mum gets here in 3 weeks` time, so she can take them back for herself and my Gran and store them until the first Sunday in May. I`ve had so many things lost in the post that I`d rather give whatever I make to her in person). So those `ll be the gifts I have to make in advance and here`s what I made "looking back"... I have to be cunning here because my Mum sometimes checks this blog and I don`t want her to see any pictures that she`s not supposed to see yet - however, her command of the English language is not great enough to actually read all this blah-blah, so I`ll attach a photo of the magazine I stitched from:

Issue 150 of WOCS

It was her birthday a couple of weeks ago and I just finished stitching Ed Hedgehog and put it in a small white frame so I can give it to her as a belated prezzie when she`s here. 

I also knitted another two hats for the charity appeal:

I went a bit wilder with the colours this time: traffic cone orange with navy blue stripes and a pink one for a little girl

So that`s a grand total of six hats and I think I`ll stop here cause I was thinking, if everybody hands in half-a-dozen hats, the poor woman who organises this thing will end up going with a suitcaseful of hats to Uganda.

Friday afternoon I finally got to some shops but no matter how hard I looked, I couldn`t find Scooby brown yarn anywhere, so that project is still halted. On the other hand, I got some purple potatoes in ASDA - you should have seen the boys` faces when I served up dinner tonight! :))

Now I`m asking you: what`s wrong with my haggis, neeps and tatties? 

Scooby Doo

I`m happy to report that the green pig was/is a great success: we took it to the playground yesterday (and I had to push the bloomin` thing on the swing, whilst hoping against all hope that nobody saw me), and after sleeping with it last night, Gregory took it to school with him today for Show-and-Tell. So all in all, he`s quite chuffed with it - although the first thing he said this morning was that now my next knitting project (for him, obviously) should be a Scooby Doo, because "Piggy needs a friend". After failing to persuade him that I could make the red angry bird or the yellow one (Knitterbees also has patterns for those here), I spent about an hour this morning searching for Scooby - and found this:

Found this on the Vintage Knitting Lady`s website here 

Isn`t the Internet a wonderful thing? My son just utters a wish and within an hour, for a mere £1.50 I`m the ecstatic owner of a vintage Scooby - as well as a Scrappy! - knitting pattern. Whether I can make it for him is another question but at least the first step`s been taken.

I feel a bit guilty for inundating my so-called stitchy blog with all this knitting but it (and especially making knitted soft toys) became my hobby away from my hobby, more so since I started to "work" as a model stitcher. However, today I`ve been a good girl and done a bit more on my Gran`s birthday chefs:

Now I`ve got almost a whole dog and at least half a cat

And, finally, a mixed lot: the mohair beanie on the right is last night`s crop (for charity) and yes, you guessed it, I simply couldn`t resist putting up a photo of the black hat I knitted  for Mummy-in-law - this is the one she`ll get for Mothers` Day, together with this card I made a couple of years ago for a fair and never sold it, but I`m all for recycling... and sniggering at the moment cause the phrase `Here`s one I made earlier` reminded me of Vinnie Jones and Stayin` Alive... And now, of course, I`ll be humming it for the rest of the night, argggghhhhh!

I`m finally famous!!!

I wasn`t going to write today but this has just happened and anyway, I might as well celebrate the fact that I have...ta-dah: TWELVE followers! Yes, a dozen! And they`re not all just family any more, lol! Besides, I`ve just spent almost the whole day with my Mummy-in-law and I`ve got a new commission: she saw the hat I`d made yesterday and now she wants one too (before you think there`s something wrong with her taste, no, she didn`t see Gregory`s photo and no, she doesn`t want it in the same vibrant colours, just a plain black beanie). According to my laconic Scotsman of a hubby, she probably needs it for going to funerals - the cheek of him! So, I quickly amended my plans - I meant to stitch the freebie bookmark that came with WOCS?/Crazy last month (?) but 1) we gave her something similar a couple of years ago anyway (not that it matters: she could use a different one in every lovey-dovey she`s got) and 2) I`d rather give her something she really wants or needs. I already started it but as there`s no point in showing a picture of it just yet, I`ve decided to share with you some photos instead which I came across while looking for something completely different:

I forgot to add this on Valentine`s Day - this is the card I got from my wee boy :)

I accidentally found this in the archives, the model I stitched for Bothy Threads, called Sand Castle

Another model for Bothy Threads, a sporty sampler from Kate`s experimental Paddington series

Oh, and I almost forgot: today, in Dundee, I finally found a copy of Cross Stitch Collection 219 (now that 220 is already supposed to be on sale), so I`ve got my little owls where they belong, in my folder (remember? Ticking boxes...) and I`ve seen my Easter cards... OK, they`re actually Lucie Heaton`s, but you know what I mean - so I saw them featured from next month`s issue. Well, I haven`t bought issue 220 yet and if you haven`t either, here`s a sneak peek:

And finally - good job I didn`t mean to write today at all! - another surprise waited for me when we got home from Dundee: my copy of Cross Stitch Crazy 175, with my (well, again, it`s Jenny Barton`s, technically) Baby ABC in it... and for the first time ever, my name is mentioned!!! Yay! I`m going back to knitting MIL`s bank robber hat with the hugest grin on my face!

Cross Stitch Collection

I`ve been (literally) snowed under for a week now - although if I`m honest, it could be a lot worse than the couple of inches we`ve had so far: I could be staying in e.g. Ballater and spend my precious time shovelling two feet of snow, instead of sitting in my cozy living-room, furiously stitching. OK, at the moment NOT so furiously, since I`ve had a little mishap. The design I`m working on now is a mandala-type intricacy by Durene Jones for Cross Stitch Gold - actually, it`s more like a henna tattoo, using a lot of DMC 902 (garnet) as the basic colour with some pink, orange and electric blue to accentuate and, of course, a lot of gold (metallic thread and beads as well) to make it sparkle. Unfortunately, I only got one skein of garnet and it looks like I`ll need more like four, and Anne must be on holiday or off sick because it`s very unlike her not to answer my email for days - anyhoo, after running out of the main colour, I did whatever else I could but now I just have to wait for the replenishment (unless Hubby takes me to Kirkcaldy on Saturday - I will NOT drive in the snow! - where I can buy some). In the meantime, I`m itching to get on with my little chefs but I don`t want to get another big project out, in case I get too absorbed in it and then I wouldn`t want to go back to "the job". So as a something-in-between, I started to play with this cross stitch clock I`d picked up a few weeks ago for £3 in a charity shop:

I think I`ll give it to my mother-in-law for her birthday (unless I decide to keep it in the meantime). Of course, I could also use this mini-break to get on with my knitting: I want to make some hats for the Woolly Brew girls` new appeal and my second teddy square, technically, couldn`t even be called a square as it`s only 5 rows so far but last weekend I got a far more important job from The Boss. Gregory came to me with a fully developed picture in his head concerning a little alien that he wanted me to stitch for his gang of teddies to experiment on (?). So I "just" had to follow his instructions and make it the right size (he made me unpick the legs twice because they were too long and too wide!) - so here`s the result:

He even drew the eyes on a piece of paper so I had a template to follow, and he showed me (the little control-freak!) the angle he wanted me to sew them on - as a consequence, my Hubby says it looks more like a little green pig with his blue ears flopped over his eyes, as if playing Peekaboo... Anyway, now that I have the time to write, I thought I`d add some photos of the works I`ve done so far for Cross Stitch Collection (at least the ones that have already come out). As another first, I shall attempt to add a link, rather than a photo, to my blog - starting with the retro Xmas trees that appeared in issue 216. Then there were the thank you cards I stitched for issue 218; and the latest issue (219) has my Mothers` Day owls in it but I couldn`t find a link to this magazine just yet, so here`s a good news-bad news situation: I`ll add my own photos which are much less artistic than the ones taken by a professional photographer... on the other hand, if the links above didn`t work, at least you`ll SEE these, right? OK, I think it`s a nice, long post now so I`d better go and get some work done, not to mention that a picture is worth a thousand words anyway - so here`s another 4000 words` worth:

UPDATE: since this post, I`ve found these too here.