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! 😊