WOXS 348 and Peter Rabbit "Autumn"

It`s been another busy week in my wee stitchy corner: the latest issue of The World of Cross Stitching is out, with the Emma Congdon card that I stitched (7 or 8 months ago ...? 😳) as the magazine`s free gift, and I`ve also managed to remember to take close-ups of my latest Peter Rabbit finish, the Autumn sampler, yay! 🥳 Hope you`re all having fun with your current projects too, happy stitching! 😊

Rome update (mostly)

I`m tidying up my magazines and only just realised that last month I forgot to post about these wedding cards! 😳 Luckily, I have the time now to rectify the problem (hence the tidying of magazine shelves, etc. because I plan to repaint the bedroom). So:

These easy-to-personalise cards by Megan Caines of Meloca Designs were featured in issue 320 of The World of Cross Stitching, and I had great fun stitching them as they were just the right blend of get-on-with-it-quick-symmetrical (handy when time is of the essence!) and something-unique-to-this-particular-card-before-symmetry-gets-monotonous. 😊

So as I have mentioned, I`m trying to make the most of being between commissions at the moment, running around the house cleaning, painting, reorganising - but I also dug out some of my own projects that I hadn`t seen for months and months, e.g. this Autumn cottage by Carol Thornton from Gold 140:

My progress on this is frustratingly slow, not only because of work commitments but also because in my wisdom, I picked this pale yellow aida from my stash, and if you`d ever heard me moan about cardboard thick fabric that I have no choice but work on, you`d wonder why I put myself through this misery voluntarily, but waste not want not, amirite, and this freebie that came with a kit or a magazine was the perfect size for this project, so on I plod, I suppose... 🤷

However, just to give my poor hands a wee break, yesterday I also dug out my Rome stitching from under the bed - er, not that holding this rigid tube of linen is much easier after a while, but I desperately want to see some progress on this one too. I had to go back to a post in 2020 😲 to see where I last wrote about this Thea Gouverneur design - looks like the last time I took a photo, I`d just finished the first A3 page of 10:

This was in December 2020, and I must have picked it up at some point since then because I have some of the Spanish Steps done, so I`m just plodding on with those horizontal lines at the moment, hoping to reach the right edge of the design before I have to put this away again - I`m about to start Page 10 in the bottom right corner, I`m so excited! 😀

As I was reading this older post, I also realised that I`m mentioning there how I spent four days going through all the threads, matching them up to my DMC stash (in case I run out of a colour - I don`t like that kind of pressure when I`m stitching), but I never showed y`all the storage system I upgraded from 3 cushions to just one folder, and since I`m supposed to be giving some tips here 😉, I thought I`d share it with you, in case any of you finds it a handy idea.

So this was my original setup, something I just quickly came up with when I opened the kit because I wanted to start stitching straight away (er, and some think I have the patience of a saint?!? 😂). But I soon realised that not only did these 3 cushions take up a lot of space, there was also the danger of my needles with leftover threads disappearing into the cushion, so I needed another solution. Eventually, I ended up buying some of these numismatic sheets: there are various sizes of pockets, depending on what the coin collector wants to store/display in them; I chose the 12-pocket pages because these are small enough to store just a few lengths of threads but not too small so that my fingers would struggle to get the threads out (plus, the design uses 119 colours, so 10 pages worked out perfectly).

I decided that the easiest (for me) way to find a thread is to group the symbols by shape - I admit, this pic is not the best example, there are easier ones like squares or triangles... I guess this page is the `they have a dot somewhere in them` group 😂. Anyway, hope some of you will find this idea useful, thanks for visiting and happy stitching! 

sunflowers, returned stitches and Monarch update

Just a quick post because I`m in a stag-stitching frenzy, but issue 283 of The World of Cross Stitching is out now, so I can share my one and only pic of these cute little sunflowers in vases that are this month`s free gift:

Created by Fiona Baker, this cheerful little motif has been turned into a lovely wee needle case:

On Monday, I had another Super-Postie: two of my old stitches have been returned, both by Carol Thornton, the ladybird and the Spring cottage - yay, can`t wait to have these framed too!

Framed `too` because a couple of weeks ago I had some returned pieces framed - I`m not sure if I`ve added pics of that great event here or not but rather than scroll back, I`ll just add them here:

And finally, a quick update on The Monarch of the Glen: I finished Page 6 of 12 last night and am about to start on Page 7, woohoo! Happy stitching, peeps! 😊

cosy autumn sampler - Cross Stitcher 336

This week the latest issue of Cross Stitcher is out in the UK, and in it is this gorgeous design by Rebecca Spencer that collects all the things we love about autumn in one curl-up-on-the-sofa-under-a-blanket-and-revel-in-the-cosy-feeling sampler. 

While you try to make up your mind whether the teddy is your favourite or that mug of hot chocolate, may I just point out that there`s a sewing machine there too? *squeals excitedly* 😉 And talking about sewing: it`s too late now but I wish I had taken photos before adding the backstitch - as it is, you`ll just have to take my word for it that I had that deeply satisfying feeling you get when after a few well-placed stitches, a splodge of reds and oranges turns into a basket of apples, or a rectangle of blue into the padded back of an armchair. #clever

I have a few close(r)-ups for this project, here they are:

Hmm, that last one`s a bit flash-bleached... anyway, you get the idea. 😉 In other news: some of the DMC projects I stitched a few months ago have been launched now so I can add them to my photo album here. This pair of love birds was a sweet little exercise as the fabric is pre-printed so I only had to stitch the birds themselves and the background is already done. #noice

And around the same time, I stitched these gorgeous flowers too - I`m glad to see the kit is available to buy now. Thank you for scrolling through all these pics, happy stitching!

autumn woodland - The World of Cross Stitching 272

This week the latest issue of WOCS is out and in it is one of my favourite projects to date: Amanda Butler`s stunningly gorgeous woodland walk (a companion to her `Bluebell Woods` from issue 255).

Autumn is my favourite season and a huge part of the reason for that is the glorious range of warm red, yellow, orange and brown colours of the leaves on the trees at this time of year. I`m also very fond of these wee bridges going over babbling brooks, there are plenty of them here in Scotland and this one reminds me of a recent trip to Perthshire, where I took a photo of my son standing on a not dissimilar little bridge just outside Blair Castle. But if I remember correctly, after the vivid colours of the foliage, the next thing I noticed in this pic was not the bridge - probably like 9 people out of 10, I squealed "Bunny!!" too as soon as I saw it. 😂

This project took 82 hours to stitch and I took a progress pic every 10 hours but rather than adding 8 photos one under the other, I put them together in a mini-film (`as usual`, now I can say again 😊). But before showing you that, here`s the fruit of my 1,5 day off last week, a. k. a. private stitching: I decided to personalise my plain green backpack, so I stitched a couple of sunflowers on hessian patches for the bottle holder mesh pockets on each side, and I also made a wee key ring for the zip, using one of Durene Jones`s autumn leaf designs from the latest issue of Cross Stitch Crazy (246). Have I mentioned I loved autumn leaves? 😃 Happy stitching!