Spring is here

There have been a few mags coming out recently and Spring is definitely in the air - not just IRL but as far as cross stitch charts are concerned.

In Cross Stitch Crazy 254, the cover kit is a pair of mice, designed by Helz Cuppleditch. I loved stitching both but my fave has to be the one in the hammock: 😄

Still on the subject of cover kits, I also stitched this month`s free gift with issue 280 of The World of Cross Stitching:

This birdcage bookmark is such an elegant design by Fiona Baker and a really easy stitch too, just a few quick backstitch lines between wee bits of cross stitch, so it`s an ideal last-minute gift, for example (it`s Mothers` Day on Sunday here in the UK. Just sayin` 😉).

Finally, issue 343 of Cross Stitcher has hit the UK shops today and in it Part 1 of 4 seasonal samplers by Faye Walsh is published, called Spring Is In The Air.

 It took 62 hours to stitch and I enjoyed it a lot - samplers made up of smaller pictures always build more quickly and I rarely have the chance to blend colours (as I had to here for the sea waves in the image in the centre), plus I liked the colours, the virtually no backstitch and the fabric too, it`s a beautiful lavender shade (in case you can`t tell from my photo 😂).

I took some close-ups of the individual scenes - my pics might not be exactly well lit but at least there are some details there that might not be spotted at first glance. Hope you like all these Spring-themed projects, happy stitching! 😊

memory jars - Cross Stitcher 334

What a great wee surprise to come back to from holiday: Susan Bates` memory jars pic is out in the latest issue of Cross Stitcher! 😃

"Surprise" because it was supposed to be in issue 335, according to my paperwork, but some projects must have been shuffled around - maybe just to amaze me with yet another strange little coincidence in life? (Yeah, coz the universe is out there to amuse me.) 😆 Anyway, so while on holiday, we went to see my BFF, who works as an event organiser for one of the museums in Budapest, and they recently opened a Frida Kahlo exhibition.

Obviously, that is not inside the museum: it`s the Wee Man posing with Eugene of Savoy just outside, because he has to climb up on every single thing. (My son, not Eugene of Savoy). Anyway, so imagine my surprise when I came back and saw this cover:

What are the odds, eh? *shakes head, bemused* And the next surprise was to finally learn the name of the designer of the memory jars (for some reason, it`s never included on the paperwork that I get with Stitcher projects). Although with this one, I had my suspicions. 😉 My first clue was the beach scene, but the warm yellows, reds and oranges seemed familiar too, I think they`re very characteristic of her designs, and now the mag confirmed that it is, indeed, by Susan Bates. 😊

I thoroughly enjoyed stitching this project. Each jar took 4-5 hours (40 hours in total), so I did 1 or 2 a day, depending on my mood, just revelling in the feeling of accomplishment that you get when you stitch card-sized designs that you can start and finish within one day. The colours are gorgeous, the backstitch gave each little pic amazing detail, the captions were quick work, loved the easiness of the aida... as I said, I thoroughly enjoyed the whole project. 😉 I took a photo of each individual wee scene, the lighting (as usual) is not the greatest but hopefully, you can nevertheless see a bit more detail. Happy stitching!

coastal scene and psychedelic hippo

Last Friday the latest issue (318) of Cross Stitcher hit the UK shops and it has the beautiful coastal scene on the cover that I stitched a few months ago.

It`s a Maria Diaz design at its best: patches of colour that make it easier to break the whole down to manageable areas, `daily bits` that help the project grow so much faster. The flowers in the foreground (1 day), the sea (2 days), the cliffs with the lighthouse (1 day), the beach and the harbour with the little houses (2 days) - and then, instead of spending another day or two backstitching... hardly any BS to add because it`s more like a watercolour painting! 😍

Fair enough, it took me a month to finish it, but only because I had the flu for 3 weeks in the meantime - fact is, it can be stitched in a week (if you need an urgent last-minute present for someone) because it`s one of those projects that you can`t put down, you know the type I mean? I think every stitcher is familiar with the concept of `I`ll just finish this little bit here and then I`m off to bed` and then you stay up till 2 a.m. 😂

The above-mentioned flu made me rethink a few things and I realised that the only time I have for myself is time I spend sick in bed, unable to do anything anyway - not exactly quality me-time. 😩 So I`ve slowed down a bit and now I can make room for other stuff too, e.g. I picked up knitting again and finished the little psychedelic hippo I started months and months ago. I named her Lucy after Lucy in the Sky with Diamonds, and put her in my Etsy shop for someone to fall in love with. 😁 I also dug out my Personal Stitching but I can`t show any pics of it yet, it was supposed to be my parents` Christmas present in 2016 but hopefully, they`ll get it this year. Happy stitching, folks!

latest publications: Collection 264 and Cross Stitcher 307

Yesterday my hubby must have been W H Smith`s star customer when he bought all these stitchy magazines for me. This month is a double whammy again: my sunny cushion was always meant to be in issue 307 of Cross Stitcher, and the shoe sampler, which I stitched around Christmas, was originally planned for the March issue of Collection but got bumped up to 264. So now I have all these goodies to share with you, yay! :)

First, Lucie Heaton`s sunny sampler. This is such a cheerful design with all the beach- and summer-related mini motifs, plus I stitched it on pale yellow fabric, the colour of custard, hmmmmm... so anyway, I was smiling the whole time while I was working on it. Not to mention the sunglasses & bucket combo reminded me of ZZ Top, so I was in quite a giggly mood but that might have been partly due to the general euphoria of knowing that we`d go on holiday as soon as I finished this one. And here it is, a plump little pillow - what is it with me and cushions lately? :O

Cross Stitcher 307

And in the new Collection, there`s the Jenny Barton shoes sampler that I stitched last December; originally, I wasn`t going to work around the Christmas holiday but I couldn`t resist this one: if you like stitching big blocks of colour that grow quickly, this is a dream project! :) I finished it in 99 hours and since I have loads of 5-hourly progress pics for this one, I strung them together in a mini-movie, as usual. Thank you for reading my post and happy stitching! :)

Cross Stitch Collection 264

Cross Stitch Gold 112 - parasols

I thought the time would never come when one of my stitches actually appeared in a magazine, it`s been sooooo long since anything of mine has been published! Or maybe that`s just how it felt to me... Anyway, here`s the latest one: my cheerful parasols, designed by Durene Jones, which ended up on an oh-so-summery beach bag.

It has been a real pleasure to work on this - deceptively? - easy-looking, smallish design; after all, it`s only 128x123 (on 14ct, 23,5x22,5 cm) and uses a total of 26 colours. However, it definitely needed the deployment of a good, easy-to-follow marking system, both for the similar shades of cream in the background and the backstitch. Oh, and for a little teaser, at the back of issue 112, you can see my sunflowers advertised from the next issue of Gold - yay! This might just mark the beginning of a summery cheer-spreading offensive on the part of Durene and yours truly...? ;)

Over halfway there, trying not to mix up which handle belongs to which parasol ;)

Just remembered in the nick of time that I wanted to take a photo
of the finished cross stitch, before starting the backstitch (ooops!)

And a mere 56 hours later - the finished product :)

surprise post

This post is not only a surprise to those who thought I`d disappeared (it is truly shocking how long I`ve neglected my blog!), but the title also refers to the surprise I got a few minutes ago. I was looking for a Riolis design and while browsing the Sew and So website, I spotted Twilleys on their list. I clicked on it, and sure enough, I came across some familiar pictures! :) I stitched these for Twilleys of Stamford such a long time ago that I can`t even remember where I saved the photos, so I`ll use Sew and So`s links. I worked this poppy wreath sometime last autumn, and this beach sign... oh, it must have been over a year ago now...? Gosh, and as I`m scrolling down the Sew and So page, I`ve just discovered some bookmarks here and here that were also stitched by me - wow, what a strange `reunion`!

That reminds me: this year it`ll be 20 years since we`ve graduated from high school and my old classmates are busy organising the party - for the first weekend in September! :( If everything goes according to plan, we`re going to Hungary in July for a wee holiday, so I`m going to miss this reunion again - such a pity, I`d love to see the old faces after all this time! Ach, well, I just have to wait another 5 years now... ;)

In other news, the reason why I`ve been neglecting my blog is that I`m super-busy with more (!) Christmas stitching - big piccies, cards, you name it. I`ve been humming Jingle Bells since the end of March now but photos, alas, I can`t show you yet - my next project will be in Gold 112*, out around the middle of June. So until then: happy stitching!

* Technically, if you`ve seen issue 111, you`ve probably seen my pic too in next month`s preview, but I`m such a tease, I won`t even tell you it`s the pa... oooops, it almost slipped out! :)

WARNING: this will be a very long post, with lots of links and some photos :)

Before I say what I want to say, I`ve just got to say this: I won again!! Same as with buses and hedgehogs: now two wins come along at once (of course, entering competitions helps). Last night I got an email from Celtic Rose Needlecraft, with 4 PDF patterns attached - Dartmoor Heather, Moonlight On The Shore, Cottage Garden Pond and Daffodil Wood. I`m so chuffed! I just wish I had more time... or more hands... or both... I think if I ever get round to do it, I`ll start with Moonlight On The Shore. (Note to self: Don`t forget to write Thank You email to CRN!).

And now, what I originally wanted to write about: visiting other blogs. The other day my dear friend Katya (http://astitchingtime.blogspot.com) has already touched on this topic when she apologised, unnecessarily, for leaving a longer-than-usual comment after one of my posts. Unnecessarily, because - don`t get me wrong, I`m, like everybody else, glad to receive any signs of appreciation, even if it`s just a four-letter word (I meant `Nice!`, naughty!) but I simply LOVE long, personal comments where we can engage in a friendly conversation. At the same time, I realise that that`s what emails and personal FB messages are for, and maybe not everyone`s interested in the above-mentioned conversation... luckily, this blog is MINE so I can do whatever I want with it, so here`s what I didn`t want to clog my friend`s comments with about her book review:

I`ve been meaning to read J. K Rowling`s `next book`, i.e. the one that came after Harry Potter for ages, just like one day I intend to read The Host by Stephanie Meyer, her `next book` after the Twilight Saga, because I`m always curious how an author is trying to break down the fences their epic first work has built around them. But I have to be honest, after reading Katya`s review of The Casual Vacancy, I might not rush too hurriedly into this novel - I tell you why. Because with every year passing, I notice that I`m less and less tolerant towards sad things. At the moment, I can (just) cope with watching the news every night but I can see a future where even that`ll be too much for me - if I picture my supersensitive, weepy future self, then look back at my Dostoevsky and Camus reading, Goddard and Becket watching teenage self, I guess I`m about halfway through the scale. The little time I have for guilty pleasures like reading, I try to fill with happy  and easy stuff, so apart from perennial favourites, like Pride and Prejudice, I read a lot of historical novels - do you think it`s cowardice that I seem to escape to bygone ages, when the world seemed a less complicated, nicer place? (I know it wasn`t, not really, but you still get the illusion).

Anyway, enough of the heavy stuff, back to other people`s blogs. If you haven`t visited Minnie`s blog (http://minnie-allxxs.blogspot.com) yet, do it now... I mean, after you finished reading this! You know how sometimes you regularly check out a blog and the person`s WIP photo never seems to change? (Like my DaVinci, lol!). Not Minnie`s, uh-huh. She must be stitching 20 hours a day and I love ALL her WIPs, which is rare but I guess we have a very similar taste, I`d gladly take on any of the patterns she`s working on. The other day she shared photos of some of her finishes and I cheekily tried to get her to give me her African ladies cushion (my attempts failed miserably, btw). Shame, it`d have looked so neat with my Joan Elliott design, which I managed to frame since I posted that picture:

And so as not to leave you without news of La Scapigliata: although I haven`t worked on it since last Friday (on the upside, though, I finished Santa so I only have a robin and a snowman to stitch - oh, that reminds me! Now that the weather`s getting summery and I`m stitching Santas, the Fathers` Day hot air balloon cards I stitched last Christmas are in the shops! Sorry for digressing but I have to quickly add a photo here):

Cross Stitch Card Shop issue 90

Where was I? Yes, La Scapigliata. The good news is, I had another look and I hope I was panicking for nothing because the way I calculate it, there should be at least a 2" border so that`s fine. And the teaser from my last post: once I finish this, I shall stitch another version of the same painting, this time designed by one of my fellow model stitchers, Pippa Slack from Stitching Dreams. Her chart contains 22 colours as opposed to Maria Diaz`s 8 - I can`t wait to see the difference between the two! It`s quite a while away yet but rest assured, there will be plenty of progress photos - I`m going to enjoy that, a nice change from all this super-secretive magazine stitching! Obviously, I have to finish the commission works first, then my own 1-year-old DaVinci - but after that I hope not to have too many distractions (luckily, I got a fairly lax deadline from Pippa: "sometime within the next couple of years", lol!). And talking about distractions: have a look at this!!! I can`t believe they didn`t give her a name, she`s OBVIOUSLY a Gloria?!? Can`t wait to knit her!!

Alan Dart`s Heatwave Hippo from Simply Knitting Magazine Issue 107

pictureless post

This is just to reassure everyone that I haven`t disappeared completely - I`ve been rather busy the past couple of weeks... and probably before that too but that was so long ago, I can`t even remember that far back. Anyhoo, due to the Spring school break/Wee Man being home/Mum`s staying here/Easter/my general laziness, I was relly, REALLY behind with the cushion for Cross Stitch Gold. For some reason, I thought that after Mum flying home, Hubby going back to work and Gregory to school, two weeks should be enough to finish this mammoth of a project* - they weren`t. Even when I increased my daily stitching to 10 hours, I was beginning to see that I was running out of time. So for the first time since I became a model stitcher, I had to ask for an extension on my deadline - and when I got an extra week, what was the first thing I did? I decided to relax a bit after the last few days` hurry, only did 4-6 hours a day... then I started to panic as my second, amended deadline was looming. Again, for some mysterious reason, I first thought that a couple of days should be enough for the backstitch - and they were, in a way: last Saturday I stitched 15 hours, on Sunday 14, and on Monday 6, so I just managed to post it on the designated day, before I had to go and pick up the Wee Man from school. I`d used almost 2 whole skeins of 3799 for the backstitch but it was well worth it (you can see the result in issue 104 of Gold).

I thought that after this stitchy marathon last weekend I won`t pick up a needle for a long time - but by Monday evening I couldn`t resist any longer (obsessed or what?) and started another commission piece, a smallish beach sign. Sorry, I can`t show you a photo of this either but I`m sure you can imagine it, sailing boat in the compulsory nautical colours of red, white and navy blue, plus some beige for the sandcastles in the foreground. It was a nice and easy piece after the cushion and I took my sweet time with it (I only just posted it an hour ago).

And what now, you ask? Well, I thought about getting my La Scapigliata out of its box (don`t laugh! One of these days it`s going to happen!) but I`d better hurry because there`s already another project in the post from Collection (something Christmassy already! Oooh, and it`s by my fave designer, Maria Diaz) - plus occasionally I should clean the house too... but surely, that can wait...?

* it took 180 hours in total

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!

coastal fridgies

Here are the first four of my Coastal Fridgies series (4x5 cm fridge magnets worked on plastic canvas):