freebies - Cross Stitcher 295 and 296

Nothing like going from one extreme to the other to make you appreciate both even more, right? In between BAPs, HAEDs and oversized samplers, I`ve done a few wee breathers in recent months - hanging my head in shame, I confess I kinda forgot about these minis, but today I accidentally spotted the cupcake in the current issue of Cross Stitcher, and as I was admiring the finished card, I also realised that the wee birdie keyring, advertised from the coming issue, is mine too!

In case you haven`t seen Cross Stitcher 295 yet, this is the stunning card I`m talking about - however, in order to really appreciate it (extremes again!), first you have to see my dodgy photo... which, apparently, I took after midnight, by candlelight, against the appealing backdrop of my threadbare tartan blanket:

Would you believe that this is the same cupcake? What miracles a clever crafter`s finish and good photography skills can make, eh?

I love the little doily around it! :) And I also love the finish on the keyring - the back of it is also stitched with a reverse image of the bird and the cage, but of this I don`t have my own photo; it spent such a short time in my house that I didn`t even think about taking a pic, I was just concentrating on finishing it between the morning and afternoon school runs, so that I could dash to the PO with it (the editor needed this one back asap). Wanna hear my Mr. Sparks impression? "A challenge? I like it!" ;)

However, I do have a pic of my own project, which I forgot to show you last time: this is where I am on my Twelfth Night cushion, the Countess Olivia has a growing ruff (hmmm. I believe I`ve managed to make that sound a bit kinky). Anyway, here she is, I`m on the 5th page out of 9, and I can`t wait to see her finished! So without Much Ado (see what I did there?), I`ll get back to it - happy stitching, peeps!

time to tea

I`m so focusing on the Christmas stocking I`m stitching right now that I almost missed the publication of one of my other projects. After months of not being able to post a photo, now finally here`s a chance (all photos courtesy of Cross Stitcher 266 via The Making Spot):

diet

I`ve been on a diet for about 6 weeks now - nothing drastic, you know, I don`t aim to be a Size Zero (couldn`t be even if I wanted to, anyway), I just got fed up with being too big for all my clothes, and I thought it`d be nice if when I went somewhere, my boobs would actually get there before my tummy. I don`t know how much weight I`ve lost (since we haven`t managed to replace the battery in our bathroom scales since 2008) but the diet must be working because I can squeeze myself in my old jeans again, even though it`s not a comfortable fit just yet.

Anyway, the whole malarkey reminded me of an old project idea that I abandoned in favour of the Christmas decorations: I have some plastic canvas left and strips of magnet too, so I`m going to make some "thinspirational" fridge magnets - although, to be quite honest, I never really understood the logic behind putting motivational reminders on your food-hiding places; in my opinion, if you want to lose weight, just don`t go near your fridge, or even better, try to forget that you own one. Anyway, apparently a lot of women find these "deterrants" helpful and luckily, I found loads of motifs in Issue 77 of Cross Stitch Crazy (from October 2005, the same issue that has Wordsworth, the cat in it which I stitched for my Gran`s recipe book). There`s a bit of everything here, from the "traditional" fridge-with-chain-and-padlock design to fitness guru claiming that "no pain, no gain", but my favourites are the funny ones, like "Dieting`s no piece of cake!", with a slice of cake crossed out under the caption, or another one with a lady standing on the scales, saying "I`m in shape: ROUND is a shape!" So next time I have a minute (ha!), I`m going to start these. In the meantime, don`t worry, I`m not leaving you without a picture: here`s one of a card I made a wee while ago - back when the caption embodied my whole attitude towards diet... but that was before I stopped smoking and ballooned up twice my original size. I`m telling you, I can`t wait to see this double-chin go!

recipe books

I love spring cleaning. Or, before you get the wrong idea, I love that time of the year when the fields get bloomier, the birds chirpier and the days sunnier - so that those dust particles that were floating just the same way in winter are now more visible, and the windows suddenly look much dirtier. This is the time when other women (alas, not so much me...) feel the urge to start cleaning the house from top to bottom.
Same thing happened to my neighbour this March who, unexpectedly, turned up one day on my doorstep with a Tesco bagful of lovely cross stitch magazines she`d found under her bed, APOLOGISING (bless her!) that some of them didn`t have the freebies in them any more (!). As you can imagine, I didn`t leave my armchair for the next three days until I meticulously went through all the magazines and the other prezzies, from embroidery hoops to magnetic boards to wee "good-for-keeping-anything-in-it" type of very handy boxes. When I finally came up for air, I decided I`d make something for my neighbour to show my appreciation for her kindness, using a cupcake motif I found in one of her magazines. Just the day before I came by a lovely little (blank) recipe book in a charity shop and recalling how my mum and I used to fold the paper for my books in primary school, I managed to make this book cover.

I can happily report that my wee gift was very well received, which spurred me on to make another recipe book cover - that, and the fact that I knew there was another identical blank book in the charity shop which I left there the other day and I simply HATE unfinished business. So anyway, I went back, bought it, and started to flick through my stichy books and magazines (with my recently acquired stash I have over about 200 magazines so "flicking through" them is a roughly 18-hour process).  I only had about a week before going to Hungary for a fortnight to visit my family, spend Gregory`s spring break there and celebrate my granny`s 78th birthday.
Now my gran LOVES cooking. My mum`s a pretty mean cook too and I`m told I`m not bad either (blush, blush...) but with my granny it`s an obsession on a par with my obsession with cross stitch. I think if it wasn`t for her soaps, she would be glued to the Food Channel 24/7, and she must have filled an enormous number of jotters with her favourite recipes so far. So I thought a book like this would be ideal for her and after a long, long search I found this adorable kitty design in the very last magazine I looked at (where else?), and managed to finish stitching it the night before our flight.

I even managed to sqeeze in "My Favourite Recipes" in Hungarian under the picture and covered the whole thing with see-through plastic so as to protect it from the greasy fumes of a kitchen... So where is it now? Probably in my granny`s treasure box under her bed, since the last time I asked she said "it was way too beautiful to spoil it with her scrawly handwriting". Oh, bless!