WOXS 327 & 328, Disney 111

If you are a regular visitor here, first of all, thank you 🥰, and second, you may have noticed that the gaps between posts are getting wider and wider. This is because I started to work, and even though I still cross stitch whenever I can, the publications with my models in them are getting fewer and far between. I also have less time to spend on the computer, but this morning I`m free (until we go to do some Christmas shopping - Christmas?!? Where did this year go?? 😲), so I thought I`d better review the past few months` crop and add some photos here.

Issues 327 and 328 of The World of Cross Stitching both have my wee cards as the cover gift: the first one is a lovely wintry wreath designed by Durene Jones, and the latter a thank you card from Emma Congdon:

Issue 328 of WOXS also has this gorgeous winter floral composition by Amanda Gregory that took 75 hours to stitch - the magazine says 90, a 20% markup 🤣,which to be fair is probably closer to realistic expectations if someone doesn`t have to chase deadlines like yours truly. But whether you spend 20 hours on it or 200, it will feel like no time at all, because you can finish one section at a time, including the backstitch - I love designs with mini-finishes, they grow so quickly! 😁 

Finally, there is a new sampler starting from issue 111 of the Disney Cross Stitch mag from Hachette Partworks, dedicated to Winnie the Pooh and his friends. I love Winnie and I`m still working on the step-by-steps for this sampler, so I`m glad I can spend many more happy hours with these guys. Hope you`ve liked my wee collection of photos, thank you for visiting, happy holidays to you all and see you in 2023! 😊

Forest Maiden (Anne Stokes) and hippy mouse (Furry Tales) - The World of Cross Stitching 297

The latest issue of WOXS is out in the UK shops now and I am so proud of this one: not only did I stitch the cover kit but also the stunning unicorn that was chosen as this month`s cover piece.

The cute little hippy chick (🐤??🐁!! 🤪 ) is from Lucie Heaton`s Furry Tales series:

Shame Glastonbury was cancelled this year coz she was all ready to go - but she seems happy enough in her tie dye dress and with her flowers, and she got a beautiful purple card finish so it`s all good. 😉

For Anne Stokes` gorgeous fantasy picture, I`ve decided to string my photos in a mini video. As you will see from the title frame, it took 81 hours to stitch the *checks number again* 17973 crosses - and I know the exact figure because this was the first ever project on which I`ve used the Pattern Keeper app. In case you`re not familiar with it, it`s what GoodReader is for iOS, just for Android. As far as I understand, it`s still being developed and tweaked with - and since I bought it, I`ve come across some technical hiccups, e.g. it doesn`t accept all charts and seems to be baffled by fractional sts (but I`ve learnt to find my way among the weird half-and-half symbols it assigns to certain colours), and it is perfect for whole-stitches-only projects like my HAED, for example. Most recently, it left off the last column of a chart I was working on, I mean it was visibly there but I couldn`t click on any of those symbols (?!?) but hey, on a 160x180 design I don`t mind if I can`t mark the last column of 10. 😉 And highlighting symbols and marking off sts is the best. thing. EVER. Especially on a confetti-heavy piece like this unicorn. I don`t think I`m exaggerating when I estimate that the program about halved the time it took to finish - in ye olde days, I`d have photocopied the colour chart in b&w, then sat at the table and highlighted all the squares in 1 symbol, then coloured them in with a darker felt pen as and when I stitched each. With the app, it`s done in the tenth of a second; I just click on the symbol I want and all the squares are highlighted, so even if it`s confetti central, I can just hop from one area to the next and KNOW that I`ll get all of them (having to go back later, and esp. after I`d already packed that colour away, is/was another time-waster).

Oh dear, looks like I should have broken this up into chapters 😂, sorry for the lengthy rambling, it seems I`ve embarked on an impromptu product review when I just wanted to show you some piccies. So here`s the mini film I mentioned, um, half an hour ago - hope you`ll enjoy it, stay safe peeps and happy stitching! 😊

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! 😊

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! 😊

latest publications

Another quick post because we only got back last night from holiday and am currently wading my way through a pile of laundry, but there are a couple of new magazines that have come out while we were away.

First up, issue 284 of The World of Cross Stitching and the set of 6 Maria Diaz cards that sample ladies` fashion through the decades:

And here they are made up with complementing card colours:

Next up is issue 347 of Cross Stitcher, and the cover star is the Susan Bates sea view that I stitched a couple of months ago.

It took 52 hours to finish and if I remember correctly, almost 10 of those hours were spent just on the backstitch (there are loooooads of tiny windows there! 😂) but it was all worth it because the backstitch really makes this piece pop. For this project, I also made a record of not just the hours but the number of days too (sometimes it feels like I stitch all day but it turns out, it`s about 5 hours per day on average).

Finally, I came across this sneak peek on The World of Cross Stitching`s Facebook page of Amanda Gregory`s highland cows that I stitched a few months ago. I hope I can add the link here but if no, they`ll soon feature here anyway when the new issue of the magazine comes out. Now, back to dealing with the laundry - happy stitching, folks! 😊

WOXS highland cows sneak peek

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! 😊