The World of Cross Stitching 307, 308 and Disney 32

Today is one of those semi-free days when I posted a project this morning and I`m yet to start the next one (no matter how reproachfully it`s staring at me right now), so I thought I`d update this blog before Blogger revokes my card. 😉😆

Plus the sun`s just come out and since it only happens once every 3-4 days, and even then only for half an hour, I quickly grabbed my camera to take a couple of pics of the freebies that came with this and last month`s WOXS magazines (I forgot to post last month, ooops!😧), so here they are, in chronological order:

This Ed Hedgehog illustration from Country Companions was converted into a cross stitch chart by the talented Fiona Baker, and I love the finished card:

Fiona also designed one of the two freebies that come with issue 308 this month: these 8 gift tags will cover you for pretty much every occasion that might crop up 😉

And the 4 wee cards that are more summery than the weather atm were designed by Durene Jones and have instantly shot to the top of my list... because puffin 🤷‍♀️😍😍😍

How cute are these? I`ll either make a fob with the puffin and the VW camper, or find another 2 small-but-summery designs and maybe make a cube, but also on a keychain so I could hook it on my bag...? We`ll see. Planning (daydreaming?) is the easy part. Finding the time? Meh...

In other news, there`s been an issue of the Disney magazine recently that had one of my stitchings in it, a pillow trim with characters from The Good Dinosaur, also designed by Durene Jones. Hope you like it, and happy stitching! 😊

Emma Congdon gift tags (free gift with WOXS 298), penguins, camper vans and Field of F*cks

 Is that my most random blog post title yet...? Very possibly. 🤪

The latest issue of The World of Cross Stitching is in the UK shops now and the cover kit is a set of 8 gift tags that cover every occasion from birthdays to `just because`. 😉

I love cover kits anyway, they`re such a breath of fresh air between two larger projects, but I especially love when each colour uses just 1 length of thread at a time - it saves all the brainwork, most efficient route planning, etc. and I can just get on with the task. And as a bonus, the end result looks fab too: 😉

Since my last post, I`ve had the odd day that I selfishly declared a day off from commissions (😱🤣) but rather than dutifully bringing out the Museum Shelf - and quickly getting sick of it as my Only Alternative To Work Pieces -, I pottered about with smaller kits that I`d come across while I was tidying up my folders (a.k.a. culling my magazines, to the great delight of local charity shops). First up, I found this little penguin by Maria Diaz - I`m not sure why I had 2 kits but I stitched them both, at least they can keep each other company in the drawer until I decide what to do with them (seeing that I don`t send hand stitched Christmas cards as a rule).

Next on my list was that VW camper van from an old issue of Cross Stitcher - but by the time I sewed it up, I realised it was the perfect size for my phone and I actually needed a cover for that more than for my sunglasses (especially as both my pairs already have cases... so yay, at least they won`t get scratched wherever they are, I simply can`t find them, have looked everywhere, searched all the spare/empty bags, you name it and I just cannot find them anywhere - meh, I`m sure they`ll turn up when I least expect it, probably towards the beginning of December 🙄).

Finally, I just finished a Field of F*cks sampler for DH - I`ve been eyeing that (probably, most well-known) version that looks like it`s a Bayeux Tapestry replica for ages, and I still might buy it for myself yet, but in the meantime, hubby saw it and wanted a simple version `for work` 😂 so I made a very basic sampler for him, just the text and a tiny illustration of a barren field (the size of the letters was more important, so that it can be read from a distance... not that the intended audience is that far from his work station 😜).

Hope you`re all doing well, stay safe and happy stitching! 😊

Immediate Bonanza

It so happens that this month, three of Immediate Media`s titles have one or two of my stitchings featured and since I`m having a rare day off today, I`ve decided to create a mega-bumper-blog-post. I`ll try to rein in my tendency to waffle but please prepare yourselves for lots and LOTS of pictures. 😉

Sticking to their chronological order, first up is issue 253 of Cross Stitch Crazy, with these 8 little cuties:

These Lucie Heaton designs were so much fun, I mean how often do you get to stitch something that takes less than an hour, uses only a few colours and still turns into an adorable teddy? 😉

Still on the subject of cover kits, the free gift with this month`s WOXS is one of the two Durene Jones designs I stitched for issue 279:

Similarly to the double sided snowman I stitched a few months ago, this decoration has a front and back too - and it had a real "Easter egg" in store for me because even though I was looking at the chart for about 12 hours, I only noticed the wee chick hiding there at the very last moment, as I was adding the backstitch. I was grinning like an excited toddler! 😂

The other Durene Jones design in WOXS 279 is this beautiful set of a floral table runner and two coasters. The table runner took about 70 hours to stitch and I loved working on it - Durene is so experienced in making the stitcher`s life easy with her shading so that one can hop from one colour/area to the next with ease.

Having done one corner, I just flipped the fabric upside down and repeated the same motif at the other end:

Finally, I added the border and stitched the two accompanying coasters:

OK, so they weren`t the easiest to photograph (should have taken a panoramic photo perhaps?) but here they are in the magazine, finished with a white felt backing:

Finally, this week Cross Stitch Gold 154 hits the UK shops and in this issue, there`s the gorgeous ladybird by Carol Thornton that was one of the best therapeutic stitches I`ve had in a long time. It took 86 hours to finish but frankly, I could have gone for another 86, just using up one skein of 819, 3865 and 3866 after the other (I thought the ladybird itself would be the piece de resistance, and it was in a way, but I found those big petals surprisingly soothing). Occasionally, I remembered to stop to take a photo and I strung these together in a mini film, from the initial tribal motif 😄 to the gorgeous finished cushion, and I even sneaked in a picture of the back too because I liked how that in itself looked like a pastel drawing or a watercolour painting. Thank you for scrolling all the way down here, hope you liked the pic-fest and happy stitching! 😊

Aaaaaaand it`s October! 😲 Which means: Merry Christmas, everyone! 😆

This week, issue 274 of The World of Cross Stitching hits the UK shops, and the Cover Star (their words, not mine btw!) is this super sweet design by Margaret Sherry of three kittens in Christmas stockings. Well, that`s the official title anyway - but I think that wee mouse steals the show hands down! 😄 I`ve got a few progress pics for this project, my favourites being the two between 30 and 32 hours - that`s when I added the green backstitch to the needles of the tree and I lurved the difference it made.

7 hours

14 hours

19 hours

30 hours

32 hours

35 hours - finished! 😊

And here they are, nicely framed in the magazine:

Now, I can also share some pics of the Durene Jones Cover Kits Galore Event that is happening these past couple of weeks: last week, the latest issue of Crazy came out with "our" robin gift tags (more on those in a mo) but first, the snowman bauble kit that is the free gift with this issue of WOCS.

When I saw the wee pack, for a split second I wondered if I just dreamt that this had two sides - but no, if you check the bottom left corner, there`s the back of the snowman. 😊 And if you`re really eagle-eyed, you may also spot that the finished bauble has metallic BS added that`s missing from my original pics - the threads didn`t arrive in time so the team had to add the snowflakes, etc. in-house (there you go, a little behind-the-scenes info for ya). 😉

So as I said, last week issue 248 of Cross Stitch Crazy was published, and its cover gift is also by Durene Jones: a set of 8 little Christmassy robins that have been turned into gift tags. I loved stitching these, as well as the front-and-back snowman - they were fun, festive and cheerful, just the kind of project to put me in the Christmas mood, no matter what month of the year. 😃 Happy stitching, everyone!

lovebirds, princes and fairies

Now there`s a title I never thought I`d write - sounds a bit like a collection of fairy tales, doesn`t it? But no, it`s just a list of some of the cross stitch pieces that have been published lately. First up, Lucie Heaton`s cute little fairy gift tags that are the free gift with this month`s Cross Stitch Crazy (241):

They were a lovely quick stitch, a very enjoyable day-off from the larger project that I was working on at the time, and the finished tags look super sweet:

Next up is issue 146 of Cross Stitch Gold: the free gift in this magazine is mine too, a sparkly bookmark to commemorate the upcoming royal wedding.

And finally, in the same issue of Gold is this gorgeous pair of parrots (both the lovebirds and the bookmark were designed by Fiona Baker). I enthusiastically started to take pictures of this project every ten hours, thinking it`d take much longer but those bands of oranges, yellows and greens were so satisfying to stitch that I simply couldn`t put it down and it grew surprisingly fast. Still, I have a few pictures for this one, hope you`ll like them and until next time, happy stitching! 😊

10 hours - 1 bird

20 hours - 2 birds

34 hours - XS finished

37 hours - BS detail added

penguins

I guess it`ll be a while before projects I stitched after the summer holiday start to appear in publications so if there`s an even bigger gap between my blog posts, it`s because of that (the otherwise lazy blogger said, unashamedly) 😉 Anyway, here`s one of the last pieces I stitched before the summer, these 8 cute penguin gift tags by Tiny Modernist that are this month`s free gift with Crazy 235.

In other news, there`s not much happening: summer`s definitely over, heating`s on, wee man`s back to school - erm, to be more precise, he`s almost off again (after next week, we`re all looking forward to a fortnight of the autumn break and galavanting all over Scotland with my mom who`s also arriving next week). And by the time G goes back to school, it`s almost Halloween, which is almost Christmas, which is almost 2018! 😲 Anyway, as quickly as this year has rushed by, at least I have a framed Van Gogh now to show for it - please excuse the artfully angled photo, I didn`t want to fill the screen with one big flash-explosion. 

Oh and I just remembered that before I got a bit snowed under with commission stitching (again!), I had started Save The Stitches too - although I didn`t get too far, atm it looks like a strange and failed attempt of a maze designer. 😂 (That reminds me: found this site accidentally - worth checking out if you like mazes, you can generate your own! 😉 http://www.mazegenerator.net/). Happy stitching... and maze solving! 😁

Cross Stitch Crazy 183

My Mum`s arriving today!!! Yay!!! I`m so excited, can`t wait to see her again! And I`m sure she`s just as excited to come and see me cross stitch again... ;)

As usual, I`m a busy little bee, working on all kinds of commissions: I`ve just finished some Mothers` Day (!) cards for Card Shop and a Maria Diaz landscape for Collection, and right now I`m stitching another Maria Diaz - my absolute favourite and most glorious project so far, something I`m sure will take your breath away when you see it in the magazine (it`s that kind of stunning). I was so overwhelmed by its beauty - and, at the same time, simplicity from a stitcher`s point of view - that I felt compelled to write to Maria and thank her for it. I was not a little surprised when she, busy as she must be, answered me within half an hour, thanking me for the feedback - what a great lady!

Anyway, since I already hear it calling, plus I have some cleaning left to do before Mummy arrives, I`d better crack on with this post. Among all these big projects, I have almost overlooked some Christmas minis I`d stitched a couple of months ago for Cross Stitch Crazy: some traditional toys by Jenny Barton and 4 floral letters by Susan Bates.

Elsewhere, in the knitting world: I haven`t had too much time lately to play with my yarns but I did get on with the rainbow entrelac a wee bit, plus I started a Fair Isle hat just for the fun of it: