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!

The World of Cross Stitching 230 - Fathers` Day cards

Lol, please don`t ask about the granny square! Its growth can be measured in mm, rather than cm, since my last post. As always, Life has happened: am stitching 3 projects simultaneously, my own cushion idea and two commissions. The plan is to crochet at night, as a wind-down, but I`m at that early stage with the stitching when I do not dare to put it down, I just keep going until I fall asleep, because I don`t know how long each`ll take. Plus, with my usual acute perception of time - i.e. I never have any idea what day of the week, etc. it is -, the deadlines are not something tangible (yet) either, just random numbers sometime in the future. I was surprised the other day, when the librarian stamped the books and the return date is now in June - how did that happen? It was Christmas only a few weeks ago...? (By the way, am working on lovely Xmas pieces just now for the magazines, and being 6 months out of sync also doesn`t help someone as woolly-headed as me when it comes to Time - I usually tell what day it is by watching which bins the neighbours put out). #calendarbyrecycling

Anyway, I thought I`d better grab this opportunity to blog for a few minutes before the school run, since the latest issue of WOCS hits the shops today, and in it are the lovely Lucie Heaton cards I stitched. Actually, they`re not all cards - it was a great project to work on because all 4 classic car pics were of different sizes: a card, a bookmark, and two larger pieces. I started with the largest one of the lot (my DH would be shouting the name of this car now but he`s away to work) - shall I call it an Aston Martin DBXZ85874HKL? Whatever. Here it is:

Hehe, probably it`s a Jaguar. Anyway, here`s the whole lot of them together:

And this is how they`ve been made up in the magazine:

Well, the card and the bookmark were quite obvious, but I was wondering what they`d make with the other two - a glasses case and an iPad cover! I love this set, I think it looks awesome - as long as you don`t grab your tablet with gardening gloves or shove your glasses case in your dirty overalls pocket... but as hard as it is to find the suitable stitchy project for the men in our lives, I think these vintage cars are perfect. I remember thinking at the time I was stitching these, seeing Hubby`s eyes getting a bit misty, that I might stitch this... Aston-Jaguar-MG GT5XYZ (?) for him for Father`s Day - ha! Personal project?? When will I ever learn? ;)

However, on a more positive note: do you remember George, my cuddly knitted hippo?

You can read his story here, where I also promised to keep y`all posted: so the latest info is that George has moved to Ireland - the lady who`d originally commissioned him never got back to me, but last week a sweet Irishman bought George for his girlfriend - and, I hope, they all lived happily ever after! :D Happy stitching, everyone!

George, the handsome hippo

Do you remember Gloria, my glorious diva of a hippo? Well, I put her up for sale in my Etsy shop, and a couple of weeks ago someone saw her and - as expected - fell in love with her. Only problem was that this lady wanted a boy version for her (yet) unborn nephew, and preferably in grey. So I slightly amended the original Alan Dart pattern and came up with this:

I think he`s just as gorgeous as his big sister - pity the lady who`d ordered him never contacted me since! I hope she still wants him... then again, I wouldn`t mind keeping him at all! I`ll keep y`all posted.

Elsewhere, in my little dreamworld of freedom (=I haven`t had any commissioned stitching for over a week now), I stitched this freebie from the latest Crazy and made it up for my MIL for Mothers` Day - I hope she`ll like it, I wanted something cheerful (she had a heart operation a few weeks ago and she`s still not 100% but she`s getting there). So here are some colourful birds to cheer her up:

And as there`s still no sign of any model stitching in the pipeline for the noo, you won`t believe what I`ve unearthed from the bowels of my cupboard: La Scapigliata! Yes, I started working on it last night and I hope to finish it before the next commission arrives - again, I`ll keep y`all posted of my progress. Happy stitching!

Gloria

Well, do you remember this?
Alan Dart`s hippo, whom I named Gloria

I don`t blame you if you don`t, it`s been a while... Still, that doesn`t matter now, the main thing is that SHE IS HERE!!! Are you ready for a gorgeousness overload? (You might want to sit down first...?)

As you might have noticed, I substituted the grey yarn with light brown - this is more of a hippo-colour to me. Also, I have omitted the `finger and toe` nails because I hate sewing and the mouth + nostrils + eyes and generally making her up was more than enough for me. (May I just add here, on a personal note... not that my whole blog is not personal... anyway, probably the greatest factor in Gloria being finished today is the fact that this morning I spent about an hour and a half frogging a commission stitching, practically half of what I`d done so far, so I thought I`d better give cross stitch a break and get on with my knitting - but I`m not a masochist so I didn`t want to sew too much). You might also notice that I changed the eyes - the black pupil with white circle around it freaked me out a bit so I just used black yarn, and also stitched her a few eyelashes, for extra gorgeousness. Finally, I gave up on the sunglasses, and let this be a lesson for all of us, shades knitters of the future: if the pattern says spray it with hairspray, use that and don`t try your luck with spray-on starch - it won`t stiffen the yarn at all. And if you, like me, are crazy enough to switch on your iron in this heat, that`ll make things ten times worse: even on the coolest setting, it`ll make your already limp wool flat and shiny to boot. Thus, alas, there are no cool shades for Gloria but I think she looks stunning even without them - crazy summer heat or not, I might just go back for another cuddle... ;)