Christmas sampler and Monarch framed

The latest issue of Cross Stitcher is in the UK shops now and in it is this gorgeous Christmas sampler, designed by Faye Walsh:

It took 60 hours to stitch and before posting it, I`d taken some close-ups of the individual motifs - I love how vibrant the colours are on the lavender fabric and the stitches lay so nicely on the 32ct evenweave. 😊

And as promised, here is one last photo of the Monarch of the Glen: we just got him back from the framers and he`s already in pride of place on the wall - happy stitching, peeps! 😊

Christmas baubles, cats and dogs, and finished Monarch 😊

The latest issue (261) of Cross Stitch Crazy is out now so I can share my picture of the cute cover kit:

Designed by Durene Jones, these were so much fun to stitch I did them twice 🤣 and the free gift includes 2 bauble shaped wooden frames too so the finished decorations are ready to go on the tree or in a card with added oomph.

The other day, I was browsing the worldwide web, and I came across the 2019 catalogue of DMC (here). Remember the Vintage Circus range I mentioned in a previous post? Here they are, all 5 together:

Hmm, I`ve just noticed I got the last two with the drapes - there must be something about me that screams "curtain!"...? 😂 Def. not in the `that`s it, no more` sense because my next DMC commission was this set of 6 hoops, 3 cats and 3 dogs:

I loved this set, they`re such clever designs: they only use 1 colour each but utilise both XS and BS in 1 and 3 strands to create depth and even a sense of movement.

Again, I can only repeat myself: these were so much fun to stitch I did them twice... plus a few (few?!? 🤪) more times: 

Finally, as promised, here`s the finished Monarch of the Glen! 😍 In the end, it took 230 hours, 65 days spread over the past 5 months, and it`s already at the framers (I`ll post a photo of the end result too when we get it back). Thank you for visiting my blog, happy stitching! 😊

kits galore

Me again - the other day I forgot something (but just as well, it`d have been a rather long post otherwise). Remember the Margaret Sherry design I mentioned here? I stitched it a few months ago but now that it`s published, I can show you the pic:

The kit can be ordered from Immediate Media here

It took 40 hours to stitch, plus the wee mouse another 3, and I was smiling the whole time, not only because her characters are so cute but also because her artwork is so expertly translated into cross stitch charts by Fiona Baker.

8 hours

15 hours

25 hours

40 hours

And I`ve just noticed that DMC`s new Vintage Circus collection is now available from various online shops - yay! 😊 There are 5 kits in the range, designed by Emily Peacock, and I was lucky enough to stitch two of the covers. Both `Dancing Horse` and `Clowning Around` took roughly 20 hours and I had great fun sewing them, I love big blocky stitches where you can just let your needle fly. Hope you like them and check out the other 3 in the DMC collection too (`Ringmaster Reginald`, `Strongman Stanley` and `Acrobat Alice`), happy stitching!

Highland cows, Christmas trees and astrolabe

Hello peeps, another flying visit from me because (surprise, surprise) I`m in a stitching frenzy - but I`ve decided to use my lunch break to add some photos here because new publications are coming out almost daily just now and I`m going to get lost among the projects. 🤪
First up, obviously, is Amanda Gregory`s cute mom-and-baby duo of Scottish Highland cows:

And I say "obviously" because if you thought I had a thing for puffins, that is nothing compared to my obsession with heilan` coos! 😁

I bought that book in the gift shop at the Falkirk Wheel and the glasses case in our local post office, but these are just the first few items I grabbed for this photo, there are a lot more in the house. 🙄 And the moo coo was the first souvenir I bought for myself in Scotland in 2000, so it`s older than my son 😲 and he still moos when you press his tummy (the cow, not my son).
OK, I`ve finished my lunch and I`m still yapping on, so I`d better get these pics attached. Actually, the ones for this 52-hour project are strung together in a wee film (and there`s also a short film on the WOXS Facebook page, a behind the scenes at the photo shoot that you can watch here):

In the same issue of The World of Cross Stitching (286), there are Fiona Baker`s 6 Christmas tree cards that were the most fun I had with beads for a long time. 😊 My favourite was the one with the bugle beads - there`s something strangely pleasing about them being exactly 5 squares long on 14ct fabric. 🤪

Finally, digital copies of issue 9 of XStitch Magazine are available now, and in this issue, I stitched Australian designer Christabel Seneque`s astrolabe.

In case anybody needs a refresher course on what an astrolabe is 😉, this astronomical instrument was used by navigators *peeks into Wikipedia* to measure the altitude above the horizon of a celestial body, day or night. Furthermore *reads on*, it can be used to identify stars or planets, to determine local latitude given local time, to survey, or to triangulate. *breathes "That`s so cool!"* 

So, given that Issue 9 is titled Orient, what better tool to orient oneself in this big wide world? 😉 Hope you like it, thanks for not asking about the Monarch and happy stitching! 😊

puffins - Cross Stitcher 348

This week the new issue of Cross Stitcher is in the UK shops and the cover star is Rebecca Spencer`s cute design of a bunch of characterful puffins*:

*Hehe, I used bunch in the sense of `lively bunch` but it made me think, so I looked up what a group of puffins is called: "A group of puffins is known by a range of names – a colony, a puffinry, a circus, a burrow, a gathering, or an improbability." - and now I`m cry-laughing at puffinry... not that an `improbability of puffins` is much better! 😂😂😂

I absolutely adored working on this project! 😍 I have a thing for puffins - most recently, staff of various souvenir shops of John O`Groats bore witness to my slight obsession:

So this project was perfect for me, and I especially loved that each bird is slightly different from the other - my favourite is the one in the Sou`wester rain hat 😂 At the magazine, they turned it into a cushion with some off-white fabric framing the puffins...

 ...but I think if I was stitching this cushion for myself, I`d pick a matching navy fabric for the back and I`d add bobble trim to the edge, maybe blue or, if I felt especially adventurous, with red pompoms to make it even more cheerful. 😊

And talking about stitching `for myself`: in the end, I didn`t manage to finish The Monarch of the Glen for my husband`s birthday, there`s still 1 page missing from the sky, but I`m glad at least I could complete the 11th page (just!) of the 12-page chart on the day before - and with a little tweaking, he barely noticed the almost seamless continuity:

Although the summer holiday is over (and by the looks of it, so is summer, full stop) and I`m back in full swing with commissions, I`ll try to pinch away a few hours - about 18-20 should do - and finish this so I can take it to the framers. Hope to show you the end result in the not too distant future, until then, happy stitching! 😊

singing penguin and Monarch update

The latest issue (259) of Cross Stitch Crazy hits the UK shops today and the free gift that comes with the magazine is this cute little penguin - the first design this year (by Helz Cuppleditch) that can be considered Christmassy 😲 (although this wee fella still hedges his bets, he could be singing anything after all, not necessarily Christmas carols, right?) 😉

But as I see from next month`s preview, from issue 260 (in the shops from 29 August) it`s full-on Christmas already - so hard to believe when a few days ago, we were still roasting in Rome on our summer holiday. But now that we`re back in Scotland, I`m furiously working on The Monarch of the Glen: two days ago, I finished page 9 of 12:

And thanks to an almost 10-hour wee session yesterday, I`ve got most of page 10 done too (I`ve finished the whole sky and most of the antler since this pic was taken last night).

So when Birthday Boy goes back to work on Monday, I have less than a week (thanks to a doc`s appointment 🙄) to finish this and the remaining two pages of the chart - in other words, I have another 40-50 hours of stitching to complete in 4 days... I`ve already resigned myself to the fact that it won`t be framed for The Big Day, now I`m just hoping it won`t have too much of the left corner missing when I hand it over on Saturday. 🤣 I might have to sneak out to the living room in the middle of the night and stitch for a few hours while hubby`s sleeping... watch this space! 😁

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