Magazine reviews

I had started doing this a few months ago, but I never kept up with it. I am hoping to start doing this regularly. I hope no one takes offense; just like there are numerous people who review fashion, consider this an other view.

Today at lunch, which was a bad idea, I headed out to Barnes and Noble to get my British magazines. It's always a crap shoot with them, you never know when they will get the magazines. And I am addicted to them. Anyway, explanations commence:

I will start with US Cross Country Stitching, December 2007. I am normally not a fan of this magazine. I don't do religious things and I find that they have WAYYY too many religious samplers. Not to mention that their religious verses tend to have LITTLE to NOTHING to do with the design. I have a pic at home which proves this. Anyway, it being close to the holiday season, 9 weeks for you all that care, they have some Christmas designs. The cover design is of the Holly and the Ivy with a nativity scene. It's OK, but maybe not the best choice of the nativity. There are some sweet little Christmas ornaments if you like country angels. Also a really cute design with cats and crocks and boxes. It's cute, stitched in linen threads--no big deal to convert to the regular DMC, though, but the design doesn't match the verse. It says "blessed is he who considers the helpless, the Lord will deliver him in time of trouble." I don't know what is supposed to be helpless, the cats or the crocks? I would probably substitute something about cats. There is folk art design. I don't like it. A design called Hearts and Stitches, really a welcome, but there are some cute litttle motifs. There's a Love & Friendship sampler which is alright. Not my thing to stitch. But it's OK, you could pick out of it for a round robin or something. The rest of the issue is Christmas stitching. There is a nice angel and some small things you could hang, including a bellpull, and a little design about Jesus is the reason for the season. All in all, it's an OK issue. I don't buy this magazine often, because I'm not a country fan--country may match my accent, but it doesn't match the beachy lifestyle I love.

I also purchased Cross Stitch Collection. It's a good issue. They have a beautiful Anchor sampler of wildlife. It has a field mouse. I love fieldmice. And a pic of a Japanese maple tree. My parents have one of those, so I might stitch that. I am not a fan of the Wuthering Heights design. I don't like the book, the movie bored me, I wouldn't want to stitch the picture. But I do have to note that they are doing a Joan Elliott angel next issue. It says it's a masterpiece. I thought the winter angel was a masterpiece too. How many masterpieces does one need to stitch . . . or design? And doesn't that cheapen the word "masterpiece" eventually. And I must say, this was a thinner issue than normal, or at least it felt that way. For $12US, it should be thicker.

Lastly, we come to Cross Stitch Favorites. It's nice this year, it's a Christmas issue, featuring the best of the Christmas designs from the people who do WOXS. Some of them, I have, some I don't, so it was nice. There are lots of designs that could be used for ornaments, perfect for exchanges. I even saw penguins; my friend Steve would like those.

Last night

I didn't get as much accomplished last night as I wanted to. It took forever at the nail salon for my fill because I chose to get nail art. I opted for one of the new fall colors, Russian Navy from OPI. It's a really deep dark blue. It's not one of the colors I would normally choose, but it looked really awesome, and I have to have dark colors because one of the dogs (no, not Chancey or Robbie-do) bit me in the thumb in August (AUGUST, mind you) and I have a bruise underneath my thumbnail. Which they tell me will take two months or so more to grow out. BUMMER. So I am stuck wearing dark colors til at least January because this bruise is nasty. But then again, I like this blue because i can have a snowman painted over it or a snowflake and it would make a killer French Manicure. Anyway . . . so it took a while to get that done. I got home and realized I needed cat litter, so I had to go back out and get that, then ended up stuck at Jerry's picking up dinner for 30 minutes. That annoyed me.

So it was 9 before I got to sit and stitch, but I did good in two hours. I actually started on the Horseman's cape, and the horse has a tail. Yay! I also have to report, I decided yesterday at work to wash the WDW floss I had bought for the project. So, because I was bored, had nothing to do, and, frankly, because no one told me I couldn't, I went in the bathroom and started rinsing. I got a couple raised eyebrows from some women who saw me do it, but they know I am slightly wierd anyway, so opted to disregard it. It was a wise choice, somehow, it never comes out right to say, "Well, I am rinsing the special floss because it can't get wet. I don't want it to run onto my other threads that didn't need to be washed."

I know Weeks runs like an athlete when it's wet, so I wanted to get the excess dye out of this bunch in order to use it. It was an interesting experiment. Pewter, Indian Summer and Eggplant bled all over the paper towels. I was drying them on. When I saw "bled", I mean BLED. Carrot bled some, but not as much. There was very little on Honeysuckle and London Fog. I am glad I did this because I can see, given the size of this, it's not gonna be a two week project so it's gonna get dirty. But it makes me wonder about some of these thread companies. I've used all kinds of overdyeds, hand-dyeds, whatever you call them. Why is it so hard to make them color fast? Caron does it--I've washed Waterlilies often. Needle Necessities is pretty much colorfast--I rinsed the threads for the Winter bellpull and very little color came off. Why can't the others do the same. You can't tell me it's not possible. For a large batch dyer or a small batch dyer--DMC is colorfast, and I've figured out how to make both the fabric and thread I do set. IT'S NOT THAT HARD. You don't even need to do the vinegar deal. I just rinse my fabric in hot water til it runs clear. The thread is a little harder, but you can steam set the color. The threads I did at CATS have held their color and not run. Sorry to sound like a butt about this, but it's 2007, we can set color without using chemicals stronger than vinegar and H20.

A pic!

This is it, my first update of Sleepy Hollow. This is the Headless Horse

Picked up Sleepy Hollow again

I worked on the turkey tabletopper ALL night last night. I managed to finish the turkey, the pilgrim hat, all the interior border, the little basket of . . .something . . . underneath the turkey, and the blob in the corner that I think is Plymouth Rock. I am not sure. I can't even say it's a quarter way finished because I haven't done the Mayflower yet, but it's getting there.

That said, I couldn't work on it anymore for the week. I pulled out Sleepy Hollow this morning and worked on that. It's my lunch project as well. I must confess, I REALLY like that fabric. I know . . . "Will ya post a picture so we can see what you're talking about, ninny?" Yes, I will post one tonight. I promise. It's kinda embarrassing that I only have a little bit stitched, about half the Headless Horseman's steed, but it's going quite well. I can not wait to see what this shapes into.

The Truly Tremendous Turkey Tabletopper

Thisdesign is what I was supposed to be working on at lunch. Note I say, supposed to because I was apparently too quiet blissfully stitching at my desk, so people had to talk to me. DARN IT! I wonder if there is a way to politely say to people, "I am stitching right now and do not want to be bothered with your chat about how it sucked the Redskins lost, how good the movie you saw this weekend was and if it really is a sin to buy a knockoff Gucci bag from the man at the Farragut North Metro station." I have my own strong opinions about all of these topics (no, it didn't suck, but it did suck that Dallas lost, I am glad you liked the new Tyler Perry movie, but I am on a budget and won't see it til it comes on TNT, and if I thought it was a sin, I wouldn't have bought that bag, I think it's a far bigger sin to pay $1000 for a REAL Gucci bag), but I wanted to stitch. And when I got done with the talk, it was time for work. Arrrgh



Mom fell in love with Dutch Treat Designs at CATS. She bought three kits for yours truly to do for her. I think I blogged about this before. They aren't all my favorite designs to stitch, but I don't like EVERYTHING any designer puts out. But I do have to say, based on this kit, they are a really good value. We have everything in this package, Anne cloth,chart, two needles (though in fairness, I of course immediately lost one in the couch), all the threads, including the perle cotton for the nun stitch. And it has the directions for nunstitching, which are slightly confusing, but not that much. I pretty much think this is a kit that you can purchase and finish for $35, plus tax and shipping, if you are not like my mother and buy like crazy at the show. Because, really, you don't even have to have it finished in addition to the cost of the supplies, and the nun stitch is really easy to do, so why would you?



I am going to work on this tonight, just to get some headway on it. The only thing I find a titch confusing is making sure the x's go the same way, but even that's workable. I think the people who entered theirs in the fair and got nothing, they probably didn't have their x's facing the right direction. I assume . . .

Finished another square on my afghan

I put the last stitches into Square 9 on my Hummingbird Trellis afghan this morning. It's taken me so long to get this far.

I don't think I realized when I bought the supplies for this project, just what sort of a commitment it was going to be. I can do this. It's just going to take a long time, but I need to focus on it, or it will NEVER get finished. But now I can choose the next square, I think I want one that does not have a lot of backstitching on it, so I don't know if I want square 8 or square 4.

I started the angel from the newest issue of Cross Stitcher yesterday sitting in the parking lot while Mom was in the store. I realize I bought the wrong count of fabric, 32 vs 28, but it shouldn't make a huge difference in the finished project. I am looking forward to working on that one, because this angel is SOOO beautiful. I ordered the braid I needed Saturday night, along with the beads. I tried to get the braid last week at my LNS, but their display is confusing and I couldn't find it. So now I have everything, either on the way or in my hot little hands.

But I think I am finally at the point where I am ready to not buy stash, other than the necessities, for a while. Payday was Friday and usually, I am at the store, or shopping online, and I didn't have the urge this week. I have so many things that I need to do, need to finish, that I don't want to add to it. Not to mention, that, since I started working at night too, I had a strange sense of calm about being paid. I realized I don't have to panic about how I'll get through to next paycheck. I'll be OK. The longest I will have to wait for pay is 14 days now and I can get through.

For Pumpkin

Here ya go. The design is called Halloween Chorus. It's issue 37 from 1996. It is SOOOO cute.