Gifted Gorgeousness SAL April 2020 update

Hello Friends,
It's that time of the month when we show what gifts we have been working on or/and what crafty gifts we have received. If you don't know what I'm talking about , check Jo's blog for more info. This is an easy SAL where you have a choice to stitch any designer, color or pattern, just that it should be a gift for someone or gift from someone.

I have finished two projects that come under gift category.
First is a late birthday gift for my husband.

This is a design by Jan Eaton published by Tom Pudding Designs, a freebie which can be found here.
The empty space is where a cat charm will be added once the lockdown is over and I order it .
Second finish is a ornament I stitched to join the hashtag #bewellandstitch . As the design is a freebie from designer Autumn Lane Stitchery, I'm considering it as a gift.

I forgot to share in my last GG post that Immediate Media Co offered many of their magazines free last month.
I was able to download The World Of Cross Stitching Feb 2020, Cross Stitch Crazy Mar 2020 and Cross Stitch Gold Jan 2020 for free on my i-phone.
Do you keep any eye for such offers or don't care about magazines?

Also, I forgot to share that I was able to locate my missing Lizzie Kate pattern which I declared missing in my Feb post here. What a relief !

In life update, the virus is spreading like a fire here in India and we are doing everything to be safe. We have local laws where we can't get out of our building more than once a week.It is stressful but thank god for house chores, hobbies and Netflix , which help in keeping mind off.

I hope you are safe and healthy.

Be Well and Stitch

Hello Friends,
I hope you are safe and keeping busy in this worrisome time. It is indeed scary whats happening in the world. My country is under lock down till 14th April , husband and I are following the instructions given by the Govt. to keep safe unlike many stupid people in my country who just don't care.
Anyways , I wanted to cheer you (and myself) up by sharing my latest finish.

Bee Well By Autumn Lane Stitchery

I'm sure you are all aware of the freebies designers in cross stitch community have been offering under the hashtag #bewellandstitch. It is so generous of them to take time out to design something for helping the community in this tough time.

I have always wanted to join and stitch something for such wonderful causes like the stitches for Australia , unfortunately I wasn't able to do it either due to bad postal system(when living in Kuwait), laziness and/or finding out about the the cause a little too late.
However, I'm happy this time I could join. I have saved all the designs being offered under the hashtag on Instagram.
Sharing links for few I like in the caption:

Picture credit :Silver Creek Samplers

Picture Credit: JBW designs 

Picture credit : SewMuch2Luv

Bee Well by The Blackberry Rabbit

You can follow the hashtag  #bewellandstitch on Instagram and Facebook to find more designs.

I hope these links help you a bit to take your mind off .

Take care friends.

IHSW and my nemesis project

Hello and Welcome to my first IHSW post.

For those of who don't know about IHSW being hosted by Joysze at Random Ramblings, here is how she describes it "International Hermit and Stitch Weekend takes place every 3rd full weekend of each month, from Friday till Sunday. In our very busy and hectic lives, IHSW is a chance for us to squirrel some time away for ourselves and "Hermit and Stitch." It is a time set aside to take care of us and our love for stitching."

Weekend in my part of the world is on Friday & Saturday, so I will be stitching from Thur-Sat and post on Sundays whenever I participate in IHSW.

Here is my starting point of the piece I worked on 

Progress after 6 hours and 20 minutes

I was able to add 1164 stitches during the weekend.

Remember I told you that this piece has a story ...Infact I will call this as my nemesis project-a name aptly chosen by Diya.

So here is the story....

Time rewind to mid of year 2014, picture a girl who has just discovered the vast world of cross stitching . Picture how amazed she is, keeping in mind that all her life (which is around 30 years ) the only cross stitch she has known is making table cloths with borders, simple scenery or flowers . She has never heard of cross stitch kits, samplers , electronic patterns , social media cross stitch groups.She is a returning from a big cross stitch break of 10 years because of being busy with college and job.

So she finds out about all these wonderful patterns,threads,kits,fabrics and wants to try hands on them.Being a practical person,she starts with buying second hand stuff .

She buys kits from a lady off facebook plus some non Aida fabric and is so excited it when she gets them in post.Its Oct 2014 by now.

She decides to start the kit she loves the most.She wants to stitch it for her bestie as she thinks this is the design that matches her friend's personality a lot.

Oh she is suprised when she opens the kit- its stamped . Oops she has never bothered to think that kits can be stamped too. Lets check the fabric-sail cloth..what's that? All she knows is Aida and just saw linen and evenweave for the first time .

She is sad ,doubting whether she can do stamped cross stitch that too on sail cloth..She asks around on social media and gets tips.
She starts stitching but isn't happy with top of X's not aligned and the fabric showing beneath the stitches..
By now she has studied the pattern and realised that the X's in the pattern(flowers etc) are double the width of X's in the lettering.So that means we can try switching the fabric and do some over 2 and over 1 stitching and fix this issue,right? Wrong, she is too inexperienced to try stuff like this and the kit goes to bottom of her stash.

Fast forward to Feb 2016, the girl is desperate to make stuff for her bestie .She still thinks that the above mentioned project is best gift for her and decides to try it once again.

After a few hours of chat with DH and Diya, she decides to stitch 2 over 2 on 25 ct evenweave.
Small test patch is stitched and the coverage is not good.

Coverage with 2 over 2 

Again a quick discussion about the coverage and thread available, the decision is taken - Stitch 1 over 1 on 25 ct evenweave with one square on the pattern(non-lettering) equal to 4 X's on the fabric.

So here you are my friends, looking at the project which has been on my mind since last 2 years and troubling me ...lol

I can't show you the cover picture even though that would have made understanding problem a bit easier. My bestie visits my blog and I want to maintain the surprise as long as I can.

I know some of you may not be able to relate my lack of knowledge about cross stitch world but that my friends is a truth in many parts of the world. Cross stitching is a dying art in these parts and the supplies and knowledge of this art is not available .

Anyways ,now that I have overcome the initial startup hiccups , I'm really loving working on this piece and looking forward to finish it soon.

I hope you have a relaxing Sunday doing what makes you happy.