The crazy getting out of hand

Not only have I kitted and started my designated 15 projects, but while looking for ideas in my now huge collection of cross stitch magazines, I decided to work on even more that I have been in love with but due to low self-esteem and constant nagging by my mom ("are you done with the ones you started last year yet") I kept postponing the first stitches. Not any more! I found a Marjolein Bastin birdhouse chart in issue 93 of The World of Cross Stitching and a lovely garden sampler in issue 70 of Crazy for Cross Stitch. I'm only doing part of the sampler though, another birdhouse design that I'm going to use as a bookmark.Yeah, I know I'm nuts. But damn, I'm enjoying it!

The World of Cross Stitching free kit finished

What have I done?

Seriously. Is my Xmas SAL project cursed? I lost my floss! What is going on here? I know I had at least one more skein, but I cannot find it anywhere. It was right here, on my table, between the keyboard and the screen for ages. Along with dozens of other things, that, unlike my floss, are still here, gathering dust. All right, so I am not the tidiest housewife, correction, housesinglemom, in the world. In fact, I am sure I am somewhere at the bottom of the tidy list. But I always take care of my stash! There is at least one, possibly one and a half skeins of Raspberry Parfait floss located in my flat some place, I just don't know the exact spot. I spent the day looking for it. I found copious amounts of stuff I didn't remember I had, but the floss remains missing. I am fuming. In my day-long monologue I have used every curse word known to mankind and went on to invent a few new ones. Still the floss is missing. I swear, there must be an evil little goblin sneaking in every once in a while and relocate my stuff as a prank.

I won!

I am so excited! You may remember that I entered a giveaway at the GoldenAngelsWorks blog and even posted my 17th birthday photo. Well, I won one of the prizes, a collection of cross stitch magazines! It's the first time I ever won anything on a giveaway! Thank you so much!
I hope it also means that my streak of bad luck, that lasted for about 24-30 months, is about to end. I could really use some help from above, and angels are always welcome here.
Fae are also invited.

Stitchy update

Here is my latest mini finish, the last freebie kit I got from Keresztszemes Magazin. Unfortunately, my subscription has expired and I cannot afford to renew it. Even more unfortunately, it seems that the magazine will disappear altogether. It seems the present state of economy is not good enough to make Hungarian stitchers able to make a cross stitch related monthly publication profitable. December's will be the last issue. I has a sad.

see more Lolcats and funny pictures

 The good news is, I made some progress on the ballerina. I spent a couple of days at my parents' and I took this kit with me. Unfortunately, I forgot to pack the original chart and only had the working copies with me. Which means I didn't have the key, so I could only stitch with the colours that I have already used, as those were the only ones I could pair up with the symbols. Doesn't really matter though, I still think I made nice progress.

Okay, here we go.
I got all the papers I need for my divorce. It wasn't as difficult as I thought it would be. We have decided to not let any lawyers go close to our case because 1, we cannot afford it and 2, we both really wanna remain friends and kinda fear that would be a lot harder if we invited lawyers to take part in the process. We just want this divorce to go smoothly and as fast as possible. Call me prejudicial or malignant but I don't think that would be the best interest of a lawyer who gets paid by the hour. So we inquired about what to do and been told that we just have to write a letter stating when we met, when we got married, what went wrong, how long it lasted, plus the financial details, etc. After listening to the list of what must be included I asked the clerk "isn't there some kind of form we can just fill out" to which she said "sure", reached to the shelf behind her back and handed over the papers. SERIOUSLY, WHY NOT START WITH THAT? As if divorcing wasn't stressful enough without having to deal with clerks who are either dumb or just totally apathetic. Sheesh.

Okay, now some good news. The mailman brought me my copy of the Hungarian Keresztszemes Magazin and this time he even managed to properly insert it into my mailbox. Which is huge, I bought it specifically so I can subscribe to mags and not get them folded into four. Anyway, I have been collecting the free kits that subscribers get for... as long as they were there, and since I got every issue, you can imagine the pile. I store them all in a big shoe box. But last month I made a resolution to not procrastinate anymore and so I decided to stitch the mini kits right away!

I did it too, here are these cute little trees. The kits were supposed to have three shades of green in them, but no matter how hard I looked, I could only tell two apart, so I added the darker greens from my DMC collection. The darkest one is number 500, on the other tree I didn't pick one that is too dark, it's just a different shade. (If that makes any sense.)

I have spent more time on the Permin kit as well. It is slowly but surely expanding beyond the screen size of my scanner, but since my camera is always where my daughter is, which is over 60 kilometers from here, I had to jam my fabric into the machine. How else am I gonna show you my progress? Here, take a look!

Grandma RAKd me

Some of you might remember that I have the most amazing virtual Grandma' in the world. She might live on the other side of the Atlantic, but that doesn't stop her from spoiling me like I was her granddaughter by blood.She decided to send me all the magazines and leaflets she doesn't intend to stitch and I already got the first package she mailed. It had two leaflets by StitchWorld and two of my beloved Stoney Creek magazines.

For all those new to my untraditional family, allow me to present to you some of the wonderful works of my beloved Granma Jane.

Granma Jane's stitching

I'm a cover girl!

I have made it! Well, not me as a person, but as a model stitcher! I have been working on this wonderful design for the past two months and now I am able to share it with you. It's done on 14 ct black aida with Madeira floss and I am more than delighted with the way it turned out.

Right now I am putting the finishing backstitches on my next assignment. I can't share that with you yet, but I can tell you that it will be featured in the upcoming cross stich yearbook. Every year there is a special theme the majority of charts will represent and this year it's seasons. I will do my happy dance later tonight for a pretty spring design and then start, or should I say continue working on the next ones. I have to do all four seasons in nice, secession style squares. That one is done on rustic aida that I love so much!

No news on anything else yet. Tamara is vacationing at my parents' place. She has her own backyard playground there, so she is having the time of her life. My little angel. She's got her set of swings and a slide. Plus an inflatable mini pool. And my mom plans to buy a lockable plastic sandbox so Tami can build castles all day long. :) Nothing's too good for granma's little girl!

Help wanted - again

Hi all, this cute little kit was in one of my British cross stitch mags as a free gift, presumably in The World of Cross Stitching. My problem is I cannot find the magazine! I think this one was a gift from my Granma Jane but I am not so sure. The magazine may be stored somewhere else than my other mags because it came from someone special.

I am so frustrated! I have spent last Saturday going through my stash, organizing all my kits and mags - the charts are a bigger pile, they have to wait awhile - and now it seems I didn't get much closer to have order in my stitching corner. Does anyone know whick mag it came with? I did an online search but all I could find was e-bay people SELLING this FREE kit and not a hint where it came from. Isn't it against the law to ask money for these?

Anyway, the good news is, I have also had time for stitching and I quickly produced this tiny Lanarte kit's pots. I hope you like them as much as I do.

UPDATE: Thanks to the info from Sue, I have found the mag! :D
Silly me - I have browsed through my mags' content tables but the freebie kit's chart was not there. But since Sue gave me the issue number I have easily found it! Thanks a lot for your help!

Mag S. E. X. and asking for advice or help

One of the oldest LNSs that sells cross stitch supplies has a new sale. Every now and then they put old mags on a display. Crochet, knitting, quilting and cross stitch mags too. Any three mags you choose cost only 2000 HUF. To put that price into perspective, my favourite mags originally cost the following amount:

Susanna - 2490,-
Cross Stitch Crazy - 2200,-
Stoney Creek CS - 2100,-
Cross Stitch Gold - 3450,-


Needless to say that whenever I get the chance I invest as much as I can afford! These Stoney Creek mags were found in December, I haven't seen any of them since. Last week, however, I found three CS Crazy and three The World Of CS mags.

Of course, these are all old issues, and there can be problems. For example, the little hedgehog on the cover of the 1998 September TWO CS magazine is just a picture, the chart was supposed to be attached on a separate sheet as a free gift, but it's missing! The shop owner said it was probably stolen and since the magazine is so old, they can not replace it. Needless to say, I bought this issue for the sake of the hedgehog, my daughter, Tamara, loves it and asked me several times to stitch it for her.

I wonder what I should do. Do you think I should write to the publisher? Do they still have replacement charts for a nine year old magazine? Do they have the right at all to sell that pattern after all these years? Or should I look somewhere else? What do you suggest? Leave comments!

Stitching for (a) living

Yeeeaah! I always wanted to give it a try, but never really had the courage. But my recent WIPs were such a challenge, and I managed to stitch them so nicely, that when the chief editor of Keresztszemes Magazin (Hungarian X-stitch mag) posted a note on her portal saying basically "we need more model stitchers", I have decided to try it. I had to send pictures of my pieces so far, including backside. And yes! I got the job! I wasn't sure how fast I can be when needed, so I chose the smallest pattern. I got the floss, aida and chart yesterday and I'm already about 1/5th through with it! Wow!
My fingers ache pretty bad because the aida is unusually stiff and the design has lots of half stitches but I don't really care. It's my job and I will do it right! I am right on track and will finish this piece within a week or so. With a July deadline, I think it will do me good, as I am infamous of not being able to finish stuff in time. :)
Anyway, that was one big dream of mine. I have several dreams in connection with cross stitch. One of those is owning a CS webshop, another one is designing charts. And there is one more that might be fulfilled in the near future, and if it does, it will change the whole life of the family... but being as superstitious as I am, I will not tell you of it untill it's fulfilled! :P