CrossStitcher issue 196

Yesterday I bought CrossStitcher magazine. I suppose that's why it's raining lately. But I couldn't resist the Margaret Sherry cats.

Because the magazine blog displays nice pictures, I won't bother with taking some more, and will just "review".

Let's face it, I only bought the magazine for the MS cats freebie. Nothing else of interest (in my tastes). It's mostly modern/deco type of designs. I like the blackwork bears as well, but I don't know what I would do with them.

Now, the freebie... It's quite a big design. Regular size design for a Margaret Sherry cat, like the ones published in the magazines as chart.

So loads of colours provided (and the threads seem to be of the regular kind again, not just the chinese ones), and the fabric is big. there are also laods of fractionals, so we can feel attention to details.

But beware, the threads on the sorter aren't exactly in the order of the key list, so check and plan in advance. I had the problem with a previous freebie...

Otherwise, they want to finish it as a bellpull, but of course they don't provide the top thing. Once again, you would have to buy from Debbie Cripps. Apparently they have a deal with her or something... Of course you can finish it as you want anayway ;)

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Hier j'ai achete le magazine CrossStitcher, ca doit etre pour ca qu'il pleut en ce moment. Mais je n'ai pas su resister les petits chats du kit offert.

Comme il y a deja les photos sur le blog du magazine, je ne vais pas en remettre ici... et donc je vais juste donner mon avis.

En fait, je n'ai achete ce magazine que pour le kit, car le reste est trop moderne et oriente deco a mon gout. J'aime bien les petits ours, mais je ne saurais pas quoi en faire apres, alors...
Le kit est un grand kit. Comme le projet est aussi grand qu'un margaret Sherry habituel, ca veut dire plus de couleurs (avec des fils qui ne semblent pas provenir de Chine comme d'hab), et un grand tissu...

Mais si vous vous attelez a ce projet, verifiez les fils, car ils ne sont pas dans l'ordre de la liste !

SBQ of the week 9jan08

SBQ of the week: What was your favorite finish of 2007?

This is a hard one. I guess mostly because I feel my tastes changing. Because I'm more into big designs and ladies, I would have to say "Renaissance Lady". And I also have a thing for "Old Gardens".

Last month I would have chosen an LHN pattern I guess.
If we talk about total finish, I would have to say my squirel pouch. I use it all the time.

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Quel est votre projet favori de 2007?

C'est dur a dire, car mes gouts changent beaucoup. En ce moment, comme j'aime surtout les grands projets, et autres Mirasbilia, je dois dire "Renaissance Lady". Et aussi "Old Gardens".

Le mois dernier ca aurait ete un Little House Needleworks. Et si on parle de l'objet final, je devrais dire ma derniere trousse avec l'ecureuil.

The 2cm wonder

This is something I finished last Saturday, stitching it mostly at Lili's. As the tape measurer shows, the design is only 2cm square !!!! it's the second freebie "lapin", stitched over one, on 32ct green cloudy linen (from K'thylda). At this point, we have to wonder what to do with something that small...

I also made an angle picture, "3D" like DBF says, because he said it would look good and we can see the stitches better. Many French blogs already show that kind of pictures...

I am slowly stitching Cinderella. It might be in blocks, but this project is an old Mirabilia, and it's not so fast to go through it ! As a result, I don't feel a day to day progress picture would show any progress. So I will have to space those a little bit.

At the moment I find it hard to get into stitching in the evening, so I probably don't stitch as much as usual either.

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Un petit projet que j'ai fait samedi dernier, en grande partie chez Lili. Ca ne fait que 2cm, en un fil sur lin 14 fils vert avec effet. C'est tellement petit qu'on se demande a quoi ca peut bien servir...

J'ai aussi fait une photo avec angle, car DBF m'a dit que je devais aussi faire ca en voyant des blogs francais, car on voyait mieux les points. Donc... j'essaye.

J'avance lentement sur Cinderella, et je ne pense pas faire de photo au jour le jour, car on ne verrait pas le progres de toute facon. Mais ca avance...

Depressed? Be crazy ! Cinderella update... don't remember the number

This is Cinderella (from Mirabilia) as she is now.

Loads of patches of colours. Huge design. The dress might be like 70% finished, but there's a whole castle and a border to stitch....

Of course you can't expect me to go on until it's finished... But little by little, she will be finished !

Of course there is nothing crazy about taking back an UFO (if anything, this is a very wise decision...).

No, the crazyness refers to the next picture. I took the plunge and bought a daylight portable lamp. I enjoyed Lili's (she's got the fancy rolly floorstand one) during our Saturday evening stitching sessions.

Plus I'm fed up with those "no light" days we are having. Juggling to take pictures that aren't that nice anyway... Here I took Cinderella without a flash.

If you add the works on dark fabric and the miniatures (I still have to show you my second mini-rabbit project), I really needed that lamp ! Of course the portability means I can travel around with it as well...

Before you ask... I bought it in hobby craft. I would have spared money by buying online, but I fear the bulb would come broken or something. As I was there I bought Cross Stitch Collection magazine, because of Joan Elliott's sunbonnet girls. They will make nice cards...

And I finally bought my tickets to go to Excel's Stitch and creative show in London. Here I used the magazines discount...

I usually miss the event due to personal timing clashes... so I hope it's good !

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Ou j'en suis avec Cinderella... il reste encore beaucoup a faire !!!!

J'ai aussi achete une "daylight" lampe, ce qui est pratique pour prendre les photos le soir, et faire mes miniatures, travail sur tissu fonce,e tc...

J'y ai pris gout avec la lampe de Lili, qui elle a la version sur pied roulant. Moi c'est la portable, pour pouvoir voyager.

J'ai aussi achete un magazine pour les petites filles style Sarah Kay, et des tickets pour l'expo a Londres du 1er Mars. D'habitude je rate l'expo pour raisons perso... mais la... faut y aller !

The dark period isn't over...

You start a new year... You'd expect a new start, some sign that the dark period you were stuck in in Nov/Dec will be gone with the year... Not so...Yesterday I was talking about my home phone not having a dial tone. Guess what? I come in at work and... no dial tone. What are the odds? At least at work I can use a collegue's phone...

Then I call Virgin Media, and they imply that because they have a normal ringing tone when they call my house, my phone itself is faulty, and I should try with another phone. Of course, I have multiple phones in my house... not.

Add to that the fact that my body aches. Going down 12 floors is a piece of cake, but a few hours later, you feel it in your legs, believe me. And carrying an heavy suitcase gives you pins and needles in your hands, and I start to feel it in my arms as well.

I'm glad my little story pleases you. I don't normally get stories from projects, but maybe it's because I was stitching just one character and it was obvious what they were doing, etc...Here it brings me back to my favourite game as a kid: school. Paradoxally, I hated going to school, but I liked teaching my dolls, and I had the whole Playmobil school as well. And no, I didn't become a teacher because I was realistic about what it meant day in and day out. Even if the kids behave, repeating always the same stuff, and having to prepare courses, spend time at home grading papers... not for me !

I was also pleased to see other people making up stories. Why don't you hare them with us on your blogs ?

For the rest of the story, you will have to wait a little bit. Yesterday I took Cinderella (mirabilia) again. I've been stitching LHN designs for 2 months now, and I felt I wanted to stitch a different style.

Kim, I totally agree with you and extra expenses with buttons and other embellishments. I would have thought that in a big city like NY you would get many craft stores? Here on the other side of the Atlantic, we have other nice things, very expensive most of the time, but if we want to do an US project, we have to order stuff online. Not always easy.

Nela, I'm so proud of myself, I understood everything you said en espanol...But I forgot what cintas are???

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Vous commencez une nouvelle annee... vous esperez que la periode noire qui a sevi en novembre/decembre s'arrete avec l'anne 2007... Que non pas...Mon telephone a la maison ne fonctionne pas, j'arrive donc au boulot et je m'apprete a appeler la companie... et pas de tonalite.

Quelle est la probabilite que mon telephone de maison et de boulot tombent tous les deux en panne en meme temps? Et voila que la companie du telephone implique que la faute vient de mon appareil, et que je dois tester avec un autre telephone.

Bien sur, le pauvre, il n'a pas supporte le froid pendant 15 jours, et a subitement rendu l'ame... alors qu'il n'en montre aucun signe... Et j'ai evidemment plein de telephones a la maison pour tester. Evidemment pas.

Enfin.... ajoutons a cela que je me sens cassee, bras et jambes, avec des picotememnts dans les mains (cause de portage de valise)... c'est pas top quoi !

je suis contente que mes petites histoires vous plaisent. C'est la premiere fois que je fais ca avec un projet, car en general le perso du projet fait un truc evident, donc pas besoin d'en rajouter...Et je suis aussi heureusement surprise de voir que d'autres font des petites histories. Vous devriez les raconter sur vos blogs !!!!

Hier j'ai delaisse le projet pour Cendrillon (Mirabilia) car apres 2 mois de Little House Needleworks, je voulais changer de style, et aussi Cendrillon m'appelle depuis un bout de temps...

Pinkcanary, j'ai hate de voir les noms que tu trouveras pour tes persos !!!!

School of Needlework update 3 from the invisible woman

"My name is Abigail. I'm little Lizzy's older sister. The one they count on to take care of Elisabeth, and that's why Mrs Ross had me sit next to her instead of my friends.

From a distance I hear them chatting and laughing, while I have to help Elisabeth in her work. Mrs Ross always compliment her on it, does she really think she did it alone?

I guess I'm in a bad mood today because Mom said Elisabeth should wear the blue dress now that I outgrew it, and wear this brown one she used to wear at my age. I hate brown... But who would care? I'm the older sister, the responsible one...."

Lili can testify this is the story I told her on Saturday, before we read pink canary called the blue one Abigail (what a great coincidence !). She can testify that Abigail was already an unhappy girl on Saturday, and my situation today didn't make her such a grumpy puss.

Older sisters I think can relate to her, like I do.

Today was "back home" day. I had to start it after virtually no sleep by going down 12 floors with an heavy suitcase because the lift was out of order.
The the trip was sort of ok, but why did they make things so that the entry of St Pancras is so far away from the entrance of King Cross? I ended up walking 3 times the lengh of St Pancras !!!! It took nearly 30 min to go from train to train, while if you could take the direct route, you'd be there in 10 min.

And they wonder why people don't like public transportation... those obviously never took the underground. I was told people in Paris have similar problems... load of walking....

Things seem ok at home, but it's soooooo cold ! Of course, the heating was off for 2 weeks ! but then, the one thing that I could hold onto to pass the day was DBF's phone call. And of course.... no tone. TV and internet work, but phone is dead. And how do you call the company in that case? You wait the following day to call from work, because there is no way I'm going to pay a looong phone call on a mobile for that.

And to add to this I feel invisible on yahoo groups, so I don't know if people just don't get my emails or don't care to answer... It feels like if you are not in their little world already, far in the US, you are not worth it or something.

All in all, I'm worse than when I left for the holidays. Don't want to go to work, feel like crying... and want to be in Spring. I should start stitching for Spring soon, bunnies and all... maybe it would help?

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"Mon nom est Abigail. je suis la grande soeur de Elisabeth, celle sur laquelle tout le monde compte pour s'occuper d'elle. C'est pourquoi Madame Ross m'a mise a cote d'elle en classe, alors que je prefererais etre avec mes amies. tandis qu'elles papotent et rigolent, je dois aider Elisabeth avec ses points, et Mme Ross s'extasie de son bel ouvrage. Croit-elle vraiment qu'elle l'a fait toute seule ?

Je suppose que je suis de mauvaise humeur aujourd'hui car maman a decide que desormais ce serait Elisabeth qui porterait la robe bleue qui commence a etre trop petite pour moi. Et me voila avec la vieille robe maron de maman a la place. Je deteste cette couleur. mais qui s'en souciera? Je suis l'ainee, la grande fille responsable..."

Pink.canary, je suis sure que tu saisiras l'ironie du fait que c'est celle d'a cote de la tienne qui est Abigail.... Lili pourra temoigner que je lui ai dit ce nom et cette histoire samedi, environ une heure avant de lire ton commentaire !

Les soeurs ainees se reconnaitront surement en Abigail,e n tout cas, moi oui ;)

Aujourd'hui j'ai du rentrer chez moi. L'eurostar Lille-St Pancras est peut etre plus rapide qu'avant, mais quand on doit passer 20 min a faire l'equivalent de 3 fois la longeur de la gare de St pancras, c'est pas aussi drole. Surtout que j'ai commence le voyage en descendant a pied les 12 etages pour cause de panne d'ascenceur. Ce ne serait rien si ma valise n'etait pas si lourde....

La maison est telle que je l'ai laissee, mais tellement froide ! Forcement, j'ai arete le chauffage 15 jours... Et evidemment, le moment clef de la journee aurait du etre l'appel de DBF au soir, et a ce moment-la je me suis rendue compte que mon telephone ne marche plus !!!! Zont encore du trifouiller dans la borne de telephone, et les connaissant, ils vont vouloir prendre rendez-vous et me faire attendre de 8 a 13h alors qu'ils doivent juste me rebrancher a l'exterieur.

Alors que la tele et internet marchent... c'est la ou on est content que le systeme de cable et le telephone ne proviennent pas de la meme boite comme Free ;)

Bref, ajoutons a ca que je me sens invisible sur certains yahoo groups, ou mes messages restent sans reponse, et on dirait que c'est copinage et co, et si on n'habite pas aux USA et qu'on ne passe pas son temps a s'extasier devant le designer on ne vaut pas le moindre interet...

Donc je suis pire qu'avant les vacances, ca valait la peine, tiens !!!! ;)

School of Needlework update 2

Mrs Ross, and a pupil, I called her Elizabeth.

Elizabeth is a sweet girl yeager to learn, and she really likes Mrs ross' class.

My stitching suffered a bit from headaches and DS playing (Princess Peach)

Plus I lost DMC3828 somewhere.

This will be my last update until Monday/Tuesday, as it's nearly the end of my holidays, and I feel grumpy and kinda sick, for many reasons.

Anyway, I see Lili tonight, it will be great ! :)

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Madame Ross, l'institutrice, et Elizabeth, une gentille petite fille qui aime apprendre. Peu de broderie recemment pour cause de mal de tete et de DS (Princess Peach). Et j'&i perdu une couleur DMC quelque part.

Ce sera mon dernier post avant lundi ou mardi, car c'est la fin des vacances, et je me sens assez mal et grognon. Heureusement que je vois Lili ce soir !!!

Perso, email and language note

First, in English... note that I sometimes don't say the same thing in French and English... so it might be worth reading both sometimes if you know both languages.

Also, it seems that blogger doesn't keep people emails, so if you want me to reply to comments by email, you will have to give me your adress. Other wise I will answer on the blog.

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Notez que parfois je ne dis pas la meme chose en francais et anglais, donc si vous savez lire les deux langues, n'hesitez pas a lire les deux textes.

Depuis que je suis sur blogger, je n'ai plus les adresses email des commenteuses, donc si vous voulez que je vous reponde en prive par email, il va falloir me donner votre adresse.

Sinon, je repondrai ici.

Pimlico62, bienvenue par ici. Je ne connais pas la mercerie de la rue masurel, c'est une bonne nouvelle, apres les fermetures massives de merceries dans le coin !!!!

Comment ca se fait que ton profil blogger indique l'Afganistan comme pays si tu es du 62? ;)

School of Needlework update 1

or "the corpse of Mrs Ross" ;)

You can see the finished project on the left sidebar if need be.

As you can see I stitched the teacher's dress and part of the left table.

I use the same fabric as Stitcher's prayer, 36ct raw linen.

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Le corps de Mrs ross, la prof de l'ecole de broderie... Je brode ce projet sur le meme tissu que Stitcher prayer, du lin 14 fils.

Last finish and Happy New Year !!!

Click on the picture to see it bigger....

Apparently there is a tradition of starting a project on January 1st, so I decided to finish this one before today... Quite a challenge at the stage I was at that time !

But I had loads of time to stitch yesterday, so.. tadaaaa !

I even had to start a mini freebie in order not to start "School of Needlework" straight away...

I see many people make 2007 and 2008 goals...

I stitched 44 things in 2007. Like 2005 and 2004. I had a boom in 2006 (59 projects), but I made ornaments and such...

In 2007 I got into Little House Needleworks and more country style than before.

In 2008... I don't know... I feel like doing more personal stuff, and more experimental things, like ribbon embroidery.

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Mon dernier projet de l'annee, fini le 31 decembre !! Aujourd'hui je commencerai "School of Needlework".

En 2007 j'ai borde 44 trucs, et j'aimerais faire de nouveaux trucs en 2008, comme la broderie au ruban....