Stitching and painting

I have been lazy again! I haven't updated my blog for weeks again. I have done some stitching, but not that much as I re-discovered my love for painting again! I used to draw and paint a lot when I was younger but not for years. Last time I was painting must have been 2004 or 2005. I haven't been drawing much either, little something every now and then.

I accidentally started painting again as I was bored and didn't feel like stitching so I remembered these ATC cards that I made back in 2007/8. So I took my papercraft supplies and made few cards and I did enjoy it. I also found a forum (atcsforall.com) where you can trade your finished pieces. Soon I noticed that lots of people draw/paint their cards and seem to prefer those, too. I was first a bit scared as I wasn't sure if I still know what to do! But I decided to give it a go.

First I used some old watercolours that I found from my craft closet. I painted few animals and one of them got traded within minutes! I got some selfesteem boost from that and went to basement to get my better paints and stuff. Oh, how I missed my paints! :D I have even started buying new stuff too. Pencils by Derwent. I really love their inktense pencils!

If someone is a part of that forum, you can find me there, using the same nickname there, Hely :) Well, here's a link to my gallery. Keep in mind that I am still learning! I am nowhere near perfect or a good painter :)

I have been doing some stitching too. Here's my update on the mermaids.

I haven't been stitching this piece for weeks now as I didn't have a good green for the plants around the mermaids. I have now ordered one and hopefully it will be a good one.

I also got an awesome birthday gift from my fiancé! He bought me a gift voucher to Sew and so! Ooooh happy day! Here's what I bought..

There's a bear kit by RTO, Meerkats (<3) by Heritage and Cupcakes by Bothy Threads. All of those are full kits. Two charts from LHN and big piece of white Jazlyn (28ct) and white and black DMC as those two colours are always missing! yay! Ofcourse I have already started something, hehe..

Here's my start on the Celebration Cupakes. The fabric on the kit was 14ct white aida but as I really, really don't like white aida, I changed it to white Jobelan (28ct) instead.

This is really fun to stitch! :)

He also brought me some stitching magazines that I have asked him to get for me as I can't get them from where I live.

So many nice charts that I wanna start right now! One of my favourites is Jayne Netley Mayhew's wolves of Cross Stitch Collection. I also plan to stitch Joan Elliott's Victorian Lady soon. Soonish..

Now I will make myself a cup of tea and strat reading other people's blogs! I haven't been reading them for ages.. :( Gonna catch up a little now, hopefully!

Maxxina number 13

I was very happy today to notice that one of my favourite magazines had a new issue on the shops. Yay! Plus it had lots of nice patterns on it. Here's some pics :)



"Somebunny to love" on the cover. I am not a fan of cute stuff, however, these bunnies are just something I can't really resist! :D



Animals by Anchor. I like this a lot. I don't have Anchor threads though so need to change them to DMC. Me likes animals :)



I saw this one as a kit years ago but never bought it. So I was extremely happy to see this on this issue! Whoo! This is by Permin.



Ah, lovely! This is also by Anchor so need to change the colours to DMC. I hope the finished piece will look the same and the colours are not too different. I am thinking about stitching this on Silkweaver's "Rock-a-bye" linen which I've had for several years now.


I'm not huge fan of roses, but this pattern looks really nice. It's Eva Rosenstand's.

The magazine got other patterns too, lots of them. But these were the one I wanna stitch, one day.

Bones and stitching

I haven't been stitching much lately. I did stitch a bit while watching tv last week but so far, I haven't done a single stitch this week. Might do that today while watching Bones (season 1). I just bought season 1 last week and finally got it yesterday (damn online shops, taking ages lol). I do have 4 seasons so far but I've only seen S1 and S2. I started to watch S3 last week, but as I didn't remember anything from S1 and S2, I decided to start to watch them from the beginning.

I have couple pics to show you. "Always welcome" and "Nefertiti".




Yesterday I bought issue 90 of "Cross stitch gold" cause of the chinese lanterns! I saw them on the previous issue and I knew I want no, I NEED to stitch them. I also got my first subsribed issue of "Cross stitch and needlework" wohoo!! I have some random issues but this was the first magazine that was subscribed :)) I really love that magazine and already found charts I wanna stitch. So the Must stitch-list is getting longer and longer.. lol