With an eye to the fact that most of the time that hasn’t been spent on actual paying work lately has been spent bent over my too-high-count Aida weave (tiny stitches are pretty but time-consuming), this magazine caught my attention at our local corner store. I think I picked it up from the stand and turned it over in my hands three times before I finally made up my mind and purchased a copy, mostly convinced by the absolutely gorgeous strawberry pattern on the cover.

The magazine contains a number of patterns and project suggestions for them, with excellent instructions, as well as a short section with an introduction to cross stitching and a new related craft (for this issue, cross-stitching on paper, which DOES look pretty cool). I learned some things, and found some patterns I’ll definitely be up for trying out, including the aforementioned strawberry pattern. Each issue also comes with a small project kit, in this case the materials for a little Royal Guard embroidery with a magnet felt frame, which I’m pretty indifferent about.

The pricing is a bit of a shame – it’s definitely worth the cover price of £3.99, but with import costs, tax, and markups, this ended up with me paying two and a half times that for my copy, and subscriptions actually work out to even more per issue. But I’ll probably still pick up one or two more, because I did enjoy what was in this magazine a lot, and the preview of the next issue contained some very interesting patterns.

Bottom line: Definitely recommended if you’re into cross-stitching!

(Also, to the right you can see a small teaser for my secret Christmas project which is by now well underway…)