X-stitch pictures from the past

 

X-stitch is high on my agenda at the moment - I'm taking advantage of being in the mood to do it (NOT in  a patchwork mood right now) and to finish off a gift.  Here is a beautiful design from the Country Diary of an Edwardian Lady book of charts I still have and love.  I sewed it for my friend Annie (who sadly died 5 years ago last March) after she had been widowed.  She and her husband had a couple of beautiful stained glass Dragonflies in their cottage.  The gold-work wings on the one in this design weren't easy to work as the thread wasn't co-operative!  She cherished it and it was by her bed after she died, so her daughter gave it back to me.

Here are the x-stitch pictures I hung on the wall last week.  This first one is sewn by my dear friend G - we started off as penpals when I was about 20, but have been friends for decades now.  I had always hoped to return to Dorset to live, and missed it SO MUCH the early years we were in Wales, but like Devon, it was not meant to be.  Note Kingston (brilliant cider in the pub there back in the day) and Worth Matravers,  our favourite Purbeck walk which went down to the quarries and the sea, and Dancing Ledges. Great pub there too!  (The Square and Compass).

Here's one of mine (I'll have to put my details on the back).  This was sewn in the 1990s - TINY x-stitches as it's very fine Aida.

I can remember sewing this one when all three (small) offspring were in the bath.  They had VERY long baths and as I sat by the sink and sewed, they would say, we're washed now, can we come out now?  And I would say, in a minute . . . until they resembled prunes, they were so wrinkled! I am pretty sure that the pattern was sent by an American penfriend.  She had her heart set on sewing 100 samplers and was well into that number when we were last in touch.

Tom Kitten, sewn for Middle Daughter, to go in her room.  I had a T for Tam too, with another kitten, but that never got worked.

Another lovely one from my friend G.  You will notice the relevance of Kingston or Worth Matravers now!  I vaguely remember a similar design of a blacksmith's shop, which I think I sewed for her.

I absolutely LOVED sewing this.  It was very straightforward and I just love Fungi!

Another present from G and I adore this. Those Foxgloves set the landscape off beautifully.

Finally, what I'm currently working on.  I've made a boo-boo with the top of the trees on the left (e.g. the top straight bar of stitches should be an inch lower) - probably why this got abandoned in frustration a couple of years back.  However, I shall sort it out.  The single x-stitch stitches are in 501 and 502, just a shade apart and the counting and spacing has been sending me mad.  I'll be glad to finish this bit.

I was looking for a new X-Stitch magazine in W H Smith in Brecon recently, but hardly any seem to be on sale any more.  Quilting and card-making were well-represented.  I don't know what magazines folded due to the Pandemic - certainly ones I used to get weren't on the shelves, but perhaps they had sold.  I used to get Cross-Stitch Gold, and there was Stitch, and a more general one called Workbox.  Ah well, I will have to go through the few that came with me on our move - although that includes the dozen or so American "Just X-Stitch" magazines which I absolutely treasure.  I used to buy them when we were on holiday in Dorset, from a Patchwork shop in Blandford.  Oh, I can still remember the absolute luxury of stopping for food at a supermarket in Shaftesbury, and Keith took the kids in to get lunch and I was able to read my new magazines (I got patchwork ones too, also from America).  Happy memories.