The Gift of Stitching and Baby Swing progress

You were all right, The Gift of Stitching Magazine is brilliant!  I signed up yesterday and within 30 seconds it appeared in my inbox to download.  Three issues for $3 or £1.94 - amazing.  This issue has a free Ink Circles design which I love, it's on the front cover of the mag if you want a sneak look.  There are several other free designs inside, mostly smalls or instalment parts of larger designs.  Which causes me a problem because now I want to buy all the back issues!

The articles are interesting too, there's even one on ORTs but sadly no mention of the TUSAL!
If anyone is thinking of signing up I'd heartily recommend it, and please add Joanne P as your Tell-a-friend so I get an extra month free!

Other good news - thanks to a FB friend I have found a copy of the missing Cross Stitch Collection magazine.  I was sure I had bought all 6 of the JE Flower Fairy issues but just couldn't find the first one (Daffodil 193) anywhere.  This friend pointed me in the direction of an EBay Buy It Now offer, the same seller also had a copy of Just Cross Stitch Christmas Ornaments 2010 so to save 50p on postage I had to get both!    Just Cross Stitch is impossible to find round here.  I used to be able to get American mags in the city but out here in rural-land it just doesn't happen.

Here is the latest Baby Swing - she's looking good with some backstitch.  The green lianas were tricky but look great.  They are a sort of twisted back-stitch, two squares forward, one square back in blended brown and green.  The stitch names are in French so I need to find a translation!  They don't really follow the squares so it was more like free-style embroidery than anything else.  My criticism of this chart is that the square grid is very faint so it's quite hard to count especially for some of the farflung leaves.  However as it's an organic picture rather than a geometric I don't think it matters if some of my leaves are slightly differently placed.