Christmas in January

My quest to be a regular reader again has been waylaid somewhat by the arrival of one of my Christmas presents from M. Yes, yes it is a month past Christmas but the poor guy failed to take into account how long it would take to send something from the UK. That's alright though because THEY'RE HERE!

I've loved cross stitching for a long time and it's only gotten more enjoyable as I realize how un-grandma I can go with this traditional lady craft. It also gradually dawned on me that I wasn't the only one and the internet has provided a whole community of nontraditional stitchers for me to dive into.

As much as I love scrolling through Reddit subs and cross stitch blogs looking for inspiration, I'm a pretty tactile person so nothing tops having that inspiration physically available, able to flip through whenever I'm feeling a little stuck. During my stitch scrolling I stumbled across Mr X Stitch and his textile art blog and YouTube channel. Not only is the subject matter of the cross stitch, embroidery, etc. usually a bit out of the box, but there's often out-of-the-hoop projects that get me thinking of ways to expand my stitching horizons.

Like I said though, I want that physical copy of something so first I got his book, The Mr X Stitch Guide to Cross Stitch. It's great for beginners and more advanced stitchers alike (I've discovered in my further quests for cross stitch books that that's not an easy thing to do) and I loved it. Imagine my surprise and delight when I discovered that there was a magazine!

I suppose I could've gotten the digital copies and be done with it but that wasn't good enough, I wanted the real deal! I put it off for whatever reason but this Christmas M came through and bought me the first 5 issues. They've been an absolute delight to flip through. The patterns are awesome and often something I'd actually consider making, and the articles aren't just fluff bits to break up a barrage of patterns, they're actually interesting and well written. They treat cross stitch as an art form.

I've only just started reading the third Space issue (obviously the one I'm most excited about) but I'm just so excited about these magazines and how awesome they are that I just had to share. Now though, I'm off to start a million projects at once...