April Gifted Gorgeousness

Hello everyone! April is here and so is Gifted Gorgeousness, or GG for short. 

GG is the brainchild of Jo of Serendipitous Stitching. We are here to present things we were gifted or we gifted. This wasn't a very good month stitch wise. But first I would like to show you this.

I made a felted tealight stone candle holder to take part in a competition by Flying Tiger that ends on April 19th. You still have time to go on Instagram and vote for me by liking my photo, and tagging a friend of yours. Here is the link to it.

The only other thing I made was this freebie card from an old magazine.

 And of course as usually I gifted the pattern.

 This month I gifted to me my last craftpod kit. How fast time flew and already my annual subscription is over. I am really thinking of renewing it as I have enjoyed all four kits very much.

I have almost finished the blackbird embroidery hoop and will be showing it on the 19th at the Easter Blog Hop!

This month I received my giveaway win from Rosey of  ishkabibble. You can see her blog here. Thank you very much Rosey.

I also received this lovely picture with the little houses from my friend Georgia. You can see her blog in Greek here. Thank you Georgia.

 I also received a packet of vintage craft materials some of which I have already gifted myself. Thank you Stella.

As usually I'd like to show you more things I have done and seen this month that are connected to stitching art.Here are some photos from a recent visit to the local Folklife and Ethnological Museum of Macedonia-Thrace. They have so many beautiful things to see.

Embroidered pieces.

Traditional Costumes.

Traditional jewelry

There is more to see in the museum that is totally amazing like these porcelain stoves.

And an exceptional stained glass window.

There was a temporary exhibition of naif painters and I chose to show you one embroidered piece by Irini Koumandraki

 and a painting by  Giannis Theofilis. I have uploaded many more photos of this exhibition on my Instagram account.

The last thing to show you is a recent find from the Goethe vintage bazaar. It is a very well made embroidery of the famous painting by Rembrandt The man with the Golden helmet. I couldn't pass it as it was just a couple of euros. So much work and a great frame.

 Finally just wanted to let you know that the magazine I was giving away in my previous post was won by Mia of Craftartista. Congrats Maria. Please let me know your full name and address.

Hope you enjoyed this blogpost! Till next time enjoy the Easter holidays.

Let the people choose-April- Specialty Stitches

Hello everyone!

This month's Let the people choose has got the theme of Specialty Stitches.
Let the people choose is the brainchild of Jo of Serendipitous Stitching and you can read this month's blogpost and link-up post here.
As you probably know by now I do cross stitch and sometimes embroidery. So I am not into specialty stitches.
Therefore I have nothing to show you! LOL!
 But a long time ago I had won a giveaway win at a fellow stitcher's blog and I was sent this magazine. It is full of specialty stitches projects.
No, I am not going to stitch any of them or start working with specialty stitches. I have enough cross stitch for the next twenty years.
So if any one of you would like the magazine please let me know and I will send it to you. Just let me know in your comment that you want the magazine.
Cross stitching, crafting and blogging is sharing after all! Right?

 Some of the pages inside.

March Gifted Gorgeousness

Hello there again! It is Gifted Gorgeousness time again.
Jo of Serendipitous Stitching organizes this so you can go to her blog and visit all blogs that take part in it. It is things we have stitched and gifted or things that were gifted to us.
First of all this is a photo I have shown in a previous blog post. It is a photo filled with freebies from magazines I have collected for years and freebies from magazines that were gifted to me or small kits gifted to me. I decided to stitch them this year all or most of them and usually then I gift the patterns and left over threads.

This month I only stitched this beaded violet vase kit from a very old cross stitch magazine.

 And the leftover threads, pattern and card went to an Adopt a WIP member.

This month I managed to make some sea glass felted stones for some friends to whom I should have sent one some months (or maybe years) ago. I had received a gift from them and would like to thank them for their gifts. Some of them have received their stone, some haven't so I won't mention any names. I made four blue ones.

 And two pink ones. I have decided to use up my beads so I will not buy more new beads. I have so many so I will be making my stones from now on only in the colours I have beads for.

 I also made a very special stone I am keeping.

 It is special because it is made with....

 ...with Barca's shedding hair! Ok maybe some people find this strange but I must say dogs' hair can be used to make lots of things even knitted clothes. You can read some info here.

 Of course in March I made a March bracelet (the one with the glass beads).

The mail brought some more things. This birthday card came earlier but I think I didn't show it in my previous blog post.It is from my Israeli pen friend Ruth.

 I got a super gift from my dear friend Cathy in England.

 And another super gift from Gaby in Scotland. She made the heart  earrings herself!

 It has been a month of snow and cold but Spring has sprung so we try to walk at the sea front a bit. Here I am with a vintage Indian block printed silk scarf gifted to me by my dear cousin and was brought from France. As Green is the colour of hope it makes me smile in the sunshine and hope for the best in future. Thank you dear!

 I will finish this blogpost with some Spring photos from my city!

 

 

Let the people choose-March-Freebies

This month's Let the people choose by Jo of Serendipitous Stitching has to do with Freebies.

Freebies (the little free gift kits that accompany magazines) were at first what got me hooked with cross stitch when I was pregnant with my son. I bought the magazines (mainly Cross Stitcher and Needlecraft) to get the free kits to stitch. I loved them. I collected so many with every magazine I bought that I couldn't stitch all of them at some point. Every January I make a New Year's Resolution to finish my huge pile of free kits from magazines ( I have many gifted to me too by friends) and every year I stitch some but I still have many. At times I give away some as gifts to make other people want to learn how to do cross stitch. I also stitch and give them as gifts.
Here you can see how many I still have.That's a shoe box.(again I say many of them are gifts not bought by me)

Want to see them all?

Now that I see them I think most of my older ones were stitched or gifted. The most of what you see in this photo are gifts.
Anyway freebies are not only free kits from magazines.
Freebies can also be free patterns one can find on various sites to stitch for free.
Be careful here. If you simply look for free cross stitch patterns on various sites they might lead you to illegally shown patterns and not real free patterns from designers. You can read a bit about copyright in cross stitch patterns in this blog post of Minizdiary.
Here I will give you a couple of pages that have some free patterns along with some to buy. I have stitched some of the free ones from these sites and really enjoyed them
First it is The Little Stitcher. She also has a beautiful etsy shop here.
And then it the Snowflower Diaries. She too has an etsy shop here.
You can find lots of free patterns in gazette94 too.
Finally there are some freebies on AjisaiPress and they also have some amazing things on the eshop too.
I hope I have made you want to stitch a bit more now! Till next month!