May 13

Welcome..

Hi to all our readers, new and old. If you're enjoying your cross stitch at the moment, then make sure you e-mail and tell me about it! I'd love to feature some of your work in future editions of the newsletter, as it's great for you and shows me what fantastic stitchers you
are!

Now, I said last time our theme would be holidays. However, given that here in the UK we are only just finishing with a very long winter, I really don't feel like featuring a holiday theme just yet. So, I'm postponing the holiday theme until next time - sorry! In this edition, we're going to look at some of our designs that sometimes get overlooked, some of the designs that I haven't featured before but are very popular on the website.

Hidden Gems

Our Americana section is always a good seller, but I don't remember ever mentioning these designs in a newsletter. So here goes!

The 1960s were an amazing decade for American cars - they were big, bright affairs and nothing screams that era that our 1968 SS Chrevolet Camaro. Its distinct blue and white striped design is a real crowd pleaser - stitched or driven! The kit is a snip at £24.95 and
uses 11 DMC colours, measuring 11.6" by 6". It's got the right level of tricky bits to easy stitching, so would be perfect for a relatively new stitcher.

If you think that nothing says America like a yellow taxi, you're spoilt for stitching choice as we have 2 yellow taxi designs, a Chevrolet Caprice and a Chrysler PT Cruiser. The Chrysler, measuring 13.6" by 5" and using 9 DMC colours, is a little cheaper at £24.95 for the kit, whilst the Chevy costs £29.95 as it is a little larger, measuring 14" by 8.4" and using 18 DMC colours. So take your pick and get ready to see a lot of yellow thread!

Let's go back a bit further now, to 1958. Well actually, we're not going back that far, but to 1983. A film called Christine was released in 1983, although it was set in 1978 and featured a car made it 1958. Confused? Well, the film was called Christine and featured the car in our next design, a 1958 Plymouth Fury. In the film, the car is a very unpleasant machine, bumping people off left right and centre, but your stitched version will just look like a lovely piece of memorabilia...only you will know the truth......! The kit costs £29.95 and measures 18" by 11", so it's one of our bigger ones.

Finally, a real American classic. You can't get much more American than the Pink Cadillac and ours is no exception. It has been a song (originally by Bruce Springsteen), a film (not the best film ever according to the write ups online!) and a desirable car.Our version costs £24.95, uses 13 DMC colours and measures 14" by 5".

So, if you fancy stitching a bit of American culture you've got every chance now. If you are American, then my apologies if any of this is not true or a bit cliched. Sorry, but maybe you need to stitch a bit of your heritage too!

Classic American ride!

Taxi number one....

....Taxi number two!

Scary film, great car.

Another classic.

Hidden Caricatures

I've just trawled through our website, looking for some of our caricatures that haven't been featured before. I think these haven't, but I'm not 100% sure, so forgive me if you've seen them already. Although well done for remembering!

I decided I wanted a quad bike design after seeing a police quad bike at a school fete, the policeman was showing the school children his bike and it looked so cool I decided to pay tribute in cross stitch. However, the police livery isn't always as popular as a normal coloured design, so I plumped for yellow and off we went! The kit costs £29.95 and measures 14" by 9.6", using 19 DMC colours. Have a look at http://www.stitchtastic.com/product/quad-bike-caricature-cross-stitch-kit.aspx for more details.

Another racing design comes next. Last issue, we featured our Formula 1 range. Did you know that a large majority of F1 drivers start out in go carts? So if you'd like to stitch something for Lewis Hamilton or Jenson Button, you could do no better than our go cart design, costing £35.95 for the kit. It's amongst our more detailed designs using the most colours (18), measuring 14" by 11". Having said that, it's not too difficult to stitch as there are some fairly large blocks of colour to complete when you're sitting in front of the TV.

We've talked quite a lot about American designs today, but now it's time for a quintessentially British one - the red London Bus. This one is a Routemaster design - that means it has the open step at the back that passengers can hop on and off from. Makes it cold in the winter though! Our kit costs £35.95 as it is another big one, measuring 13" by 11" and using 18 DMC colours. Have a look at http://www.stitchtastic.com/product/routemaster-bus-cross-stitch-kit.aspx for more info.

One more, and this one is also a British design. It's the only ship design we havem and what a ship! The QE2 is named after our queen and is an amazing vessel. With a length of 294m and weighin 48,920 tons, the QE2 is a British icon which retired from service in 2008 to become a floating hotel in Dubai, although this hasn't happened yet. You can create a much smaller version for yourself with our kit, and it will cost you a lot less at £29.95. It measures 14" by 9.6", using 20 DMC colours.

So, I hope I've featured some designs here that tickle your fancy, and keep you stitching over the summer months. Remember, the light is so much better during the longer evenings than when you're stitching by artificial light, so get going while you can!

Quad bikes - more dangerous to ride than to stitch.