Get Stitching! (CrossStitcher Magazine)

Member Name: herbie__53

Product:	CrossStitcher Magazine
Date:	21/04/09 (56 review reads)
Rating:

Advantages: Modern designs, great quality charts, excellent free gifts!

Disadvantages: Sometimes you have to download the mounts for the free kits off the website...

Cross Stitcher is a monthly magazine published by Future Publishing. At the time of writing the current price is £3.75 and contains on average around 100 pages and 55 cross stitch designs.

It focuses on the hobby of - yep you guessed it - cross stitching! The magazine contains colourful and modern designs from various cross stitch designers. All charts in the magazine are "Cross Stitcher Quality Assured" which means that they have been checked for errors and make the most use out of accents such as fractional stitches, backstitch and french knots (compared to other magazines where the designs look "blocky" because of the use of whole stitches only or backstitch that exactly follows the grid lines).

I have read all the cross stitch magazines at some point or another, and must say I find that Cross Stitcher consistently comes up trumps. I think it is because of the quality of the charts in there - they are in full colour and easy to read and equal the quality of charts that come with full kits in the shops.

As well as the designs featured, there are also other regular sections such as:

Reader Letters
Questions and Answers on reader's stitching queries
Techniques
Competitions and Giveaways
Guide to basic cross stitching to get you started
Stockist list of where to buy everything featured in the designs
Subscription offers for those of you that would like more!

Cross Stitcher designs featured are not just traditional pictures, they feature towel borders, cards, cushions, stitching on clothes... the inspiration is endless!

The magazine comes with a free gift each month, this is usually in the form of a mini cross stitch kit. I remember the days in the 90's where the free designs were about two inches square at most, but the free kits have really come on a lot since then let me tell you! Recent free gifts I have seen are Margaret Sherry Kits (a lot bigger than two inches square!), Oriental kits and a thread organiser. All free gifts are of a very high quality and the kits come with everything needed - threads, fabric, needle, chart and mount! Sometimes you dont get the mount in the kit but can print them off the website, I feel this is a disadvantage to the people that dont have the internet (perhaps the older stitchers) or people that don't have a high quality or colour printer.

But overall I'd say this magazine is brilliant for any cross stitcher - old or young as the designs cover such a varied range of styles you are bound to find something you like!

Summary: The best cross stitching mag around.