I was taught to cross stitch when I was about 6 years old and as much as I enjoyed it, it is not something which became a regular hobby until now.

I was in the newsagents looking for a magazine to read whilst I was doing some babysitting and I saw the craft magazines, the cross stitching ones particularly caught my eye though because they all had wonderful free gifts on them. That night whilst babysitting I began stitchin one of the cover kits and since then I have been an avid cross stitcher.

In the bundle of magazines I bought that day, was Cross Stitcher magazine, since that day I have purchased every issue.

An issue of Cross Stitcher currently costs £3.99 which might sound expensive, but each issues comes with a free gift, which can vary from a complete cross stitch kit, embellishment packs, card making kits and other stitching bits and bobs - not to mention the wonderful charts included in the magazine!

I realised that each month I was rushing out to buy the mgazine and paying £3.99 for each issue, when it would be much more sensible to take out a subscription, which is what I have done. I now pay £9.98 every 3 months which saves me 23% on the cover price. I also recieve a wonderful free gift of a huge assortment of special brand name threads worth £50! As a subscriber I get my magazine delivered free to my door and there is an extra suppliment in the magazine.

There are many advantages to buying Cross Stitcher besides the great free gifts, each issue caters for everyone. There are always some charts which will take a few hours and are quite easy which is really good for newbie stitchers, then there are some which are a bit toughter and may take about 20 hours and perhaps use different stitches or threads and then for the advanced stitchers there are harder more detailed and complicated charts.

I really love that each chart will tell you roughly how long it will take, it also lists everything ou will need, not only to make up the picture but very often how to make it into something special like a cushion or cards.

The charts come with easy to follow keys which tell you the numbers for Anchor, DMC and Madeira brands of thread. It also tells you what size and type of fabric you will need.

The magazine includes lots of great competitions as well as pages on whats hot in the cross stitch world and how you can get hold of it. There are also pages of readers letters, penpals and a page of reader ads, in addition to features from designers.

In every issue there are several main designs and you are able to purchase the complete kits for these designs at reduced prices from Cross Stitcher.

As with all magazines, there are quite a few adverts, however I find ome of these to be really quite helpful because I have been able to order threads online for 50% less than I pay in my local store, I found the online store through an advert in Cross Stitcher.

Cross Stitcher is a really high quality magazine and I reccomend it to any cross stitch enthusiast whether they are just starting out or have been cross stitching for years, there is something in this magazine for everyone!