Up until last year I used to purchase this magazine on a regular basis. It is available at most supermarkets as well as places like WH Smith's and Hobbycraft. It cost just under £5 a month and has 13 issues a year. The magazine also offers yearly subscriptions for around £40.

The magazine has certain features every month including readers letters (which you receive a free gift for if your letter is printed), a page of people looking for kits/charts/threads or giving them away and another page of people who are looking to find penpals around the world. The magazine always has a free gift which is generally a free cross stitch kit to start as soon as you get home but sometimes it will have extra bits to make up things such as bookmarks, or mirror cases, other free gifts have included sets of embroidery needles, free charts books and calendars.

The magazine contains a mixture of charts on different topics from ones that are small enough to make a gift tag or card to others that can be finished in a variety of ways such as mounted on a canvas to making bags or doorstops out of them. The chart always contains a colour key using DMC and Anchor thread codes, as well as finishing instructions, and time taken to make the project up.

There is also now a section on how to make things for the home, a 'make do and mend' type of approach which some readers think detracts from the cross stitch as it is more hand sewing or machine sewing but if you like to do a mixture then this is the perfect magazine for you.