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Gin
This cute little kit was a Christmas present and it was my first time doing back-stitching. It came with really helpful instructions and was super fun to stitch.
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Mine
This was a very quick stitch I did while I was isolating for Covid. My husband had done such a good job of looking after me that I stitched this and left it on his pillow as a little surprise. It was done in one evening, and inspired by this fabulous Taylor Swift Stitches Instagram…
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Mini Teapot
I got this little kit as a Christmas present and it was so much fun I stitched it twice! (Actually, the kit makers were very generous with their thread and I had so much left over I did it again with the colours reversed)
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No Place Like Home
This kit came from Sew Sophie Crafts – if you like cross stitching you absolutely have to check out her patterns! Ironically, this pattern kept me company while I was in isolation with Covid and couldn’t leave the attic, let alone the house!
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Homer in the Bushes
I think this gif of Homer Simpson backing into the bushes is my most used gif at work so when I saw the pattern on Etsy I absolutely had to buy it. It was so much fun to stitch! The pattern had the background entirely stitched in the green colour but I cheated and bought…
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Some People Are Worth Melting For
I bought this Frozen cross stitch pattern from Etsy – it’s part of a set of 13 Disney Princesses all in the same style. Unfortunately I can’t link to the pattern as both the item and the shop are no longer listed on Etsy. This was a really fun one to stitch – I’ve made…
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Let There Be Light
This pattern came from She Reads Truth in their Advent 2021 book. It’s stitched in a 12″ hoop and although I thought it’d be fairly quick since the pattern is quite sparse, it took ages because there was so much counting! I chose different colours than the pattern suggested based on what I had in…
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Leigh Bardugo – Crooked Kingdom
Unfortunately, like the first book in this Duology, this book was a book of two halves for me. I started reading it in September, and have only just finished reading it now in December. The first half felt soooooo slow for me and I just wasn’t feeling any compulsion to keep reading, but I wanted…
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Matt Haig – A Boy Called Christmas
An audio-book narrated by Stephen Fry? Glorious! Matt Haig takes on this story of a young boy called Nikolas who finds himself on a wild adventure with his mouse friend Mika for a companion, and ends up blossoming into someone quite familiar. We start the book as Nikolas’ father leaves him to go on a…
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Giovanna Fletcher – Walking on Sunshine
Disclaimer: I was given this book before publication in exchange for a review from NetGalley. I also don’t need to add a disclaimer for this, but it’s probably worth mentioning that Giovanna is one of my favourite authors so I was pretty convinced that I was going to love this book before I read it.…
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Anita Rani – The Right Sort of Girl
I’ve come to the realisation that my favourite kind of audio books are auto-biographies, particularly when they’re read by the author. I don’t know what drew me to this one, I think it was partly because Anita is from Bradford, and partly the picture on the front cover where she looks so joyous. Coming myself…
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Maisie Hill – Period Power
Oh how I wanted to love this book. The first section of the book was great, a detailed look at the female body and reproductive system and menstruation. It felt like all the information I needed (and didn’t get) when I was 13, and although it’s almost 20 years too late, it was great to…
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Camille Fournier – The Manager’s Path
I was recently promoted to team lead (yay me!) and I was recommended this book by a couple of people to learn more about being a leader in tech. It was such a useful book to read – it starts off talking about mentoring, then progressing to team lead and continues all the way up…
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John Mark Comer – God Has a Name
I bought this book from the bookstall at a recent New Wine women’s day. The cover immediately stood out to me, and then when I read the blurb it felt like it was talking directly to me. “Many of us ache for relationship with God, yet feel distant and disconnected from him. As if he’s…
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Milly Johnson – I Wish It Could Be Christmas Every Day
When this book came out in hardback last year, I waited eagerly but patiently for the paperback release (to complete my collection of Milly’s paperbacks). And what a perfect time of year to read it. Not only is it the perfect Christmas book, but I also happened to read most of it over the weekend…
Louise Douglas
(I've got no) Shelf Control…
Louise Douglas 