Birthday surprises

Ican’t wait to read my

CrossStitcher each month when it lands on my doormat. In a recent issue a lady near Solihull advertised some old CrossStitcher magazines available for collection. I was so pleased with my stash!

I started looking through them and this beautiful unicorn’s head leapt off the front cover of one edition. I knew I had to complete this piece. My eldest son’s fiancée loved items with unicorns on them and as it was her 40th birthday in August I set about the hardest project I had done! It took me 38 days to complete, sometimes spending 5-6 hours a day on it. It is now hanging in pride of place in her lounge.

Unbelievably, I realised my other son’s partner also shared exactly the same birthday and was also 40 on the same day. Truly you couldn't make this up! Now I had a dilemma as I needed to do another piece and there followed many secret conversations to find a suitable subject for this present. My younger son eventually decided on a dragon and the only ‘chart’ I could find was a photo on the internet that my husband downloaded and printed for me. I managed to complete it in 33 days and just in time for the birthday.

Then, as I was flat out trying to finish my dragon picture, I received issue 322 of

CrossStitcher and there was a