Coming To Life - Page 1 completed

There is not much news here to tell. I'm still pretty busy, and next week won't be different to that - which means I won't manage much stitching at all. My parents come over from Europe and I want to have the house in good shape. Girls are leaving for a trip to Europe next week. Saskia and Melanie did great in their exams. Melanie has finished school now too, last week was the official graduation. Next year she will go to university to study economics. Just as her older sister does, but at a different university. Melanie hopes she'll get a place at the university close by so that she doesn't need to move to Melbourne. After all she is only 17 years old. Anyway, they both had their exams, and both did great - and are looking forward to visit family and friends in Europe. They will stay in the Netherlands and in Germany and will be back in January. And I will miss them dearly. Not the mess they ship with though...lol.

On stitching front I finished the first page of "Coming to Life". One done - 15 more to go.

Nex to stitch will be something for a Lizzie Kate exchange. And there is another exchange I signed up for - and seen the little time I have AND that we'll go on vacation in January together with my parents, I might do that one after the Lizzie Kate stitching. I would hate it being to late for an exchange.

For the rest I was playing around the last 2 evenings with my blog layout. And I messed it up completely...lol. Took me AGES to get it back as I wanted it. And I'm still not able to use the layout I wanted in the first place. Oh well, I might give it another try. Can't give up that easy can't I. So if you're coming along this blog and it looks silly, don't worry, it's just me goofing around. EDIT TO ADD: Finally succeeded after changing the html code. And I'm not really good with that. Which means, if someone has trouble with seeing this layout, please drop me a note.

The doorbel just rang - and I'm dancing here my happy dance. There are couple of charts around where I know for sure that I want to stitch them sooner or later. One of them is a chart from Mystic Stich, called "White Lilies on Red" - which is a chart from a painting of Vicky Horat. Because there wasn't any hurry yet and I was waiting that Mystic Stitch releases their downloadable charts, I didn't buy it. Last time I visited their page that pattern was GONE. Wrote an email and got told the contract with that artist expired and they couldn't sign another one. Can you imagine how hard I kicked myself in the butt for not buying that pattern when it was available???? I went then and had all over a look if I could find that pattern ANYWHERE - if need even second hand. But lucky me - I found it at Nordic Needle. Bought it immediately - paid a fortune for costs of sending. And it just arrived. I'm so happy about that. And what did I learn...if you know you will stitch a pattern sooner or later - go and get it, it might be gone otherwise!

Coming to Life - New project

As the titles says already, I started a new big project. It was very tempting to start or the Holland Landscape Mandala - which is fully kitted up - or preparing to start the Cuban Mansion Mandala. But I decided to own up to my promise and to stitch "Coming to Life". Michael likes this one heaps and so I will stitch it for him. Doing it on 18 ct Aida - which feels a bit weird. I prefer to stitch on linen or evenweave.

First time ever I used a pen for gridding. Most often I skip the gridding because it's not only heaps of work but also because I have troubles to remove the thread OR it annoys me doing that while stitching. But I saw some while ago a nifty way of gridding and got myself a water erasable fabric maker with a fine tip. And it works great. The slightest bit of water removes the color...and it doesn't come back. I tried it for 2 weeks - and even touching the lines with a damp cloth does the trick. Personally I wouldn't use this if I would stitch with any hand dyed fiber or on not color fast fabric...but for stitching on white with DMC it's ideal. When I stitch these "paintings" I don't stay in a 10x10 square (although I concentrate on one for finishing) but move out of it to finish off the thread in the needle - as far as possible. Gridding helps a lot here. And best thing is, it took me only couple of minutes to grid it. Just a ruler and off you go. I love it.

The only thing that bothers me a bit is that I can't figure out who the artist is. I bought that chart on Ebay 18 months ago. It was a case of browsing, and accidentally coming across it, and falling in love. Auction was almost running out - so I bought it immediately. The chart itself is not of the quality I would have liked and it comes with surprisingly little information. I even needed to grid the chart itself - the original is just a huge bunch of numbers without any gridding lines. Very hard to work from.

Hawaiian Mandala - FINISHED

This month the last part of the Hawaiian Mandala got released. There were three little creatures to stitch in each corner. These got stitched over one, which makes them look very detailed. And in each corner there was a turtle - completely beaded - swimming in shimmering water (braid)

The stitching was already done for a while, but there was a surprise. You have to determine yourself which type of crystal you want to have for the middle of the beaded turtles. And for someone like me that isn't that easy....lol. I'm a quite visual type. I need to SEE.

Soooooo....I grabbed my collection of Swarovski Crystals to form a first opinion and then ordered several Swarovski pearls and crystals. When trying these out I knew immediately which one I want...but in a different size!!! Today the ordered pearls arrived and I could finally finish this mandala. I chose in the end Swarovski pears, 6mm in the color "Tahitian"

I have to take a better picture still...but that comes later. Soon I'll bring it anyway to the framer.

For people who are planning to stitch this mandala as well ... I made several example pictures of the turtle with different pearls/crystals. There are so much more choices, but it might give you an idea about light/dark colors, size and form. I uploaded them all to my Webshot album here

I would love to go on stitching on the Dragonfly Boudoir box, but the foot of my magnifier broke, and I'm not able to stitch on black without that. That has to wait until Mike finds the time to fix it, which might take some time. Oh well, good thing is that it won't run away.

Christmas Ornament from Becky

I got today a beautiful surprise in the mail. Becky stitched for me a gorgeous Christmas ornament. It's beautiful stitched and looks just lovely. She also sent some beautiful goodies with it.

It's a pity that a picture can't catch the sparkle. Becky added lots of sparkle to it, and it's absolutely lovely.

Design by Misummer Night Designs
"Jingle Sparkle Joy"

Here you can see the adorable goodies Becky sent as well:

I love it all. Thank you so much Becky and wishing you a Merry Christmas as well.

Absence - Christmas Ornament and being tagged

First of all, sorry that it takes me a while to post. I am/was terrible busy here, and that cuts down my internet time. Not only the garden, but also the house needed to get attention. There were some family events also that ate up some time. Plus daughters had their exams, Mike went through his back and girls are going to Europe next month, needing new passports, and so on, which means trips to Melbourne as well. And it won't get better until somewhere in February. My parents will be visiting us from Europe and we have planned a vacation and several trips together.


Christmas Ornament

Some days ago I got notice that Joan received her ornament. I chose a design from the 2008 issue for Christmas Ornaments of Just Cross Stitch Ornament. It's a design from Thea Dueck from Victoria Sampler, which is one of my favorite designers.

It started great, I ordered in several of the needed silks and had heaps of fun stitching this little house. However, I had REALLY troubles with the roof. It didn't fit, no matter what I did. To be sure to have the right fabric count I bought another batch of black Lugana, and stitched the roof again, it still didn't fit. Or the design is faulty - or - and that is more likely - I made somewhere a fault. I'm going to purchase the design for the other houses from Victoria Samplers and hopefully the more detailed description will enlighten me what I am doing wrong...lol. If anyone knows what point I'm missing here, feel free to tell me, I would really love to know about it. Because everybody here agreed that the house still looks cute I sent it off to Joan. She seemed to be pleased with it.

Tagged again

I got tagged again - this time by Sadie. The rules are as following:

Here are the rules:
Find the 6th folder in your photos folder and then the 6th photo in it.
* Pray that you remember the details *
Post it on your blog
Tag 5 others, leave a comment to let them know they’ve been tagged.

The 6th folder of my webshots is called "Finishes 2007" - and the 6th picture is a candle wrapper I stitched for Lori, a member of I Love Cross Stitch Yahoo group. The design is half made by myself and half from an old old magazine. I took the basic idea from an old old magazine, but charted it on the pc, changed it to my likings and added parts free hand. Was the first time I did a candle wrapper....was the first time I got to know that something like a candle wrapper exists too....lol.

Garden

At least I finished weeding the veggie garden. Boy there are some weeds which I can't seem to kill no matter what I do. The higher ones aren't that bad. You just rip these out. But the deep creepers are the ones that are so bad. They are deep...they are lots, they work as an army. And they kill the plants you would like to keep. The slightest tiny bit of it is already enough to create another underground monster. You can even build a complete house over it...it won't give up. It comes from under it. You can hear it giggles, because you can't even reach it there. And I don't feel like using poison in my veggie garden. Besides, I tried to poison it in other parts of the garden, doesn't do much anyway. It "seems" to kill it. You turn around, have a happy dance. A week later it's back.
But right now I'm a happy camper because the garden changed from this



to this

6 Things about me

Meari tagged me to share 6 things about me.

The rules are as following:

1. Link to the person who tagged you.
2. Post the rules on your blog.
3. Write six random things about yourself.
4. Tag six people at the end of your post.
5. Let each person know that they have been tagged by leaving a comment on their blog.
6. Let the tagger know your entry is up.

Ok ...here we go:

1. I love hiking and we take every opportunity to do so. We take the car and off we go to a nice area, often mountains. All our holiday's are also based on that.

2. My other hobby is cooking. I love to try out new things, and also different styles.

3. I speak 3 languages (English, German and Dutch) and can sort of read French. But can't speak French. I grew up in Germany, lived for 16 years in The Netherlands, and am married to an Australian, who understands German and Dutch, but only speaks English. We are living since 2004 in Australia.

4. I didn't do any gardening for a year, which is pretty bad of me and I'm paying the price for that right now by cleaning up that mess.

5. We took a dog in who would have been doomed to get put down otherwise because she was biting. We took her in temporary but got then adopted by her. Lucy did need to be trained from the very basics. She didn't know how to "read" humans or other dogs, and was one little confused, afraid, agressive bundle. After 6 months, couple of bites, almost giving up on her, she turned into a delight. (Almost) She doesn't bite anymore, she doesn't run away (not even trying it), she listens VERY well. There are still some more things we have to address, but in general we are thankful how everything turned out. We decided to keep her because she is doing that well now that we don't want to risk it.

6. I don't like crowds. Events like concerts, bonfire, etc I avoid. I get very irritated when it's crowded, you get pushed and you can't understand your own word, let alone what others say.

I have tagged:

1. Gio
2. Sadie
3 Carolyn
4. Nancy
5. Kelly here or here (not sure which one you'll prefer Kelly)
6. Rene

Hawaiian Mandala - busy with part 12

As the title says already, I'm still busy with part 12. I'll show here one of the corners. Part 12 has 3 little seacreatures stitched over 1 and a fully beaded turtle swimming in shimmering water. There will be heaps of Swarovski crystals added when finished. Pity enough that has to wait until the end because I have the fabric on scroll rods.

The middle of the turtle is free to choose. Meaning, that there is no recommended crystal for it, but it's up to the stitcher to personalize it. I tried out several options, and have some more beads and crystal coming. After trying out I figured that I or want there a dark pearl - or a swarovski crystal in the color Montana AB. But not the 8mm cube. I ordered 6 mm round beads in that color and also 6 mm cubes. And I found a great deal on Swarovski pearls and got pearls in 8 colors.

Here you can see one corner of the mandala

And here 3 examples of the turtle. The "circle" of crystals are not attached yet, but I simply laid them down and added then 3 different center pieces. I will do that a bit more serious after the crystals and beads arrived.










What else was I up to lately? I sent off a Christmas Ornament for an exchange. And I goofed around with my blog. Which was actually quite a lot of fun. And I am oh so tempted to sign up for another Christmas exchange - stitching a card and sending it off. I LOVE exchanges, but I promised Mike I would start "Coming to Life" as soon as possible. AND...grrrr....that garden is calling loudly. I really need to give that one my main attention. {sigh}

Floss Tag from Carol

Today the mailman brought me a GREAT packet. I participated in a floss tag exchange from "Hooked on Echanging" and Carol draw my name. Carol stitched me the most beautiful Prairie Schooler floss tag which is one of my favorite designers. And I LOVE it. It's so beautiful.

Taken from "Garden Verses" by Prairie Schooler
Stitched on Silkweaver 32ct Belfast Linen Solo with DMC

And above that Carol also spoiled me by sending lots of gifts with it:

This was such a wonderful exchange and I would like to thank Carol for spoiling me that much.

Floss Tag Exchange

I got the message that Staci received her floss tag, and thankfully she provided me also with couple of pictures.

Design: a freebie from Prairie Schooler called
"S is for Spring"
slightly changed to personalize it for Staci
Stitched over one with DMC on 25ct Lugana


The back is designed by myself to match it to the front.
Same material and fabric as the front

For the rest there is not much to report on stitching front. I didn't have the time to do much stitching anyway. Today I downloaded the last part of the Hawaiian Mandala, and that is what I will stitch next. After that there will be the Dragonfly Box waiting.

The reason I had less time for stitching was the mess our garden(s) are in. Because it's Spring here AND because the garden is a complete mess, we're pretty busy with getting that done.
The roses look great now...and busy with the vegetable garden. Give it another week or so and it will be presentable...lol.

Dragonfly Boudoir Box

This month I started another design from Chatelaine Designs: The Dragonfly Boudoir Casket. It's one of the designs from the so called Designing Ladies. Judy Odell designed and charted the box, and several designers came up with a design for that box. Next to subscribing to the yahoo group from Chatelaine Designs, I also purchased the finishing instructions from Judy Odell.

And I'm impressed about the quality of these instructions. Very detailed. I love it. Judy Odell just published a booklet for several different finishes, and I'm planning to buy this one too. My finishing skills will probably get a good boost from that. And I can surely use that...lol Did you know that Judy Odell is the person who originally invented the flat fold. These days it's a common finishing used by lots of people, and it seems forgotten that Judy invented it couple of years ago.

Anyway, here are couple of pictures of my upcoming Dragonfly Boudoir Box. I'm at the moment busy with the 4 sides. Beads and crystals will be added when all stitching is finished.

First long side



One of the small sides



Second long side

I did change the letters a bit here, the original ones were harder to identify as G and L. I hope with these changes it's a bit easier


Here you can see all 4 sides together. Above there are 4 beads attached. I did that to see how the color changes when I use black Nymo instead of white to attach them. And I have to admit that the color of the beads doesn't improve with black Nymo. I'll do it or with white Nymo or invisible thread (which I deeply dislike...lol)

What else on the stitching front:

My floss tag for another exchange got sent off....and can you imagine, I completely forgot to take a picture. Dohh!!! I really hope that the recipient will provide me with a picture of front and back.

And I stitched and finished a Christmas ornament for another exchange. This will get send off to it's new home begin next month. No picture until it arrives there.


Ohhh....and Michael and I took the opportunity for couple of long hikes. At the moment we're visiting the old Gold Mines here around. And we're totally in awe how these people got the heavy equipment to the mines. You have to climb and hike, and even our dogs are broken afterwards, and only thing we had to carry were backpacks. Can you imagine getting heavy machinery there? Carrying around stones? Steep hills up and down? It's amazing.

Here you can see Mike taking a picture of an oven. This oven was used to create steam for the stamper in order to crush the stones. They then added some chemicals to it which would bind the gold.

And here you can see what the experts think of having a day of hiking

Oh so beautiful

Some while ago I participated in a Christmas ornament exchange from ILCS (I Love Cross Stitch) Yahoo group. It was a real fun exchange with a different twist this time. Everybody who wanted to participate simply had to stitch an ornament and send the ornament and a retour envelope to Rene who is one of the moderators of that group. Rene collected them all, and then sent to each participant one of the ornaments.

Today the mailman brought a small packet from Rene containing the most beautiful Christmas ornament. I got the one that Rene stitched and I LOVE it. Thank you so much Rene. This ornament will get a special place in my tree. It's so beautiful!!! And that red color (Cupid) is already on my list of floss to order. Rene is always good for enabling somehow.

Milady's Needle Quaker Christmas Smalls

Stitched on 32 count Opalescent Raw Linen

with JAR Designs ""Perfect Pine" and Crescent Colours "Cupid"

Stitched by Rene :)

Hawaiian Mandala - Part 11 finished

Weekend here, and I got productive. Mike was working anyway yesterday and I managed to clean the house AND put some extra stitching in. And today I finished part 11 of the Hawaiian Mandala. Only one more part to go!!!! I think the last part will contain some over 1 stitching. The chart calls for over one stitching in the instructions, but none has yet appeared. I don't mind stitching over one anyway. I don't dare to stitch a huge project over one, but smaller projects over one are quite enjoyable.

And a close up :)

Next to stitch will be a Christmas ornament for an exchange and I'm really looking forward to that. :)

Wishing everybody a nice weekend

Update on Hawaiian Mandala

Part 11 of the Hawaiian Mandala got released begin of this month, and obviously that's what I'm stitching on right now. This time the outer border got released and I love it. The color's are vibrant - there is a lot of sparkling braid added - lots of beads too and quite a fair amount of crystals as well. Crystals are not set yet, these will be sown on after the mandala is finished.

But I had to frog a bit too. In the instructions for part 11 Martina wrote that the diagram for the corner eyelet is only schematically and that one should change it to fill in the free space on the fabric. Well, I followed the diagram. It didn't look really bad...but it annoyed me a bit that I had a ring of fabric shown as well. After I had finished more then a quarter of the border (and finally read the instructions...lol) I tried out how both versions look next to each other:



And here before and after in bigger:

Then there was a short period of pouting - which I always do before frogging - in the hope that the problem will evaporate - which miraculously never happens. Anyway, after that I frogged it and fixed it. Personally I think both versions do look nice, but I prefer the more filled up version. In the middle will be a crystal placed and once I laid down couple of crystals just to see how it looks like, the decision was quickly made.

Queen of the Needle finished

2 days ago I finished "Queen of the Needle" from Just Nan. Now I have to find a frame for it, or bring it to the framer. It's stitched using DMC on a hand dyed linen from Sugar Maple Fabrics. It's 28 ct opalescent Cashel linen in the color "Shimmering Powderpuff". I'm quite content how it turned out. This was my first time stitching on opalescent fabric and I didn't like it one bit in the beginning...lol. But after getting used to opalescent material it started to grow on me and in future I will stitch more often on fabric like that. The effect of it is quite worth it (even you can't see it in the picture...lol...it does shimmer nicely)

And another Just Nan design got kitted up: Amethyst Snowflake. That one will be my first SAL ever. Normally once I start something I go on with it. But I would like to try out how I'll like it to stitch every Sunday on a design together with other members from ILCS yahoo group.



I also finished a floss tag, but can't show a picture of it. It's for an exchange and it will get send to it's new home later this month. :)

Hawaiian Mandala

Finally - part 10 finished. Whew. That was a LOT of stitching this month. And I'm glad it's over and done now. Right now I'm looking forward to stitch something small. I won't be able to show it on my blog yet though. It's a floss tag for an exchange and I have to wait until my partner received it before I can show it. Isn't it funny, but for me is finding a pattern half of the fun. And finding some cute goodies to go with that. While stitching away the corners of the Hawaiian Mandala I kept myself amused by finding a pattern. And changing my mind...lol....repeatedly. But I settled down now for one, have it also already here, and looking forward to start it.

Here is a picture of the Hawaiian Mandala with part 10 finished.

Melanie, my youngest daughter got a bit interested in cross stitch. Last year she stitched a Mill Hill kit. And this week she asked if I had another one for her. And so she started that. Isn't that a cute picture. Just out of bed but with a gorgeous smile. Of course a real teenager doesn't agree with that. A real teenager needs first an ounce of makeup, hairspray and the such AND a most cool face. But...lol...I got her. And I love her just as she is.

Ohhh....and I bought some nice stash. The yearly Just Crossstitch Christmas Ornament issue is now available. And of course I had to order that one. Since I have to order that online anyway, I took the opportunity to order some nice charts as well. And some goodies.

Thanks to the bad bad influence that Meari had on me (I plead here complete innocence and stick with that!!!) I bought myself a Crop-A-Dile on Ebay. Which is an instrument for setting eyelets and making holes. Mike laughed himself silly about me - telling me that I will set my very first eyelet in LOOOOOONG years soon (for that floss tag). Now tell me please: what has that to do with that??? It's a cool "must have". Besides we have a garage full with "must haves" for the man...and if I'm not mistaken there is a huge circular saw still unpacked somewhere. Probably next to his hot glue gun that I would love use...if I only could put my hands on it...lol. I forget everytime to ask him for it. And need it then while he is at work or busy with something himself. That hot glue gun is never used either, and we bought it wayyyy back when we were still living in the Netherlands. So there. I got my Crop a Dile!!! It has still to arrive from Canada, but that doesn't matter. You can make holes with it in all sort of materials and I BET Mike will be attracted to that like a bee to honey. And I have to be careful that it doesn't land in the earlier mentioned garage. I better hot glue it to my sewing box. But wait...lol....poor me doesn't have a hot gun (yet).

This is a picture of my Crop a Dile. If you want to know more about this tool you might check out Maeri's blog. She wrote a great review about it. But if you like me and are a "little bit" a stash-a-holic you might better skip that part.

A new niece

A weekend without any stitching news. I'm still busy with part 10 of the Hawaiian Mandala. Meanwhile I started the 3rd corner.

However - there is some nice news. Oliver and Michelle - my brother in law and sister in law, welcomed their fourth daughter to the world. Here is a picture of little Sofia Miley in the arms of her admiring Auntie Gabi. Isn't Sofia a sweetie? She is a very quiet baby that doesn't cry much - to the delight of her parents.



And Oliver and Michelle are SO glad she didn't come on Zoey's birthday, which happens to be just 2 days later. Here a picture of the little birthday girl with Opa in the background.

Update on Hawaiian Mandala

The last week I'm only stitching on part 10 of the Hawaiian Mandala. This month it's quite a lot of stitching. Right now I'm busy with the second corner...and when that is finished there will be 2 more corners to go. I will be glad when part 10 is finished.

I did change the orange flowers and their stems. Originally it is meant to be in Thread Gatherer Silk n Colors 175 (Straw into Gold). But that blended right into the fabric and became quite invisible. The stems are now a blend of SnC 175 and SnC 172 (Gingersnap) and the flowers are done with DMC 722.

After finishing part 10...or in between...there is a floss tag hanger to stitch for an exchange and I subscribed for another Christmas ornament exchange as well and I'm looking forward to stitching these smalls pretty much. :)

Stash and Stitching

The last days I filled my evenings with stitching this lovely sampler. And here is a picture of my progress so far.

For now I'll put the "Queen" to the side and pick up my Hawaiian Mandala because the next part just got released.

What concerns new stash...to the total dismay of my husband I fell in love with simple little charts like "Little House Needleworks" and the such and got me couple of patterns. I bought "Snowflakes" and "Wool Needlebook" from Little House Needleworks and "Prairie Birds" from Prairie Schooler.

Poor Mike is not really enthousiast with my new love of this kind of patterns. Later this year I'll make him happy by starting "Coming to Life" which is a beautiful African themed pattern.


The reason I didn't start it yet is that I wasn't really impressed with the quality of the chart. After creating a chart on my own and taking months of fiddly work to get a clear picture of what I want to display, I got a bit picky. And seeing a chart which is basically created from a scan and not much "clean up" work done, makes me cringe. I looked EVERYWHERE to find the original painting or artist to be able to ask the artist for permission and make a chart myself - so that I could create a clearer picture of the animals. Can't find it. Oh well, since Mike loves this pattern so much I guess I'll skip all that hassle and stitch it as it is.

Alpine Season Garden - Finished

Finally it's finished. After I changed the bead colors I thought I would run out of white beads. To my upper surprise there were JUST enough beads to finish it. What a luck...but then I ran out of svarowski crystals...lol. I ordered a bead packet and it stated it had 24 of that color, but it were only 20 of them. That was a bit of a bummer. So I ordered couple of them from an Australian seller instead of going back to Cindy from the European X Stich Company. She would have sent the missing beads at her cost, that's without a doubt. But I figured it would first of all take around 2 weeks before I would have the missing crystals, and secondly sending 4 beads from the United States is a bit over the top. So I let that pass and simply bought them myself.
Anyway, the beads arrived today and it's finished.

Isn't it funny somehow. You're busy with stitching, looking forward to finish it. Then you finally finish it, are all happy about it.....open the draw and put it in. Done. Although, I do plan to get this one framed. Soon...I think. LOL...I just realize that I said that about the Kookaburras I stitched last year too, and then it took almost a year before we brought it to the framer. On the bright site: if you wait quite a while before you bring it to the framer, you'll get again that "happy dance" feeling after framing.



Right now I fill my evenings with stitching at the "Queen of the Needle". Also in the start blocks is a small work to be finished as a floss tag for an exchange, another big Mandala, 2 boxes, and my husband is waiting for me to start his favorite - an African painting called "Coming to Life".

Grey flowers?

This is the very first time something like this happens to me. Not the first time I'm stuck...lol...that does feel slightly familiar. But the reason for it is new. First time ever I really dislike a choice of a designer. The Alpine Season Garden has in each corner a flower that is completely beaded. The flower itself is dark grey!!! And I'm not really thrilled about that. To be sure I beaded one completely, because you never know how it really will look until you see it. At least that is how it works with me.

After that I was yesterday busy for quite a while trying to figure out with what to replace the grey. In the end I settled for a white color that is used in the design as well and left the second bloom color as it was. That is a transparent color with a blue-ish shimmer. Problem was...once finished the blue-ish bead looks grey as well. For now I think I concentrate on the edge, and have a look then into a light pink to replace the second color as well. The greens of the stem I leave as they are. This means I'll have to redo both flowers...lol. Oh well, keeps me off the street doesn't it? NO...it doesn't. It's today a beautiful day...I'll finish this post grab the dogs and drive to the bush to have a nice walk. That beading can come later. I won't be able to finish the beading anyway this weekend. I'm pretty sure I need to order in at least one color...probably two. I'll see how it goes, may be I'll have JUST enough beads.

Here is a picture of both beaded flowers



And here from each flower a close up

Rainy Day = Beading Day

Yesterday was such a beautiful day. Michael and I took the doggies and went into the bush for a nice long hike. And boy am I glad we did that. Today it's not raining...it's pouring. When I went for some grocery shoppings I got soaked in seconds. Who would ever consider to take an umbrella - not me obviously. I only tell my kids not to forget that...and show them then how wet you get if you don't follow my advice. Good that they didn't see me...lol.

Anyway, since it's so wet and dark outside, it's a purfect day for beading. Mike is at work, Melanie at school and Saskia in Melbourne. The doggies are thankfully still worn out...I don't feel like housework today - I feel like beading today.

I thought beading 1.556 beads would take AGES. However to my total and most pleasant surprise it flows nicely off the hand. I beaded yesterday evening quite a bit, went on today and bit quite a chunk out of it. 700+ beads are already attached.

Update on Alpine Garden

IT'S DONE....IT'S DONE....IT'S DONE. The stitching is...not the beading though. But for now I don't care...I'm too busy here with my happy dance. All stitching done. Right now I'm sooooo happy that I "finished" it. Tomorrow the truth will hit me probably that this piece is far from finished, but today I don't go there. Today it feels as if I have finished "something".

Besides, at the moment I don't want even to try to figure out how long it will take to put 1556 beads and couple of swarovski chrystals on it. It sounds a lot. I'll see how it goes. Can't hide from that anyway if I want to get this piece over and done with.

Ohh...and the picture looks a bit crook because it's hanging on the floor frame and the heater started to blow. (meaning I didn't have the patience to wait until the heater was done)

Magnet Exchange

Today I received the magnet that Vanessa sent me. She chose a pattern she thought would fit my taste...and right she is. I absolutely love the flowers with the birds. It looks so lovely. Vanessa started cross stitch not so long ago and she did a fabulous job here didn't she? I'm impressed and will cherish this magnet.

I wonder if that little girl in the picture is her daughter? It's a cutie too isn't it?

Christmas Ornament

Yesterday I finished the Chistmas ornament for an exchange at the "I Love Cross Stitch" yahoo site. For this exchange you don't have a partner, but we all send it to one of the moderator's who will then send an ornament to each participating member. There for I can already publish a picture of it.

And boy was I wrong. When I chose this design I thought that would be EASY as. As always....I'm wrong. Every time I think that something is very difficult I'm surprised how easy it was in the end - and virtually EVERY time I think this or that is easy as - I fall flat on my face.

Let's face it. I'm a beginner at smalls - and there for also a beginner when it comes to finishing techniques. Would someone please ...pretty please....give me a whack when I say next time, something will be most easy.

After the flat fold went so easy off my hand I thought, finishing is not such a big deal. Easy as!!! Chose a triangle shaped ornament...can't be that difficult can't it? And it is as if a higher power above me heard me saying EASY, opened and eye, looked at me and said: "Oh yeah? Is that so? TAKE THAT!!!" WHACK

It took me AGES to get it right. I had to make the inner layer 3 times, still the card board refused to go to the upper edge. Then it took ages to get the edging right, and don't discuss corners please. There has to be a better way to attach cording. But on the bright site...in the end it doesn't look too bad. I leave it as it is, and will send it off this week.

And here a picture of the back:

Queen of the Needle and Christmas Ornament

The last 2 days I was working on the "Queen of the Needle", but somehow it didn't get the attention it deserves. After subscribing to another exchange, this time a Christmas ornament exchange, I started looking for a nice design. And because of that I lost a bit the fun of stitching on the "Queen of the Needle" Finished off the second band and took it off the frame - for now.



On the exchange front I found 2 designs in the end and went right into my stash to see what I have for it. I'm not sure yet if I'll stitch both of them or not. Point is that the one I like the most doesn't have that much stitching involved. Which makes me rather feel guilty even I really really like that one. So I might keep that one for myself then because I won't send anything off that looks like I wouldn't have put much effort in it. Not sure yet. On the other site it will get stitched on nice opalescent linen from Picture this Plus. It's a one of a kind color. And I'll use silk thread. That should make it up.
The other one (IF I'll stitch both) will be stitched on Lugana with DMC, also some beads. I'll see how it goes. Tomorrow I'll go into town to have a look for nice backing materials for both.

Flat fold

One of the moderators of "I Love Cross Stitch" yahoo group taught a class for making a flat fold. The class was really fun and I hope that Maeri will teach another class in future. She did a great job. Everything I learned will be very useful for other projects as well. All by all it meant a lot of fun to follow the lessons and to watch the flat folds of the others grow.

Because of me so much playing around with this new blog it took me a while to stop goofing around and sit down to finish the flat fold off. Which I did today. Then I wanted to have a bow on top of it. Can't be that difficult I thought, got some ribbon out and realized that it might be handy to read a "how to do" first. Which I did ...and of course I tried to do it my own way. After couple of trials it worked out fine. And I sew it on top of the flat fold. Problem was, it did NOT look good. So I removed it, and added instead a simple ribbon. That looked better. As you can see, sometimes you can have the most fancy ideas, and in the end something more simple does look heaps better. I'll keep the first bow anyway thoug...might come in handy for something else.

Here are 2 pictures of the flat fold. In the first picture you can see the bow I took off laying in front of it. That's my first bow ever...next to simple bows made on presents of course.