Grand Marquoir finished :) (and some other stuff)

Can you see my happy dance? Yesss....it's finished. It was a lovely relaxing thing to stitch with only 2 colors and a bit gold. There are couple of more designs of Isabelle Vaultier that I love and I'm tempted to stitch. They are on my never ending "to do" list.  She is such a talented designer with a load of beautiful designs. Anyway...here it is:

Coming to Water came back from the framer and is proudly hanging at the wall now. Can't take a better picture because of the glare I can only take a decent(ish) picture from this angle.

And....drum roll please....I WON. I never win...lol. Not that I see that as a problem, but this one I really really really really really wanted to win. I was after this one since donkey's ages. Browsing the internet, trying Ebay, searching for hours. No luck at all.  And Sadie had a give away for it. This one came originally from Vonna, then Jodie had it, then Sadie...and as the lucky winner of her give away (YAYYYYYYYYYYYYYYYYY) it's now mine!!!! For the time being. Once it's finished I will give it away to the next stitcher in line. And for once I will order the threads and fabric as charted. I'm SO in love!!! Thank you so much Sadie, also for the lovely thread and the needles. Love both of them. Nothing can spoil my day!!! 

Hmm....almost nothing.  That brings me fluently to the next subject. Because Christmas is this year at our place, we'll having around 20 people here. Christmas is in Australia a Summer event, and we celebrate it outdoors in our garden with a buffet. We're having a large outdoor roofed area and a pool too...so nothing can spoil it.  That's all fine and dandy. What is less fine and dandy are that stupid ideas I do have occasionally.
I thought it would be a great idea to make a beautiful table setting. And to celebrate me having a new sewing machine I could make 20 napkins and 20 place mats. Shouldn't be a problem. Can't be that much work. It might have not be THAT much work if one would choose something easy to make. But no...I need of course to find something really work intensive and THINK that I would be able to put that all together in no time. That's not the first time I'm "slightly" wrong in estimating time...and it might not be the last time.  The 20 napkins are finally ready. Now "only" 20 placemats. First I need to sew together 80  1 1/2" strips (44" long) which I had to cut of course first. These are only a small part of these place mats. And do NOT ask why for Christ Sake I didn't buy striped fabric in the first place. Please do NOT ask.

It's impossible not to finish it in time. Failure is not an option.  Mister (Always) Right had some raised eyebrows when I told him about this plan and asked why we don't simply buy some nice napkins and table decorations? For that money that the fabric and batting cost, we could easy buy some fancy stuff and it would save heaps of time. As you might imagine I waved that as com-ple-te-ly nonsense off the table.  What do men know about these things!!! Nothing at all!!! And he is NOT right!!!!!!


Still trying to figure out a nice way to fold these napkins. Here you see one of the ideas. If I fold it that way,  I fill it with a chocolate or something like that. Not sure yet.

Ohhh....and then to the more brighter things. We don't celebrate Halloween here. It's not custom here, nor was it in Germany and the Netherlands. But my nieces got dressed up, and we had a nice family dinner at our place. With monster cakes for the kids. Here are our beautiful nieces with my mother in law holding little Sofia :)