Birthday exchange with Taija , stash and a new start

In the Crazy Exchange Group, I have been involved in some birthday exchanges. Taija and I were a couple too. So a couple of weeks ago I sent her my gift to her, a bourse. The chart comes from The Gift of Stitching. I added some goodies too, but forgot to take a picture of the whole package.

Today the birthday present Taija sent me, arrived. Her package was so carefully and thoughtful wrapped, I have to show you!

She made me (what a skilled lady!) a selfmade notebook, and wrote she made it from begin to the end, all by herself.
She added some nice goodies, a piece of lovely fabric, two flossrings and pins. It was such a nice feeling, getting a birthday present after your birthday, it's like an extended birthday. Taija, thank you so much!

This week I finally decided to start a new BIG piece. Again a design of Chatelaine, Holland Springtime. Everything needed was collected some time ago, but I wanted to finish the Celtic Garden first. Now that masterpiece is at the framer's, I thought I could make a start on a new one. Updates will follow soon :)

I also bougth some new stash, I was getting afraid I would not have anything left to stitch, so I went to ebay and did some bidding on a couple of lovely charts., mostly Brightneedle Designs. Today they arrived and I am so happy with them! They all look great, so I went to ebay again to buy me some time LOL.

Birthday and holidays

Time has been slipping through my hands, and now is the first opportunity to blog again. All you stitching friends, a big thank you for your lovely comments. To be honest, that is also one of the reasons for not updating my blog. I just wanted Celtic Garden to get the honour she deserves!
Yesterday I took it to my LNS to get it framed. It will be away from home some time, but when she is ready, I will for sure get her a picture on this blog. A permanent one in the sidebar I think.

Last friday I had my birthday and as I am involved in some birthday exchanges, I received two packages. One is still on its way, and one is lost in the mail (poor Janaina!) as far as we know now.

Simone sent me the lovely package shown above. She made me a pincushion and used a pattern of Blackbird Designs. She changes the colours to my favorites (blue) and finished it lovely with the perfect backing and beautiful pins, which she placed in small groups.

She has also been going through my wishlist and sent me some lightblue fabric (great!!), Madeira floss, pins, a cute little pair of scissors (embellishment), a pair of socks with Stitching Girl on it (I never saw these before!), some ribbon, and last but not least a large piece of Chinese fabric. She knows about my China-madness and told me she had it for some time now, but thought it would be perfect for me. And how right can she be?!



Lisa (SBBC) sent me a Christmas package, and I love it! She stitched me a deer from Prairie Schooler, Cranberry Christmas, and finished it as a hanging pillow. She added some nice goodies: a piece of white 22 count aida, floss rings, ribbon an cord, a keyring that can be used to put something small in it, and Kreinik blending filament, blue.

In the evening I celebrated with my family (of course), my sister and brother-in-law and a bunch of old beloved friends. We had a great evening, chatting, laughing, eating, drinking. My (all of them non-stitching) female friends admired my craftroom (nothing special, but loaded with stitch-items) and of course my big finished Chatelaine.

To show some stitching progress I made a picture of my HOHRH. I spent most of my stitching time on 'Vibrant Vista' and 'Call of the Raven', which are to be seen on Our Friend's Haed SAL.



A week ago I went to Deventer, a small town, an hour trainride from Groningen. I had a great afternoon, dwelling through the city, roaming through bookshops and over the marketplace. All of a sudden I remembered reading Caroline's post about a lovely quiltshop 100 Roses, in Deventer, so I decided to see if I could find it. You should know Deventer is not that big, so it wasn't a problem. And visiting this shop I thought I might as well buy some fabric to make a start to my first small quilt. How come I have such strange ideas sometimes? I've never ever done something like quilting, and I don't have a friendly neighbour who does, or a grandmum so they can teach me! I have to find out all by myself! And listening to the explanation of the shopowner (a very friendly woman) it seemed to be so simple, so natural, as if I could sit down behing my sewing machine and an hour later I had my first-sewn quilt.
Coming home reality fell down on me, and I think I have to read some instructions on the internet first, and look for some good tutorials, and maybe, when I can find the time next summer, I can try to make a start .... But in the meantime some beautiful fatquarters are smiling to me from the corner of my craftroom lol

This might become a long, long post, because I also want to show you some pictures of our holidays, as I promised a while ago.
Remember we went to Germany for a week? We rented an appartement at a farm in the Eifel, an hour drive from Trier. We had a good time, but let the pictures speak for themselves!


View from the appartment


A place tot stitch can be found everywhere


The cowbarn


A little one has been born


Exhausted ...

Exhausted too lol


The Netherlands, Belgium and Germany come together here.



Karin loves horses and they do love her ;)




Visiting Trier


Former bathhouses (thermen)



Porta Nigra


And from another angle. DS (with cap) in front


DD is waiting for a horseride


An attempt to visit a castle, but on May 1st everything is closed.

We went out for dinner, on the last day of our holidays.


Normally, the kitchen looks like this ;-)


Or this :-)

Happy dance!!

We are back from our holidays in Germany, and I will upload some pictures soon, but this blog is dedicated to the finish of the chatelaine Mystery XI. It is finished!!
The last bead was sewn on the evening of April 26th, just in time to reach my goal. I was determined to finish it before we went to Germany, and I was as determined not to take it with me. It is too delicate to put it in my suitcase, and I was afraid of damaging the stitching, or get stains on it.
Here is the result, and as a little extra I took pictures of several parts of the design, to show its beauty.

Top centerpiece:

Right centerpiece:

Lower centerpiece:

Left centerpiece:

Middle:

Corner:

Border: