Lovely exchange and some progress

Yesterday I found a most lovely exchange in my mail. It was the Summerhouse Exchange from the HoE Board. Susan did not only a beautiful design (part of The Treavelling Stitching by LHN) but she did a gorgeous finish as a stitching bag. I just love it!

As you understand I have been stitching a Summerhouse echange too, but I can't show pictures of that for obvious reasons. I can show some progress on other stitching. It probably will be the last blogpost before we leave for a two-week-holiday to France, so here we go!
First of all Mary Wigham, I bet you all want to know how far she is. Well, I've done not too much, because I can only stitch on her in daylight, in spite of my Ott-lamp. I stitch her on 40 count, and my eyes... well, it's my age I suppose LOL.

Another one I'm working at is The Plantation Sampler. I only have a little progress, but nevertheless, here it is.

And I built a home in about nine days. Vibrant Vista has its first home, so I just have to show you. The picture turned out way to blue, in fact the fabric is white.

Rainy Sunday

Yesterday, after some beautiful weeks (you really get used to that) I was rather surprised getting up and see it was raining. A little bit, so I jumped on my bike and set off to the swimmingpool. Why bother a little rain? But soon the rain poured out of heaven and coming back after my trip I decided it was best to stay at home, sitting on the couch and watch a movie, Twilight. DD joined me :)
Of course I always am busy sewing or stitching while watching a movie. This afternoon I have been quilting and stitching on my Chatelaine, I have to admit, I didn't stitch that much, I don't like the stitching of the border with flowers. I like the way it looks, but stitching them it something else ...

Another thing to mention is this nice award Bonnie gave me. I have to pass it along to a couple of other stitchers and as soon as I saw the award I thought it would be nice to give it to all HAED stitchers of the group I'm in. Ingrid had the same idea and posted before I had the chance. Nonetheless I'll hand the reward over to all the great members of this group.

Talking of HAED, there's also some progress on Vibrant Vista. Page 4 is almost done, I am already moving on to page 10, beneath it.

Yesterday my new floss came in. I bought some beautiful grey colors on ebay, from a dear and talented lady. Her shop is called the Victorian Motto Sampler Shoppe and she added some nice pinks to compensate me for shippingcosts.

It's been a busy week, with travelling around. I have been visiting a quilting shop, which announced 'Open House' last thursday. I wanted to order some fabrics, but when I noticed the 'Open House' I thought I might as well go and look for myself. I had a lovely day, meeting nice people and came home with a bunch of new pieces of fabric. I also bought a new stitchery design by Lynette Anderson and started right away. Today I finished the top, so all I have to do now is layering and a little bit of quilting. Good practice! I also have to practice on these pinwheels. I notice they are far from perfect!

Sea trip, an exchange and quilting

Yesterday DH and I went on a trip to the western coast of The Netherlands. Friends were having a vacation there and we promised to come over for a day. Luckily we had sunny, warm weather, so we could enjoy a walk by the seaside.

When we came home in the evening who was waiting for us? Our neighbour! While we were away, he answered the door for the postman, bringing in a package from Pam. In it a most gorgeous ornament.

Pam chose to stitch me this because of my patio garden. She also has a garden and enjoys, like me, the birds and butterflies. The cardinal is her favorite.
The designer is Diane Graebner, stitched on 32 ct. Crystal Aerial by Picture This Plus.Pam really did a lovely job, it is a perfectly stitched ornament and perfectly finished too.

She also sent me a lot of goodies, I sure can use! Among them a set of notecards marked with a "J", two cards of Splendor silk floss, a cute little star (Mill Hill), fine blue ribbon and a package of cute lamps, from the Holiday Collection Jack Frost (Dress It Up).

I also promised to take pictures of quilting, so here they are. I decided to quilt it with a darker colour, so I can really see what I'm doing, being the first time I quilt. Next time I will opt for a lighter colour, I think it looks better. The pink lines in between are going to fade in a few days.

A Finish and a Top

To start with the finish, that is the January SAL of Oakhaven Designs Group. I finally finished December this week, but didn't have the chance to upload its picture.

And the second finish is the top of my little roses quilt. I am quite satisfied about it. Now I have to secure the layers by quilting. Another new thing for me to learn. And it needs a small finishing border around it. But I think I start the quilting tomorrow and save the finishing border to the end.

I'm learning ...

Yes, I'm learning, and who learns makes mistakes and learns from them LOL. So I was stitching the first blocks and the border together and thought I could stitch the triangle border as well. Quick, quick, DH was coming home from work and I wanted the sewing-machine off the table so we could have lunch together.
And guess what? Yes, I didn't take the time to look right and started sewing. And, as my first attempt was hanging on the wall, I noticed I stitched the border upside down, or leftside right, how do I call it?
Anyway, one side had the dark side on the outside, the other had the darker side on the inner side... So I pulled the threads again, and now I'm ready to sew them again.
But I wanted to show that I hope to learn from my mistakes. And hey, it's not perfect, but then it's my first, remember?

Primoriginals giveaway

Reading blogs this afternoon, I stumbled on a giveaway by Primoriginals . Curious as I am, I went over to take a peek, and I spend there quite some time. Not only for the beautiful drawings, also the music is great (James Blunt is one of my favorites)! If I might be the lucky winner my choice is already made:



I also have a finish to report : Oakhaven January SAL is finished today! I will show a picture tomorrow, for the light will be better to take pictures during daytime.