A cow and a pair of shoes

I can almost hear you say: no house this week? I thought you girls might get bored seeing all those houses so this week I decided to stitch a cow. Okay, next to it there is a house, but do you care? So, on to HOHRH house numer 11! Two to go and I expect them to be finished before the end of June.

Remember the UFO, Kouangsi Slipper, I showed you a couple of weeks ago? I managed to add some stitches to it.

And there's my Call of the Raven, also added a thousand stitches.

Besides that I finished a little something for Caroline, as a Friendship Exchange. Next week I can show it to you, so be patient.

I did it again :)

Yes, this week I managed to finish another house! It looks like I didn't do anything else but stiching, but I can assure you there's also work and household jobs. Yesterday I finished house number 9, so on to number 10!

I belong to a small group of people that are doing exchanges, Crazy Exchange. We are doing a Friendship Exchange now and I have been stitching on it last week. I started a little late, but deadline is June 1st, so I have some time left. My partner is Caroline and last week I received this wonderful embroidered little bag. It says : 'The road fo a friends house is never too long'. She colored the fabric with tea, to get that old look. She also stitched me a lovely needlebook and added a, by her father, handmade notebook. I'm very pleased with the exchange, thanks Caroline!

Yes, another house and Red Delicious again!

Last week was a great week with a party and a holiday. I only had to work three days and from Thursday on we had holiday again. So lots of stitching time! I was able to finish house number 8 of HOHRH.

And there are two blocks of Red Delicious finished again. Today I started block number 9, so only three to go. Part of those blocks were done during our trip to Brussels. I like to stitch while DH drives the car and doing applique means you don't have to count, so you don't have to frog either LOL

Yesterday I turned 53 and I had a great day, celebrating with family and friends. I joined a birthdayclub last year and after been sending FQ's tot every member of the club, I finally was able to unpack mine! When I woke up I found the couch like this, a very thoughtful action of DH!

This is how they look unpacked :)

DD bought me some lovely FQ's too, and I got some from a dear friend (the ones with flowers are from DD).

I was spoiled with presents and we had a great time laughing, talking, laughing together.

A trip to Brussels

From last Thursday until yesterday DH and I went on a trip. Usually we go on holidays the four of us, but this time DS and DD didn't want to join us. DS is doing his finals next weeks so he wanted some extra studytime and DD wanted some time to clean her room LOL. So after giving them lots of good advice DH and I said goodbye to our children and left Thursday morning for Geldrop, near Eindhoven. On our way we made a stop to visit two quiltshops and I bought some lovely fabrics.

DH is waiting patiently until I was done. 'Take your time', he said, being a wonderful husband :)

At the end of the afternoon we reached our hotel and after checking in we went for a walk to the centre of Geldrop. There we had dinner at a Chinese restaurant. After that we took a good rest at the hotel. Do you recognize HOHRH on the bed?

Next morning we headed for Brussels and after checking in at the hotel, we had a long a walk

to the building we could see from our hotelroom, the National Basilica of the Sacred Heart

and from there we went to the centre to visit the Grand Place.

We had dinner and after a walk through the centre, where we enjoyed several beautiful buildings, like this

we went back to our hotel, where we had this view from our hotelroom. Just above the lower buildings you can see the Atomium.

I sat down to rest and of course my hands were busy, finishing block 7 and 8 of Red Delicious.

Next morning, after a good rest, we had a walk to the centre again. We had a cup of coffee, went to visit Manneken Pis

After that we went by car to visit the Chinese Pavilion and the Japanese Pagoda. Both are situated at the Royal Residence at Laken.

For those of you who know about my passion for Chinese art and history it can't be hard to imagine I had a wonderful time there. More pictures are here. At three p.m. we got back to the car again and drove back home, arriving there at eight p.m. DS and DD took good care of each other (and of our home) very well and they even left some pancakes for us!

Little stitching time, yet a finish

This week I had less stitching time than I use to have, as I told you I was having schoolcamp with a bunch of 15/16-year-olds (80 children in total!). Luckily all went well, we brought home as many as we left with and no accidents happened. We all had a good time and no sleep, so by the time we went home they were so tired they fell asleep in the bus home, they all looked like little angels LOL.

I also was busy preparing our home and terrace for a long hot summer (according DH), our wooden terrace furniture had to be cleaned and polished and so I did, but in spite of that I also have a finish to show, two in fact. At first there is Home of a Needleworker Too. I started this last year, had to frog almost everything except the rank on the right side and started again, remember? Now it is done!

I also can show block 6 of Red Delicious, it is called Rose Delicious Deligth and it sure is delicious!

Finally I was looking through my stuff and found a UFO! I didn't know I had one LOL. From now on I will stitch on it on a regular basis so I will have it finished soon.