Train of Dreams - update January

January is almost over, I cannot believe how time flies!! We celebrated a birthday and a job anniversary this month. All in all a good month.

Here is my update of Train of Dreams. Another page finished.

I must say I still enjoy stitching this piece. I think this is because of all the vibrant colours. I see lots of lovely designs, like this one, Snow by Maxine Gadd:

It is gorgeous, but I think this would end as an UFO. I like variation and color changes. Thiswould need a lot of will power to finish.

Stilll I dream about purchasing this one, Butterfly Wood by David Penfound:

This piece almost has a sort of spiritual meaning for me. In the last year I have been under a lot of stress and I have lost a bit of my "zest for life". At work I had the opportunity to follow a mindfullness training. I was a bit apprehensive about it, I thought it would be too woolly (there are lots of Bhuddist elements and I am a Christian and a bit of a strict Calvinist), but I am finding myself again! It looks like I have fewer headaches. I am starting to enjoy pretty things again. I am also starting to feel support and comfort from God again. Butterfly Wood is pretty and I kind of feel like the butterflies are flying to their Master. It's a bit like me.

So I have decided to buy this one, after I finish Train of Dreams. I know last time I talked about the sampler and I am definately going to stitch that as well. But now I am used to stitching a HAED so I think stitching this sampler will be much easier (and faster)!

Untill next time my friends! I am going to update my list of blogs now!

Gifts in December

Hello again!

I completely forgot to tell about the gifts I received last December!

For Sinterklaas/St Nicholas my MIL gave me a lovely sampler and some evenweave. She used to cross stitch but is now a quilter. So slowly she is giving me her cross stitch stash! She also gave me a wonderful book with sampler patterns and more information about the patterns. I am really happy with it. I would like to design a sample in the future with our story in it so this book is perfect! It explains what every flower or animal stands for. I think it would be nice to write about this and will see how and in what form I am going to do this.

Below a picture I found on the internet of the sampler I received. It's from Permin and it's called Sampler 1763. Lovely colors aren't they?

I hope to start this later in the year. I want to finish (or almost finish) Train of Dreams first!

New Year's resolution and another update

2012. Hello. A new year. A chance to start fresh. I am hoping for many good things. 

Like a job for my love. 2010 and 2011 were not cool. 

Like a very small & cheap wedding at the town hall after my love earns some money again.

Like finding a bigger house. Three bedrooms would be nice. So the lovely girl has a room of her own and there's a room for maybe a new addition?

So is it going to happen, 2012? Three big wishes. But wish no 1 is the most important one. It will make the other wishes possible. I am tired of being the breadwinner. It's not cool. It is so much cooler to both earn the bread.

Anyway. I also changed the look of my blog. I like it. It's clean and fresh.

After the last update it took some time before I got my mojo back. I forced myself to stitch because I knew it would make me feel better. And lo and behold, it did! It also helped I had nothing to do at Christmas. We had a simple dinner and after that we just hung out. Boxing Day was spent at my parents and after that I had a week off. Lovely. Just what we needed. We spent time with the in-laws and enjoyed a few days away from home. My MIL even brought her craft lamp with her so I had no problems stitching at night!!

After our short holiday I have been stitching nearly every evening. This is how it looks right now!

At the HAED forum I wrote down my goal for 2012: to finish at least 10 pages. I know I can do this, I stitch about 1 page a month and I have about 10 pages and a few tiny pages to do. Maybe I can finish this piece in December?