Happy Mothersday!

Today it's Mothersday in The Netherlands: Hope you all have a wonderful day!
It's the first time I ever received a gift, the Girl came home from school and told my inlaws: "I am the daughter of mama and also of Liesbeth". When I picked her up by the train she told me again. I can tell you my day rocked! She painted a lovely piece for me which is now proudly displayed in my house.

We will bring her home later tonight. This weekend the weather have been great! Still not warm enough to wear true summer clothes (skirts!!) but it had some sun! This year the temperatures for May have been a bit cold. I really hope it will get better soon. We won't go on a summer holiday this year and I hope to enjoy a bit of sunshine when we stay home. Previous years we went to France and the weather is always great, lots of sun.

Politics
In my last post I was pretty upset about the political situation. Two days after I wrote that post, five political parties came together and agreed to a plan. Just in time to give it to the European Union. It's not the best plan ever, but for now it will do. Still, in September I will have to vote again.

Celebrations
Queensday on April 30th was hot!!! That is so typical, there are only a few rainy Queensday's I remember. On Queensday the entire country is dressed in orange or red-white-blue and has a day off. The Queen and her family visits two places in the Netherlands, people show her some love and their skills in many things (singing, dancing, crafts, games, sports, etc). The rest of the country can follow this live on tv or sell their stuff on the street. It's like one big garage sale! There are also lots of music performances and people have a lot of fun. I stayed home, it was way too crowded for me.

Memorial Day on May 4th was impressive as always. It makes me so sad to hear, see and read all the WW2 stories and I am grateful my country was liberated. Although I live very close to the monument in my city, I like to follow the Memorial Service on tv.
The day after is Liberation Day with lots of music and street markets.

Cross stitching: why you are here

I was going to give an update but unfortunately I haven't stitched for a week! I hurt my right hand again and I cannot stitch. It's aweful. I have found out I make a fist in my sleep (like I am going to fight). Right now I am pretty stressed about our situation and I also angry about the things happening to us. I try to relax my hand as much as possible but I think I will try to get a brace or something at my local pharmacy.

I did however stitch a little bit. Over the last two years I bought a couple of cross stitching magazines and acquired quite a few free gifts! So I started this when I had to travel three hours by train to a meeting. The kit was lovely but there weren't enough red threads and it also had a tapestry needly. In my opinion that should have been a embroidery needle with a sharp tip, because of the fractal stitches that this kit needed. This was my first attempt at french knots and it was a lot easier than I thought! I don't know how I am going to finish this yet. My boyfriend hates this piece though, he prefers the big Train. I cannot blame him!

Looking at this picture I see I have to clean and oil my table again, oopsie!!

Also, this is where my Train is at the moment:

Well I hope to give a real update soon!!

Page finish!

Yesterday I finished the 13th page of Train of Dreams! Hurray!!

We had a lovely weekend with a bit of sleeping in!! This weekend we had the Girl only on Saturday, because her sister (my other stepdaughter, Girl2) was visiting her and the in-laws (and I have a very small house with only 1 single guest bed). My boyfriend was really happy to see her and we had a great time with the four of us. We even had a little boy over and it was great to see how the three of them played together. The Girl was watching from the sidelines sometimes (I think she feels her handicap sometimes, and her younger sister has developed more than she has, so Girl2 is now more the older sister) but she also loved to run with the other kids and doing things kids like doing most. Making messes LOL.
We went to the beach and later we were joined by a group of friends. We had a lovely dinner at a restaurant next to the sea. It was good to be together. It would have been our friend's 40th birthday and this gathering was good for all of us and for his family/mother (the little boy was his nephew). We are taking over the role of his uncle a little.

When we came home we discovered our Government collapsed. Great. Since the year I turned 18 and was allowed to vote, there hasn't been a Cabinet that didn't collapse! I really don't know what party to vote now. And I am angry. Why can't these politicians step over their party lines and do what is best for this country?
Ugh. There is a reason why I stitch so much..I can avoid thinking about the mess in the world!

Tonight I will spent stitching, while watching one of my favorite TV-series: Midsomer Murders. I have to laugh at how many gruesome murders are committed in the lovely English countryside. Thank God it's only TV!!

I've been busy this weekend!

Hope you all had a lovely Easter. We had a wonderful relaxed Easter. In the Netherlands we always get two days of Easter celebration, Sunday and Monday. Some people even get Good Friday off.
The girl was with us and stayed with us till yesterday. We listened to Bach's Matthaus Passion, enjoyed a walk through the city and we even were visited by my family! This was a huge surprise for the girl and she was overjoyed. I just love it when she says "Grandma is soooo sweet on me" (which means Grandma (my mom) loves her). And I also loved that my brother genuinly interested asked me how far I was with my stitching. Awesome.

This was what I have been doing in between all the Easter celebration.
Before:

After:

I found Train of Dreams to have a fair amount of confetti-stitches (but still reasonable, it is not a Josephine Wall!) but this part is quite ok.

As much as I like to stitch, I think I need to take a bit of rest this week. I still have a nasty cold and have trouble breathing at night sleeping at my back. Apparently I have been sleeping at my side the last couple of nights and use my right hand to support my body. As a result my wrist and right hand hurt quite a lot. This morning I even had trouble to grab a piece of (toilet) paper! Ridiculous and very painful! But also a bit funny, can you imagine not being able to keep something as light as toilet paper in your hand? LOL

And with that I bid you farewell and talk to you later!

Another page finished!

I haven't been able to stitch as much as I liked to. Last weekend my stepdaughter came home with a cold and the weekend before that her father was sick. So the time I usually have to stitch, was used to take care of them.
The girl and I took several trips to the shops when her dad was sick, she has shown some serious growth lately. She was carrying bags and putting the right things in my shopping basket. Also, she making real contact with the cassiers, saying hello and asking how they were doing. It was awesome. I had to stifle a laugh when she greeted a person in the street "hello Mr." and after discovering the person actually was a woman she quickly said "hello Ms.".
This weekend was quiet. We did go for our daily walk but her energy was pretty low. Lots of time was spent at home playing and hanging out.

So, after all the sickies in my little family I didn't came as a surprise when I came home this Monday feeling not too well. When the alarm went off yesterday I felt horrible. My throat hurted and the pain in my head was pushing away every cleaver thought I usually have. So I called in sick. This morning I felt a little better but I had a fever last night so I'm still at home. I hope tomorrow will be better so I can go back to work, I am so bored allready!!

To lift my spirit I took a picture of Train of Dreams yesterday:

Looking good, isn't it?

As I was laying the entire piece of fabric on my table to take a picture I started to panic. The fabric seemed a little too small. Oh no, please tell me I measured correctly???? I wanted to cry but felt that was way too pathetic for an almost 30-year old (one of my fever-dreams was about turning 30 and it was horrible. Weird 'cause really, I could care less about my age). So I started counting and luckily, I have plenty of fabric left to stitch and still have enough for framing.

I have mixed feelings about nearing the end of Train. I only have 4 pages wide to do (so 8 and a bit pages in total). I hope I reach my 2012 goals (finish 10 pages) but I'm not sure. Right now I have done 4 of those 10.

Talk to you later!

Why did I pick Train of Dreams?

Tonight I read a lovely comment by Melinda. She asked me why I picked Train of Dreams. As I was typing my answer it got pretty long, so I thought it would be better to make a full post of it.

Her question:
Melinda said...
I love your Train of Dreams - I also love using the 18 ct. I am new to your blog, so forgive me if I may repeat or ask questions you have already talked about. Can you tell me, is it the dragon? Or why Train of Dreams as a choice. I also have this chart - just wanting to compare notes.

I love answering questions and I never talked about my reasons so here goes:
I don't really know why I picked it. I am not a huge fan of dragons, but Sprangler's dragons are just very cute. I remember seeing the piece on a few blogs I was reading and I just loved the playfulness of it. Plus I love to read and Sprangler has lots of books in his pieces. At the time I was stitching a sampler. Nice but I wanted something different.

When I first visited the HAED website I thought maybe there were even better pieces. I found lots of them, but still I liked Train of Dreams more. I was captivated by the scene, the colors and the size of the piece. Most of HAED's patterns were so big, I was seriously afraid of them! I knew I had to pick a pattern that would motivate me to finish! I knew this would keep me motivated.

Also, my stepdaughter loves trains. We travel by train every weekend (I pick her up at my in-laws) and she is always very excited to go on the train with me. She also has a toytrain at my in-laws and at my place, she loves playing with them. She has autism and mentally she is much younger than her real age. When I saw Train of Dreams I knew this would get her exited and she would talk a lot about it. We need to train her communication skills and we follow her interests. If she wants to talk about the rug, we talk about the rug, if she wants to talk about her Playmobile figures, we talk about that.
When she first saw Train of Dreams she almost started to fly of excitement, she LOVED it. Especially when I told her this would be hers and we would hang it in her bedroom at my place. I don't know if she really understands it but I keep telling her it's hers. When she's here and I'm working on it while she's playing she always wants to look at it and count the books or talk about the dragon (she calls it a crocodile). She even helped with a few stitches! She still calls it "knitting" (my MIL knits and quilts). Only buying new shoes makes her happier LOL.

So I think it's a mix of everything: the colors, the cute dragon, the joy it brings to my stepdaughter, the books and the joy and piece of mind stitching gives me!

Another page finished and halfway down the other!

For the last 1.5 weeks I have been wanting to post an update, but it just didn't happen. Instead I stitched and stitched and this is the result! I am now busy stitching the purple carriage with the cookies! I like purple.

When I finish this page I will take a picture of the entire piece but this is work-in-progress people!

I believe I once told the 18ct aida fabric I am using is not white. It's actually a very pale grey (I think it's from Permin and color is barn grey?, I'm not sure and I didn't keep the receipt!). In the past I didn't think my photo's showed the true color - my pictures usually look like the fabric is white - but this picture really does justice!

Also, yesterday was a lovely warm day here in the Netherlands! Unfortunately the weather is now back to grey and cold but spring is coming!! I even saw the first lamb in one of the meadows and got very excited about that! The crocussus are also showing up and the willow in front of my window across the canal is showing small leaves. I love to watch this process, every day there's something new!

The boyfriend is plugging away in his job search. He got an interview last month, but didn't get the job. Too bad, but he's busy with other projects. He stays hopeful and so am I! We have decided not to go on a holiday abroad in the summer, we will stay at home (either at my place or at my in-laws). I do hope the weather will be nice so we will get the holiday feeling anyway!

That's it for now, untill next time!

Preparing for Butterfly Wood

So this morning I decided to start make a preparation document for Butterfly Wood. I calculated the amount of fabric I need and I made a list of the floss I need to buy (42 new colors).
I know it's silly, because I've said here I'll start after I finish Train of Dreams. Prepping is fun!

Now back to Train of Dreams.