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.

Awesome sale at HAED: 50% off till Midnight EST!!

OMG, I did it: I bought Butterfly Wood!!

Bob and Michelle at HAED have an awesome sale going on, only today everything 50% off. Because it's a leap year.

This was too good to be true so I went and bought it. I am so so happy with it. It's now in my stash, waiting to get started. I looks like it has a lot less confetti compared to Train of Dreams but maybe I'm dreaming? LOL

In the mean time I am still stitching away on Train of Dreams. It's going well! I hope to give another update this weekend.

Train of Dreams

Here I am with the newest update on train of dreams. I am now working on page 6 of the chart and since I am working in coloms this means I have finished 10 whole pages and 5 teenytiny pages.
I find the lower pages much easier to do, there is less confetti stitching and my needle is almost on fire!!

In other stitching related news: I inherited another book on cross stitching from my MIL. This one is in German. I also got my hands on a Cross Stitcher Special: the Best of Margaret Sherry! I love her funny designs and having this in my stash... oh wonderful!

The last two weeks have been cold in The Netherlands. We had snow and even ice on the ponds! I live next to a canal and it was fun to see people ice skating. I don't own a pair of ice skates anymore so unfortunately I haven't skated. It brought back fun memories from when I was a kid.

My cat have been ill for a month now. She started sneezing a few weeks ago (it sounded so cute) so we had to take a trip to the vet. She is a sweet cat but when we go to the vet for her vaccins she will turn into a firered fury!! This time she really was sick, the vet's assistant could get her out of her cage without any problem! We left with nose drops. We faithfully used this and after 10 days she stopped sneezing and there were no running noses again! Victory, we thought. WRONG. Four days after we stopped using the medicine the running nose was back and this time it had color (I know gross). So another trip to the vet followed and this time we also got anti-biotics. She also had infected gums? I really don't know how she got that but if this doesn't get better she has to get more visits to the vet (and possibly a photograph taken). The anti-biotics helped the sneezing and running nose but of this morning the little Miss started to sneeze again! Ugh, I know sneeze decease can take awhile to cure but I am not happy with it! So far it has cost me about 100 euros! I love her so I pay this without regrets but still it is expensive. I've started her on the nose drops again, so cross your fingers!

See you next time!

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!