Look what the mail man brought to me today!

This box just squeezed in the mail box and what a wonderful surprise. Lisette made this sparkling red Christmas Ball for the HOE Christmas Ornament Exchange. Along with a beautiful handmade Christmas Card this ball safely made the journey from The Netherlands to New Zealand - and well in time to go on the Christmas Tree.

The floss is an iridescent DMC and there are beads on every medallion and on all the seams. The Fabric is an even weave red which is a really pretty Christmas Red and not so tomato red as this poor photo shows.

What a lot of work went into this. Many many thanks Lisette.

A New Start

I've put Anne aside for a week while I work on this. Can you guess what it is?
Ina from the Netherlands sent me the chart and I am enjoying very much the stitching of The ABC Ball. Quite possibly the construction will be more taxing on my patience but so far so good.

The instructions are all in Dutch - just as well that charts are a universal language - ha ha. I'm stitching over one thread with DMC floss on Platinum Belfast linen so the ball should be suitably petite.
This week I have Thursday off work - taking a day in lieu owed to me for working on the public holiday long weekend last month. Oh yay oh yay!

Merry Noel Chicken

Some of you have been asking for details of the Christmas Chook!

He's from this chart by Twisted Oaks (which I bought on line from www.abcstitch.com) but substituted overdyed Threadworx Floss in dark red 1089 and dark green 1048. I stitched him on 28 count antique white cashel linen. To answer your question Carol R, I didn't measure him but he stood about 5inches high I think. He is certainly not a tree ornament for the 4 foot Christmas Tree I have :-)

Hope you are all enjoying as fine and sunny a weekend as I am.

The postman came again today!

Today the postman brought me a return exchange from Anita in Belgium. Look at all the treasures. Isn't that Belgian Chocolate tapemeasure just so cute. Anita made a cute flower pin cushion, a lovely yellow needlebook (the lining material is just gorgeous), a blue biscornu and sent a couple of other goodies. I "met" Anita on the Crazy Exchange - I just love the international flavour of this exchange group and have been able to "visit" many European countries this way. Thank you so very much for your generosity Anita.

And Vonna let me know that the chickens had come home to roost at her house. I sent Vonna this Christmas Chook for our Christmas Ornament Exchange. Vonna, it was hard to part with him so I'm pleased he's settled well at your house. I can see a repeat coming here :-) You can see better photos on this site.

And good night to all of you.

Today the post man was busy!

Today the postman was very busy - he brought two packages to my house. And at lunchtime when I phoned Mother, as I usually do, she excitedly told me "make sure you come straight home tonight as there's two surprises for you" And just so there is no confusion - I don't dawdle on the way home usually so the implied reprimand is unjustified!! But look what there was when I got home - - -

This fantastic strawberry from Marie as part of the Friends Through Threads exchange. Isn't this neat? I have already hung it on the cabinet door where I intend to enjoy it all year round and not just at Christmas. Thanks so much Marie - this was a great gift a real good choice as I love strawberries ; the real sort and these inedible ones too.

Next was this surprise thank you package from Jill. I just love these plastic containers and the contents - well what can I say but "Wow! Thanks Jill" I look forward to 'topping' those Altoid tins and the threads are going to be really useful. I just love everything - and am overwhelmed at your generosity and your good choices. My half blind half deaf elderly Mother who has appeared on this blog before is joyfully helping me eat the chocolate :-)

So from one happy chocolate filled stitcher - good night to you all

Some more progress on Anne

I have pulled out my "Anne" book and want to try and get it finished this year. The fun part is deciding on the various quotations that I am putting on each page. There are more pages to finish yet but this is a shot of the ones so far. Oh how I love that book - each time I dip into its pages I have the most wonderful journey down memory lane and am transported back to the comfy chair in my parents lounge where I first curled up to read the adventures of Anne Shirley. Sorry the photo is not clickable - I don't know how to do that.

On Saturday I spent a wonderful hour or two going through my charts to find something suitable for a "winter exchange" and somehow got waylaid:-) I began a list of "what I want to stitch in 2010" but it grew too long too fast so after some deliberation I managed to reduce it to two large projects "Christmas Quaker" from Weihenburg Samplers, "Historic Countries Mystery Sampler" from The Gift of Stitching, and then some smaller projects and exchanges as they occur. This will keep me busy I'm sure. There are two WIP's to complete as well - ABeCeDaire and The Queen's Sweet Bag - perhaps over the summer holidays here I can make good progress.

Have a happy evening everybody.

Inside and Outside

This past weekend has been busy. The weather was beautiful so I spent some time in the garden and was 'kissed' by the sun! My small garden is in two halves and the left hand side is all planted out and now I am clearing the right hand side for the next session.

Once inside, cleaned up and with my "gardening hands" suitably smoothed with cream I picked up my stitching. This photo is only a tease - I can't show you the whole piece as it is being mailed off overseas this week and I don't want to spoil the surprise. Now I am back working on Anne and tonight intend to stitch the words "it's a million times nicer to be Anne of Green Gables than Anne of nowhere in particular" and then page one will be ready to construct. I am really enjoying this although progress is slow as I have to think it all up by myself and I am no designer :-)

Have a good evening everyone

Another birthday gift!

The post man knows me on a first name basis now! This week I mailed off a Santa to Melissa who won the draw, and a stitched and completed one to my Little Sis who is now trying to blame me for being required to actually put up her Christmas Tree when she won't actually be at home for Christmas. Silly her for always throwing a Tree Decorating Party on December 1st. Sis, you know that when you start something and call it a tradition then a yearly keeping of promises is mandatory!! And you know that Little Bro looks forward to that party all year:-)

Yesterday the post man brought me another box which was filled to capacity with all these lovely gifts from Rachel, my partner on the Stitching Bloggers Birthday Club. I love the little pincushion - and there was such a lot of other goodies too. Many thanks Rachel.

The weather lady on TV has promised fine weather tomorrow so here's my list

Spring Clean the bathroom; Clean the car (why does every bird in West Auckland aim for my vehicle in the car park at work??); Bake some Lemon Biscuits; Dig out the rest of the pesky canna lillies and plant some broccli and beans in the garden, maybe some radishes and salad greens, some red beet and whatever else takes my fancy at the garden store; Do the grocery shopping; Cook my mother the promised silverbeet and feta (egg) souffle and finally ...... collapse in my chair and finish off this motif of the ABeCeDaire - after which it will be rolled up and consigned to the cupboard while I work on something else - and of course watch Antiques Road Show and my friend Inspector Barnaby - ooooh I do so like him even if he lives in a quaint but murderous little village.

Have a good weekend everybody.