A sad time

Life has come to a stop here. After having hope again for my beloved Father in law, things had turned for the worse. We had a couple of days of hope, of new dreams, of fun and laughter together. There were lots of scans, appointments for cancer treatment, but before the results of all tests were fully known, Dad got a heavy bleeding in the brain which took him away from us. When the results of the previous tests came in, we all knew that this was only a blessing.

We were with him when he still was able to speak to us, we were with him in the emergency room, and we were with him day and night until he left us. We were holding his hands and talking to him.  It might sound weird, but it was not only a sad time. It gave us peace too to be with him in this hour and assure him from our deep love.

I feel not only deeply saddened by the loss of this wonderful man, I also feel honored to have known this terrific husband of 46 years to his wife, a great father to his 4 children and their wives, a most wonderful opa to his grand children. A family man who's love was unconditional, a gentle man with an unbeatable humor - even in the days with unbearable pain still cracking a joke to make us laugh. There is no person that dislikes him, because he is such a nice man. Life is just not fair at times!!!

Manhattan Wonderland and Snowflakes

Lately I haven't been sitting much at the pc. Simply because I can't really concentrate at the moment. Everytime I do sit at the pc and want to read a bit, I get side tracked and feel restless. Life is a bit hectic here with garden work and also worrying  about my father in law who is suffering quite some pain lately. His well being has at the moment absolute priority for us and we try to help him and my mother in law as much as we can to ease their lifes. Hopefully things will turn again to the better soon.The doctors are quite hopeful at the moment :)  Stitching however soothes the soul and helps me to stop thinking and worrying and calms me down. 
Anyway, that might explain why I haven't visited much blogs lately and wasn't very active in the yahoo groups and message boards I'm member off.


Last week I stitched quite a bit on Manhattan Wonderland and finished page 3.

While I normally finish a piece before starting a new one, I broke this rule this time and started a new travel project. Christmas is coming up after all isn't it? There for I started  Little Needlehouse Design called "Snowflakes". 

 

And lastly an update on Alla Turca

I heard the bells on Christmas Day!!!! - or was it the doorbel?

Yes I did hear the Christmas bells. It might be only November...but that's a minor detail. BECAUSE...firstly I'm in Christmas spirit...secondly I finished block 1 of Christmas at Hawk Run Hollow.

Of course the picture doesn't show the colors as they should be. The fabric should be darker. I'm stitching it over one on 25ct Lugana in the color "Vintage Marble Country Mocha"

Or did I get confused with the doorbell? While writing this post the doorbell rang and Santa the postman brought a packet from Kathy.  I won one of her fantastic give aways - a chart from Blackbird Designs called  "Awake the Dawning Day" . I LOVE that chart. Kathy not only sent the needed threads for it, she spoiled me also with lots of nice gifts. See that little Christmas ornament? The letters are tiny. It's stitched over one and it is so lovely. The picture doesn't do it justice. Thank you so very much Kathy.

And to stay in Christmas spirit I finished a Christmas ornament as well. Stitching snowy themes while the airco is running.It's even too hot to go outside today. I'm going strictly from airco to airco while humming Christmas songs.

Christmas Eve Deer

by The Prairie Schooler (The Gift of Stitching 11/2009)

stitched on a Silkweaver Solo (28ct Cashel) with recommended DMC

Another piece I recently started is called Alla Turca. It's a free design from Pelin Tezer, and a turkish variant on samplers.  Even the pattern is free to download on Pelin Tezer's website, I chose to stitch it together with a German yahoo group called Marquoir.  They cut the chart up in lots of small parts which get every 3 weeks released and are easy to fit in. That way I have a tiny finish regularly and I'm able to fit the whole thing into my stitching schedule. I'm stitching Alla Turca over one on 25ct white Lugana with my favorite red... Threadworx Bleeding Heart.

And some more Christmas ...I came a bit closer to finish my place mats. The never ending amount of long long long stripes were finally finished and I could cut out 40 pieces. And ...phew...I counted out how much fabric I would need, and got exactly 41 pieces out of 80 stripes. And I was slightly nervous while cutting not to make a fault. Anyway the front is done...batting added. Now "only" the back and the binding. And I'm dreading the binding.

Grand Marquoir finished :) (and some other stuff)

Can you see my happy dance? Yesss....it's finished. It was a lovely relaxing thing to stitch with only 2 colors and a bit gold. There are couple of more designs of Isabelle Vaultier that I love and I'm tempted to stitch. They are on my never ending "to do" list.  She is such a talented designer with a load of beautiful designs. Anyway...here it is:

Coming to Water came back from the framer and is proudly hanging at the wall now. Can't take a better picture because of the glare I can only take a decent(ish) picture from this angle.

And....drum roll please....I WON. I never win...lol. Not that I see that as a problem, but this one I really really really really really wanted to win. I was after this one since donkey's ages. Browsing the internet, trying Ebay, searching for hours. No luck at all.  And Sadie had a give away for it. This one came originally from Vonna, then Jodie had it, then Sadie...and as the lucky winner of her give away (YAYYYYYYYYYYYYYYYYY) it's now mine!!!! For the time being. Once it's finished I will give it away to the next stitcher in line. And for once I will order the threads and fabric as charted. I'm SO in love!!! Thank you so much Sadie, also for the lovely thread and the needles. Love both of them. Nothing can spoil my day!!! 

Hmm....almost nothing.  That brings me fluently to the next subject. Because Christmas is this year at our place, we'll having around 20 people here. Christmas is in Australia a Summer event, and we celebrate it outdoors in our garden with a buffet. We're having a large outdoor roofed area and a pool too...so nothing can spoil it.  That's all fine and dandy. What is less fine and dandy are that stupid ideas I do have occasionally.
I thought it would be a great idea to make a beautiful table setting. And to celebrate me having a new sewing machine I could make 20 napkins and 20 place mats. Shouldn't be a problem. Can't be that much work. It might have not be THAT much work if one would choose something easy to make. But no...I need of course to find something really work intensive and THINK that I would be able to put that all together in no time. That's not the first time I'm "slightly" wrong in estimating time...and it might not be the last time.  The 20 napkins are finally ready. Now "only" 20 placemats. First I need to sew together 80  1 1/2" strips (44" long) which I had to cut of course first. These are only a small part of these place mats. And do NOT ask why for Christ Sake I didn't buy striped fabric in the first place. Please do NOT ask.

It's impossible not to finish it in time. Failure is not an option.  Mister (Always) Right had some raised eyebrows when I told him about this plan and asked why we don't simply buy some nice napkins and table decorations? For that money that the fabric and batting cost, we could easy buy some fancy stuff and it would save heaps of time. As you might imagine I waved that as com-ple-te-ly nonsense off the table.  What do men know about these things!!! Nothing at all!!! And he is NOT right!!!!!!


Still trying to figure out a nice way to fold these napkins. Here you see one of the ideas. If I fold it that way,  I fill it with a chocolate or something like that. Not sure yet.

Ohhh....and then to the more brighter things. We don't celebrate Halloween here. It's not custom here, nor was it in Germany and the Netherlands. But my nieces got dressed up, and we had a nice family dinner at our place. With monster cakes for the kids. Here are our beautiful nieces with my mother in law holding little Sofia :)