Start and progress

I have finally recovered my ballerina chart so I could work on more colours. There is a lot of floss blending and I really enjoy the effect. I made great progress! Soon she will outgrow my scanner.

In the meantime I have started yet another SAL. We're doing a Christmas project. Most of the members are Hungarian but everyone is still welcome if you are interested. There may still be time to buy the chart and start stitching! I am warning you though, it is much more floss consuming than it looks! I am almost at the end of my first skein, and now I must find a way to get some from abroad as the store that stocked The Gentle Art Sampler Threads is closed by now. Damn you, economy!
To see the projects check out the blog, you can find the image and link on my sidebar. You can find my posts under the label Jade.

I am doing several smaller pieces I cannot reveal just yet. In a shock, I realised that I am at the deadline of mailing my PIF gifts. Who knew a year can pass so fast? I had no idea. I may be late with some of them, I apologize in advance.

I have dusted off some of my older crafting tools. I have finished knitting a small poncho I started working on years ago and then put it aside. I also tried crocheting again, and I remembered why I quit in the first place. I just cannot seem to be able to make the edges straight. Does anyone have any piece of advice on that? I have no idea what I'm doing wrong, but this is what my practice pieces look like:

So much to blog

My girl has been visited by the tooth fairy for the first time! She lost exactly the same tooth that came out first and the one next to it is loose too, she keeps fidgeting with it. Also, she discovered the fun in trampolines and she hops around in the one we have occasional access to whenever she can. This Monday seen the closure of the ballet course and the little ones gave us a performance to celebrate it. I cannot believe how good she is and how much her moves and coordination have improved!

On a side note, does anyone else use Picasa? It was my favourite image viewer/organizer until recently, but has gone mad in the past weeks. I like correcting my photos, as in removing red eyes, straightening the slanting photos, cropping out what is irrelevant, that sort of thing. Picasa even turned my photos automatically in the right direction depending on landscape or portrait orientation. It still does for itself, but not any other program. You see in my previous post that the photos are sideways. Very annoying. Also, when I change something, it automatically saves the original version in a backup folder. Which is okay, but it doesn't automatically save the changes I made, which means that if I don't manually save every piece myself, I will end up with hours of work wasted and two versions of the same crappy pictures I started with.
On a more positive note, the water is receding, but this process is a much slower one than the rising one. You see, here is my school that I wrote about earlier. The building is safe, but the yard is still flooded, the water will have to soak in the ground because it has no other exit. Maybe someone will pump it, I don't know. You can see the hedge in the front, all grey with the dried mud, shows you how high the water level was.

Oh, I almost forgot that I got my PIF gifts from Carol! I got this lovely cushion and an adorable snowman ornament. Thank you very much, I love them!

I also have some progress pictures on Feasting Frenzy. As you can see, I have some new birdies and the roof is almost finished!

And last but not least, this is a drawing by my DD, and this is how she sees me. Amazing how she got the details right, the green eyes, my favourite turtleneck sweater and the white sneakers with the red stripes on the sides. What a budding little artist I have!

Needless to say, I am very proud of her and this picture is on my wall where I can always see it!

PIF - I've learned another abbreviation

I have found a new type of exchange - if you may call it that - on Rita's Hungarian stitching blog. Linked above is her English blog though. Anyway, Rita has joined a kind of Pay It Forward stitching exchange, and here's how it goes.

I will send a handmade gift to the first 3 people who leave a comment on my blog requesting to join this PIF exchange. I don't know what that gift will be yet and you may not receive it tomorrow or next week... LOL... but you will receive it within 365 days, that is my promise! The only thing you have to do in return is pay it forward by making the same promise on your blog (or - in your life - if you happen to be blog-less).

Actually, I prefer bloggers because writing a blog can sometimes be a pain in the back, but many of you are doing it because you know that we love to see updates on your stitching and I respect that! I would love to give back a little something for all the time you spend on your entries and pictures and stuff. :)

So go ahead and join the exchange by leaving comments!