A walk with angels

 Warning: non-stitching related but picture heavy post follows!

I won!

I am so excited! You may remember that I entered a giveaway at the GoldenAngelsWorks blog and even posted my 17th birthday photo. Well, I won one of the prizes, a collection of cross stitch magazines! It's the first time I ever won anything on a giveaway! Thank you so much!
I hope it also means that my streak of bad luck, that lasted for about 24-30 months, is about to end. I could really use some help from above, and angels are always welcome here.
Fae are also invited.

Good-bye

Terrible news... we lost a loved one. My husband's grandmother died tonight. She had a stroke yesterday, was hospitalized and never gained back her consciousness. The doctors told us to prepare for the worst, but you can never prepare for this. :( She will be missed. Terribly.

Without comment

Heavenly protection

I just heard a story in tonight's news and I had to share.

A woman in Budapest was walking with her 4 year old son and pushing her 8 months old child in the baby carriage, when a huge piece of stone carving fell off of the house they were walking by. The street was full of people who were shocked by what happened. The dog sized stone fell right to the handle of the carriage that made it tilt and the baby fell out, onto the stone. The mother's hand was seriously injured but the baby had only a scratch and the 4 year old was not injured at all.

Half a step to any direction and the stone would have killed immediately whoever it lands on. It was only the matter of inches.

There are angels watching our steps and no one will ever be able to convince me of the contrary.

Progress on Ice Angel

Last week I spent some time browsing through my charts and UFOs. I was totally amazed when I found Ice Angel and Deepest Love. They are so huge! OK, some of you experienced BAP stitchers may laugh about this, but in fact, these two are the biggest projects I ever started! Well, no that is not entirely true, because the teddy bear height chart is bigger in size, but it has several smaller motifs on it, and much less fabric is covered in stitches than any of the aforementioned charts. In short, they are the biggest projects regarding stitch count. And I found it quite surprising, because I do not remember thinking of them as really big pieces, BUT THEY ARE!

Anyway, I needed a break from my RRs. I am in three of those and I regretted joining one of those on the second month. You might remember that we are doing the Tiny Teacups and each month I must stitch the SAME blue teacup on another piece of fabric. I am so bored of it! I am also doing Jeremiah Junction's Birthday Flowers in another RR. It was quite embarrassing at first, because I mis-read the deadlines so I was late sending it on from the first moment. So I put everything aside to make haste on that RR, until the day I discovered that other members were even more late than I was. What hurt me most is they didn't even have the decency to feel ashamed about it.

So I decided to be a bit selfish and "dust off" Ice Angel. I was not working on it since last August, when, as some of you might remember, we were working with doubled effort on the translation that never got paid. Anyway, I did not stitch on anything bigger than an A4 page and mostly I have done some model stitching. The RRs were good because I knew the other stitchers count on my fingers. Otherwise I would have stopped stitching completely for a few months. But I am back on track. I spent the last three days finishing her hair (only the beads and metallics missing) and made some progress on the wings as well. I plan to finish stitching the wings before I continue with her dress. Here is a picture on my progress. The picture above has no progress, but it was the first scan I have made of Ice Angel as I got the scanner for Christmas. :)

Touched by an Angel

Less than an hour after I wrote my previous, deeply depressed blog entry, someone knocked on my door. It was the mailman. He gave me a huge, snowman-covered envelope. I didn't recognize the handwriting but I could see immediately that it came from the other side of the Atlantic.

My first thought was: oh my gosh, someone must have misanderstood one of my mails and added me to an exchange by mistake. Now I have been sent something and must spend from my limited supply of cash to buy something in return. But how could it happen?

Anyway, I opened the envelope. I found loads of charts, floss, fabric, a button and even a kit! But I was most interested in the little envelope's content, which, I was sure, would explain what had happened. And it did...

Dear Vikki, bless you, bless your children, your whole family, group of friends, bless your hometown, your country! Your letter brought tears into my eyes when I read it, and again when I phoned my husband to brag about what excellent friends I found on the World Wide Web, and now again while I'm typing. You remembered what a terrible financial situation we're in and cared enough to let me know you're paying attention. You knew that a couple of charts worth stitching can make a whole life worth living. You took the time to pack up a bunch of angel themed items to remind me how they are watching over us. I sure believe they do so and I am sure that many of them live among us, disguised as stitchers, performing Random Acts of Kindness whenever they are most needed. And no one in the world would convince me that you are not one of them!

Thank you, I cannot say enough times, thank you so much, I will cherish every one of them as long as I will live. By the way, the little angel button has been spoken for - my baby daughter likes it so much she asked me to give it to her. I will stitch it on a ribbon and put it in her hair so the angel can follow her around and keep her safe. I have been blessed with wonderful friends and when I think about my daughter's future, first of all I wish her good health and right after that, but just as important, I wish her friends like you.

May as many angels watch over you as many eyes were filled with tears of joy because of your kindness! I love you. Your kids hit the jackpot on the lottery of life when they were born into your family. May the angels always remind them of this.

So much to stitch...

I have been soooo busy these past weeks! First of all, I was working on my model stitch. It has two cartoon characters on it, so it uses only a few colours and is not very difficult. I am done with the crosses and now I am doing the backstitch. I really hated all the half stitches in it, as I got a very stiff aida to work on, and I can hardly understand 1) why not use linen for a design with so many half stitches, and 2) why are those half stitches needed at all, when the backstitch doesn't follow the stitching outline. Anyway, I'll be done in a few days.

In the meantime, I got further news that are - in a way - connected to stitching. We got invitations for two weddings, one from DH's former classmates and one from one of his cousins, Roland. We also heard that another one of his cousins is going to get married next May! Plus, if all goes well, my sister will marry her NZ beloved this September, along with one of our best friends! That makes FIVE weddings = five wedding samplers! ;) One of our friends is expecting a baby for July, so there is one more gift to stitch... and then I didn't mention all my WIPs or future plans!

I also had a birthday, you know. :) I turned 32 last week. I had a day off from my usual daily duties. I used the chance to get back to my old feminine self, waxed my legs and visited the hairdresser, had a copper red dye and a cut. I also got a new, pretty top from my MIL and bought a light green one to match my new, bright hair colour. No more running around in jumpers or worn jeans and T-shirts! I can wear skirts again! It's summer! All I need now is the weather to realize that. As one of my friends said in a message board: it'd be time to tell the global warming that it's happening! :P It is cold, really cold here! :(

Back to my birthday... I also got some stash, a few Light Effects floss and a kit called Wildflower Trio from Dimensions. I love it! I already have the floss sorted, and cannot wait to get started!

About my weekend: we spent Sunday at my FIL's and MIL's place, and on Monday we visited DH's grandmothers. They both live in small villages, not too far from each other - not by car, anyway. DH's maternal granny had her 83rd birthday this week, so that was an extra reason for our visit. She is a darling, I love her as if she was my Granny, and in a way, she is. I showed her the semi-finished Ice Angel, as it is going to be hers once it is finished and framed. She loved it. Tamara fell asleep on her couch, so we had some time to chat and I was stitching on the angel's skirt quite a lot.


After Tami woke we said our good-byes and left to visit the other Granny. We were taken by surprise as she was not alone, FIL's siblings and their spouses were there as well, plus two of DH's cousins - that is where we got the invite I mentioned earlier. :) Everyone wanted to see my baby! Tamara was extra cute, she was amazed to see all the animals: she loved the hens and was awed by the rooster; everything was full of the song of birds, and most of all, there were cats wherever she went! There were three cats in Granma's yard and several others all around! She kept running to catch one but they eluded her. She wasn't very disappointed though. Running is half the fun, after all. :)
Anyway, we went back to DH's parents' place and spent most of Tuesday there. We got home late in the afternoon. Tami barely wanted to let her grandparents go. Anyway, we are back to our everydays now.

Oh, one more thing: I mentioned that I had some plans regarding cross stitch I wouldn't talk about. I'm telling you now as it seems I had to give it up for now. There was a vacancy at a needlework store and I wanted to apply for the job. I had some doubts whether it's a good idea or not, mainly because of Tamara. But you see, Oliver has serious difficulties getting a daytime job, as he has little working experience, and without that or without degree rarely anyone can get a good job nowadays. So he voulenteered to be a stay-at-home-dad. I should work about 13-15 days a month, from 10 to 20 hours, so he said he could cope with Tami and also be able to continue his translating job. BUT. But then he got a phone call from his boss saying that the deadline for his present work is now set to July 1. And that he had better not miss that. Which means, that now he has to work all day, every day. Even now as I type, he is looking over my shoulder, waiting for the keyboard to be freed from my fingers. :) Anyway, I had to postpone my plans of working in the cross stitch industry. Maybe later. Who knows, maybe they won't find anyone until July... we shall see what happens. I'll keep you updated.