Finished frenzy

The crosses were done for over a year by the time I forced myself to finish all the pesky backstitching on this one, but I did finish just in time for my mother's birthday. Here it is all finished and framed, and now I cannot stop happy dancing.

Feasting Frenzy by Dimensions

October in November

It's time for the October edition of the WIPocalypse report. Do not adjust your clocks and calendars.

Kit by Vervaco

Progress and S.E.X.

I've been stitching a lot lately, obviously I cannot show you the secret project, but I can inform you that it is growing steadily and I even started another minor secret project I am about to finish and reveal. Here are my progress pictures and a photo of my recent purchases. Yes, I've been a bad girl and increased my stash yet again.

My progress on Doves

That is all.

The crazy getting out of hand

Not only have I kitted and started my designated 15 projects, but while looking for ideas in my now huge collection of cross stitch magazines, I decided to work on even more that I have been in love with but due to low self-esteem and constant nagging by my mom ("are you done with the ones you started last year yet") I kept postponing the first stitches. Not any more! I found a Marjolein Bastin birdhouse chart in issue 93 of The World of Cross Stitching and a lovely garden sampler in issue 70 of Crazy for Cross Stitch. I'm only doing part of the sampler though, another birdhouse design that I'm going to use as a bookmark.Yeah, I know I'm nuts. But damn, I'm enjoying it!

In the meantime

I shared a lot of non-stitching stories in the past day, but I have been busy doing the little x-s despite not mentioning them. I think I mentioned frogging the ballerina's hair, that is gonna happen soon. Right now I am working mainly on Feasting Frenzy. My parents have a bird feeder in the backyard that is visited mostly by blue tits and great tits (which in Hungary have a name that translates to coal tit because of the black cap they have) and blackbirds. Everyone in my family adores them. So my mom really wants to have that picture stitched, framed and hanging on her wall. I have made really great progress and will soon start doing the backstitching!

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!

Blogging to calm my nerves

Mom and I are on the phone every hour. All the rivers in Hungary are flooding, crashing through dams, destroying homes all over the country. All these weeks of raining have washed so much soil away, many homes are in danger, even the walls of Budapest castle may fall down in several places because of it.
My parents and sister live near the Danube and the situation there is very serious. Mom keeps asking me if there are any updates on the web, I keep asking her if they are safe. I'm worried sick for them. I couldn't even sleep so I fixed the printer at night. Now I can scan too. Here is the lost and found Lanarte mini and my progress on Feasting Frenzy. Soon it will not fit in the scanner. I feel helpless, all I can do is rearrange my stash to keep myself from biting my nails.

I'm planning to start working on Cirque des Circles by Ink Circles sometime soon. I already have the floss and fabric. For me it was difficult to pick the colours because there are so many lovely threads! But I made up my mind.
The chart I got from Pat in New Mexico as a surprise gift! I simply left a few kind words on her blog when she finished this project and she decided to just sent the chart to me! To honour her generosity I decided to do the same when I am done. But that won't be tomorrow, lol!
By the way, if you wanna see more lovely Ink Circles designs in the making, you can always click on this blog where stitchers share their progress pictures.

Survived Valentine

Valentine's day, the would-be-anniversary and the first court visit in my divorce case are all behind me.

*phew*

That is pretty much what I have to say about that. I tried to dodge the lovey-dovey period of the year, but it is very difficult when my usual escapade reality, World of Warcraft, has a two week long Love Festival scheduled on all its realms. Thankfully I got the relevant achievement last year, so I could concentrate on other activities.

I wasn't very active on my stitch related mailing groups or blogs either. I tried to avoid everything pink and heart-shaped, as in my present state of mind it only triggers a "bah, humbug" comment from me, and I didn't want to spread my bitterness. I'll get over it. I've been a good girl about stitching the monthly magazine freebies though. Despite them being heart shaped.

On further stitching news, my mom gets more and more interested in my stitching. That is the politically correct expression about her nagging me almost daily about when I wanna finis beading Deepest Love and when will I resume stitching The Lady of the Thread. :) Don't get me wrong, I love that I can finally chat about my projects with someone offline, but I really don't need anyone setting deadlines. I'm not complaining. It's the first time in years that I feel like she thinks I am good at something, so I enjoy it.

She made me start a new project. My daughter loves to fill the bird feeder and watch the adorable feathered friends gather around it, so I started a Dimensions kit I had in my stash for quite some time. As a belated Christmas present I bought my first q-snap and I tested it for this project. I absolutely love how tight it can keep the fabric without damaging the stitches the way my wooden hoops did. I wish I would have bought a larger one and not the 6"x6" but that was the only available one at that time, so I will have to make do with that, as I cannot afford another until I get a job.

Oh, and I have a question to my trade partners: do I owe anyone a piece of linen? One of my friends sent me some special floss in return for the fabric I sent her, and what she apparently wasn't expecting. I do have memory problems due to sleeping problems, had them for months, but I cannot remember even the intention of RAKing anyone, so I must assume I sent her the fabric by mistake. Which possibly means that there is somewhere in the world a trade partner of mine who has been waiting for that package in vain, possibly for months, and has to think I ripped her off. I tried to search my mail but couldn't find who that was supposed to go to. I faintly recall trading linen for some magazines, which I remember sending, but I don't even remember which Yahoo group it was, and I am a member of too many to read through all of them. So if you know who you are and I still owe you, please mail me at my jadestitch address at gmail, and I will make up for the delay.

Lost and found

Cleaning the kitchen closet I found a plastic bag. What was in it? A Dimensions WIP I started two months ago and a Lanarte mini project finished and waiting to be framed some day. It was probably put in the closet by mistake. I used to carry that bag with me so I can work on it on the train travelling to my parents' town and back. I thought I lost these pieces for good but now they are back! I am very happy because, as some of you may know, I collect birdhouse patterns and was really sad to lose one. But they are here now, so I scanned them for you and look, aren't they pretty?