Tree of Stitches 2.0

I have finally managed to hand over the last of the xmas presents last week! :) One of my best friends was very busy and then she had a holiday. She never knew what I stitched for her! She fell in love with my first version of Tree of Stitches by Abi Gurden when she saw me stitching it, and I immediately decided to stitch it a second time for her. This time I added more warm colours because I know her to like those, and experimented with the hand dyed threads on the double layer stitches. I stitched the bottom layers completely before going on to the top layer, to add colour variation to the individual stitches. I also added more beads instead of some x stitches. I made her owl brown and left the bunny because I wasn't sure she liked it. I'm very satisfied with the way it turned out. And yes, I am getting ready to stitch it again, this time for my parents. ;)

Photos after the jump.

Farewell to 2011, welcome 2012

2011 didn't start out like it was gonna be a good year. I was lonely and very depressed. With the help of my friends though, I gradually managed to get my act together. Not just those friends I see in person, but my online stitching buddies who always have a minute or two to send me a few words of encouragement when I need it the most. I am extremely thankful for your support.
In 2011 I have changed some of the minor things that effected my mood and helped me a great deal. For example, I have successfully got rid of my Facebook gaming addiction, which gave me a lot of time I could spend on more useful things. For example, after several years, I have managed to look after my mini garden of potted plants properly. It was a great experience and I have every intention to do it again this year.
I dusted off my UFOs and had several finishes, big and small. Usually I don't like finishing, but this year I needed to close things down and the stitching finishes have, in some way, trained me to deal with the feeling of closure.
The biggest change, of course, is baby coming home. She was four years old when my delicate health and failing marriage made me unable to give her the attention and care she needed, so step by step, I let her move in with my parents. They did a terrific job looking after her, but she is my child, so I wanted her back. We had our arguments about what's best for her, but I am her mom, and I wasn't gonna spend another year without my baby. She is the light of my life, the sun around which all my thoughts orbit, and I only feel alive when we are together. This summer she moved back to Budapest, and since then all of my days are blessed. I cannot find words to describe how thankful and humbled I am to experience motherhood again. I almost forgot how amazing it is to raise a child. How wonderful it feels to look at her, listen to her, figure out how her innocent eyes view the world, go through the adventures of growing up. This is her adventure, she is the hero and I am always at her side as her faithful companion. Never again shall I let her out of my sight for so long. Unless she wants me to.
My baby is a big girl now, enjoying school days, using pointy scissors, washing the dishes, reading books on her own. Naturally, with the fun we have and the chores to be done, I don't have much time for my hobbies now, but I still think it's just a phase, and as she grows and becomes more mature and independent, I will be able to do more. For now, I am satisfied with what I have. And that really is more than what I could have asked for a year ago.

Kinda gone, kinda back

I know I disappeared from blogging, but I'm all right. I have done a lot of things in the meantime. I have been stitching too. No finishes, just progress on various projects, including the super secret surprise project. No progress photos now because I don't have the brains to browse on my hard drive.

Online friendships

Do you remember how few days ago I whined about how I can't believe in big things any more, and included friendship in my list? Well, I got some reminders about its existence. First of all, one day after I announced to my guild that I must quit WoW for financial reasons, one member contacted me and offered me a prepaid game card. Annamarie said she bought it for her sister, but she was never really interested in playing, so the card was not used and pretty much forgotten. She practically gave me 6 months of playing time for free! How awesome is she?
Then I was whining about the missing Anchor floss, and the next thing I know, Brigitte e-mails me to find out if I know the number for it yet, because she can send me some. I already found the shop that carries Anchor, as I mentioned by now, so I politely declined the offer, but still, I am very touched!
Finally, there was a discussion about the DMC price differences around the world on one of my Yahoo groups called Counted Cross Stitch, and a group of friends in the U.S.A. decided that since floss is so much cheaper in the States than in most other countries (for example, I pay about $1,2 for a skein when some U.S. stores carry DMC for 35 cents), they wanna occasionally send a bunch of floss to their foreign stitching friends just for the sake of being generous. That is amazing! Come on, are stitchers, and as it seems WoW players, the kindest people on the planet or what?

RAKed by a non-stitcher

You may remember that I paused on the Christmas SAL I'm in because I ran out of floss and the shop that carried The Gentle Art gave in to recession and closed. Thankfully, another online friend of mine that I met on a gardening website volunteered to buy me some floss. I asked her for three skeins of the Raspberry Parfait shade and promised to cover the bill. Imagine my surprise when the envelope contained a whole bunch of other colours and a gift note! When I contacted her, all she said was "well, I had a good month and you had a crappy one with the divorce and everything, so just lean back and carry on stitching."  Isn't she amazing? Who said there is no good in this world?

By the way, did I say non-stitcher? It may not be true for long, as it seems I infested her with the stitching virus! I give it a few months and she will join our ranks!

Sunshine Award

This award is for bloggers who inspire others with positivity and creativity.

The rules for accepting the award are:
1. Put the logo on your blog or within your post.
2. Pass the award to 12 bloggers.
3. Link the nominees within your post.
4. Let them know they received this award by commenting on their blog.
5. Share the love and link to the person from whom you received this award.

I got this lovely award from GoldenAngel.
Here are my 12 nominees (in no particular order):

1. Nicole
2. Jill
3. Loralynn
4. Robin
5. Barbi
6. Carol
7. Margie
8. Rachel
9. Mel
10. Shellie
11. Becky
12. Chiloe

I wanna thank every stitching and/or blogging friend for sharing their talent.

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.

Another giveaway!

Robin is celebrating her blogoversary by organizing a giveaway! Click HERE to check it out and enter the draw before Thanksgiving!

I finally finished part 7 and 8 of  my Christmas sampler and scanned it. I'm not sure if it will fit in the scanner next time! I didn't print part 9 yet, I might need to buy a new ink cartridge before. Which worries me, as it's rather expensive. There is the option of having the cartridge refilled, but I heard some cases when it was done so badly it spilled out of the cartridge and ruined the printer. Anyone knows anything certain about this topic? I have no idea, just rumours but no facts.

I got another great package from Granma Jane, again two issues of the Stoney Creek Cross Stitch magazine and a hand made Christmas tree ornament as a bonus! Plus I got some nice postcards from an exchange in one of my favourite Yahoo groups. And I even treated myself to a Heritage kit by John Clayton that I wanted to stitch since the first time I saw it. And since I've been browsing those kits I decided to make a collage wish list just for fun!

Christmas SAL and prayer request

This is just a very short entry before I get all pretty and leave. First, the SAL:

A lovely lady called Carole is organizing a Christmas SAL and anyone interested can sign up on her blog, just send her an e-mail, she is very nice! The blog is in French, so I post the google-translated page the way I got it from my friend Christine, who called my attention to this wonderful project.

LINK after translation
http://translate.google.com/translate?client=tmpg&hl=en&u=http%3A%2F%2Fnovalee02.over-blog.com%2Farticle-35722220.html&langpair=fr|en

LINK before translation:
http://novalee02.over-blog.com/article-35722220.html

Second, my dad and I wanna get in a TV quiz show and we have already passed round one! Please cross your fingers or say a prayer for us because if we manage to get on the screen and win a small sum of money it would be great help for the family! I am so nervous! I will let you know what happened after we are back home!

Update:

We are back from the casting. Thank you so much for your thoughts and good luck wishes! We were not told if we have made it to the show but we are gonna be notified within a week. I will keep you informed on what happens next.

Grandma RAKd me

Some of you might remember that I have the most amazing virtual Grandma' in the world. She might live on the other side of the Atlantic, but that doesn't stop her from spoiling me like I was her granddaughter by blood.She decided to send me all the magazines and leaflets she doesn't intend to stitch and I already got the first package she mailed. It had two leaflets by StitchWorld and two of my beloved Stoney Creek magazines.

For all those new to my untraditional family, allow me to present to you some of the wonderful works of my beloved Granma Jane.

Granma Jane's stitching

Tee-hee, I got recognition!

Sally from the Stitchyangel's Treasures blog nominated me for the Brilliante Weblog Award!
Since I have just resumed my blogging after a rather long absence, it really feels good to be recognised. Thank you so much!
Of course, this comes with a couple of obligations, which are:

1. Put the logo on your blog;
2. Add a link to the person who awarded you
3. Nominate at least 7 other blogs;
4. Add links to those blogs on yours;
5. Leave a message for your nominees on their blogs.

So I will now name a few blogs in no particular order. Disclaimer: there are quite a few blogs that I wanted to nominate but other fellow bloggers were quicker! I have tried to check every blog before I nominated them to make sure they don't have this award already. My apologies if I happened to overlook something.

• Erica's Places
• Garden of Stitches
• A Cup of Tea with Friends
• Cozy Egg
• Incoherent Scriblings
• Smokey from the Netherlands
• AngelSan

I also wanna thank this award for my record company, all the fans who voted for me... uhh, sorry, wrong speach.

Stitchers' meeting

I have finally got a new mouse! The old one gone mad a few weeks ago. It either refused to notice my clicking or it started randomly clicking around when I least wanted it. So hubby got a new one for me.

My camera is still not working but I just realized that my handycam is capable of taking still pictures. I have arranged a debut for this function last Saturday on the monthly regular meeting of my Hungarian stitching friends. Check out their fabulous works here (link is right underneath the butterfly):

From Stitchers' cl...

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!

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.

Stitchers' meeting

Last Saturday saw another meeting of the Hungarian online cross stitchers club. There is a message board on a ladies' site, where all these stitchers met. Together they have hammered out the idea of a Hungarian magazine, and by now they have their own home page, with picture galleries, message boards, conversion tables, and so on.

I have joined them about 18 ms ago. They didn't welcome me as I thought they would, and I felt offended, so I didn't go there for a while. I felt more at home with my American friends. They have greeted me as if they had known me all my life and I never felt left out of anything at all.

I learned so much from my overseas stitching friends! I wanted to share everything with my natives, I wanted to organize round robins, exchanges, stitch-alongs... but all my attempts have failed. I was "greeted" with suspect, as if I wanted to cheat out their money and stash. I was, once again, deeply hurt. I visited their monthly meetings, but usually just looked at their projects and rarely spoke with anyone.


As I wrote in an earlier post, few months later someone threw in the idea of round robins again, and this time it was accepted with enthusiasm. Maybe because one of their "older" members made the suggestion, I don't know. Anyway, I decided to swallow my pride and put aside my hurt feelings and joined a few RRs. Here on the side you can see one with herbs - I'm not taking part in this one though, I just love the way it looks. :)

These things with cute animals - mainly Margaret Sherry's cats - are gifts done by the whole community for the newborn baby of one of the members. This is but half of all the stuff they stitched!

Anyway, by now my nick is getting more and more familiar in that community, and I have a few friend-like relationships too. I am saying this because for me "friend" stands for someone I have known for years and learned to trust.