Canadutch » Cross Stitch

Let it Snow!

Breigh — Wed, 05 Nov 2008 10:22:17 +0000

No, unlike some places in Canada at the moment, it is not snowing in the Netherlands! As much as I love the snow, I’m glad… because I’m so not ready for it yet!

I am totally ready to do some Christmas crafting though!

A few months ago I ordered this cross stitch kit from sewandso.co.uk and have had it set aside to start working on when I was finished with my mom’s tea quilt. As soon as they left I broke it out because I was dying to get it started but also because I knew it would keep my mind off of being sad and lonely for them.

It’s really worked, and I’ve been working on it pretty much every spare minute over the last week or two. It’s been lots of fun for the most part but oh my god the background! SIX THREADS! aRGH! If you are into cross stitching you’ll get why that is such a nightmare.

This is my progress so far. It’s coming along nicely and I should be finished with it sometime next week. I have to redo the eyes because my french knots went all wonky. One of these days I’ll manage to get those things perfected. If not, I’m totally switching to beads!

Quilt Sampler Cross Stitch Progress

Breigh — Tue, 12 Aug 2008 19:09:06 +0000

Well I’ve been working on the quilt sampler cross stitch I mentioned a little while ago and I think it’s coming along pretty well. The pattern called for it to be stitched across 2 stitches but I couldn’t be arsed, I just did it normally. It’s still coming out nicely anyway.

I have to admit, it’s not as fun to do as other cross stitches I’ve done. With previous ones it was fun to watch a picture come out of my work, with this it’s more just about shapes and figures. It’s still an interesting change though.

There are 16 squares so it’s still going to take a little while to complete, but not nearly as long as I thought it would at first.

I’ll have to see it when it’s finished before I decide if I’m going to have it framed or try to do it myself. It will depend on how much I like it.

I’ve Been Framed!

Breigh — Wed, 30 Jul 2008 18:58:51 +0000

Well, not me personally… but my mother’s cross stitch has! err.. or will be. There’s a pattern I’ve wanted to do for a long time called Aunt Verdi’s Porch by Paula Vaughan. I had mentioned it to my mother a few times and when I was home in Canada in October she showed me that she had actually done it for me!

We were going to get it framed in Canada but thought it might take up some valuable luggage space so I took the mounted cross stitch back with me and said I’d find someone to frame it. Which I finally did yesterday! It only took me almost a year!

This is a photo I took to show my mother the frame and mat I chose for it… you can also see the great work she did on the project!

It’s going to take two weeks for me to get it back and I can’t wait to get it home and hang it! I’m getting a double mat on it and glass to protect it of course.

I really love the Paula Vaughan patterns with the quilts in them. They are just so nice. One day I am going to get around to doing one of them myself. My mother liked this one so much she plans to do it again for herself.

I took some photos of other small projects I worked on over the last little while.

The two above aren’t something I’d have framed professionally, but I think I’ll have a go at framing them myself. They are cute!

This one I plan to do something a little different with. I’m going to get some various rusty colored fabrics and make a quilted border to go around it and hang it in my kitchen.

That is, if I ever get around to it. It may be tucked in the folder in the cupboard where it is now for years.

I just got the materials for my next project which is a cross stitch of a quilt, which I thought was sort of interesting since I enjoy quilting too… even though I’ve still not completed the sampler quilt I started many moons ago.

This is the project I am about to start:

I figure I’ll be pulling my hair out before long, as there is a lot of bits of different colors, but I like it. It’s sort of like my two favorite crafts rolled up into one, cross stitching and quilting.

I’ll frame it differently though, I don’t really like that weird wood frame they have on it in the example photo.

Stormy Weather (M.I. Hummel)

Breigh — Sun, 27 Jul 2008 09:30:47 +0000

I started this cross stitch years ago when I first came to NL. It landed in a drawer and came out once or twice but I never got around to finishing it until recently. It’s pretty manky and crumbled from 8 years of being worked on and then stuffed away but I’m hoping that once I clean it and get it framed it will look nicer.

I really like Hummel designs, and I like the history behind them. You can read it here on the M.I. Hummel Club site. A young Bavarian girl has her drawings discovered and made into figurines… it’s said that the figurines became known in America when the soldiers in Germany sent them back to their loved ones during World War II.

I already have one Hummel cross stitch framed in my livingroom which I started and my mother completed (Feeding Time) and there are a few others I’d like to do as well.

Now, if only I could find a place here in Rotterdam that mounts and frames cross stitches, I’d be all set! I’ve done smaller ones myself but ones like this I’d rather leave to the professionals.

Toy Store

Breigh — Fri, 14 Dec 2007 20:16:34 +0000

I’ve been stitching my behind off for the last few days. Once I get started I can’t stop and keep at it night and day. Especially with Christmas cross stitches, I love the finished product… shame I don’t get to keep them out longer though.

I’ve been working on the old toy store cross stitch for about the last week, and I think it came out pretty nice! It was harder to frame because of all the straight lines but it doesn’t have to be perfect. It’s just for us.

Not sure what I’m going to work on next, there are some other nice x-mas stitches in the book this one was in but I’m not sure I have all the colors for it. I’m sure the book is put together in a way that makes you need to buy every color there is. They must have a deal with DMC.

Christmas Crafting

Breigh — Sun, 09 Dec 2007 21:22:54 +0000

On Friday my husband and I had a total meltdown after dealing with our end of year bill from our energy company. Getting a bill for 800 euros just before Christmas really sucks ass. We can pay it, but it really screws up most plans we had for Christmas shopping and such, especially after just getting back from holiday.

To get my mind off the stress I dug into my Tickle Trunk of crafting goodies and pulled out a little cross stitch I had started last year after finishing my rocking horse pillow.

I finished it off and wanted to try my hand at framing, so I took an ugly old blue and gold frame we had here and covered it with some nice red Christmas fabric leftover from my tree skirt. Then I tried a method of mounting that I found online where you use thread to tie the cross stitch around the mounting board (which was just the back of the frame in this case). I probably should have looked for a square frame but I was on a mission and wanted to try the framing thing so I used this one anyway.

It looked like it needed something after I put it together so I used some of the gold rope I bought for my lightbulb snowmen and added it around the inside edge of the frame.

Worked great for getting my mind off the mega-bill and got me in a crafty mood, so I started another stitching project of an old toy store window at x-mas.

I really need to get better at using a glue gun cuz my fingers are killing me from the glue oozing out around stuff as I press it.

Christmas Cross Stitch

Breigh — Sun, 24 Dec 2006 10:22:04 +0000

I can’t believe Christmas is actually here! It seems like just yesterday I was counting down at 23 days. It sort of makes me sad because I know New Years will come just as quick and then I’ll have to take down all my Christmas decorations. The house will seem soooo plain and boring then.

This is my latest completed crafty project. I dug out a pattern book I got ages ago and decided to do some Christmas cross stitching.

I liked this one most so decided to do it first. It took me about 2-3 days to complete. Once I was finished I started looking into getting it framed but after finding the one place that does it and finding out it would cost approx 100 euros to have it framed, I thought yeah right screw that and tried to think of something less expensive I could do it with. So I made a little x-mas pillow!

It worked out pretty well and much cheaper. I just used some of the red fabric I had left over from my tree skirt and the leftover puffy snow stuff I used for under my x-mas village and voila!

The book also had a really cute x-mas teddy bear pattern, I’m working on that one at the moment.

Belly Busting Breakfast

Breigh — Sun, 04 Sep 2005 09:20:41 +0000

My belly is absolutely bursting atm… Last night Xander tricked me into spending a long time with a full group of newbies doing something I really didn’t want to do in game. This made me very cranky so he promised to make a great Sunday morning breakfast. It is officially known as and will go down in history as “The Belly Busting Breakfast”, holy crap. We had eggs and cheese, bacon, sausage, toast and roasted potatoes *Burps* I think I’ll probably be hungry again sometime around Tuesday afternoon! He either really wanted to make it up to me, or he’s trying to give me a heart attack because he wants my account. Come to think of it, if I die the house is paid off too! Hrmm.. suspcious.

The sink unit finally arrived for our bathroom and was installed on Tuesday. As (my usual) luck would have it, there were a few pieces missing. There should have been four of a particular piece for the hinges on the doors of the cabinet but two were missing. So now we have a complete bathroom with one missing door. I called the shop and they said they’d order the pieces and that they will be in on Monday, so we’ll have to check tomorrow to see if that is actually the case. Even with the missing door it’s great having our bathroom complete.

Today I am going to rearrange the furniture in the livingroom and figure out where I want everything to stay. We’ve just sort of put the sofas and TV unit in temporary places while we painted and haven’t really bothered to move them back. I want to get my photos up on the walls so in order to do that I need to know where the furniture is going to be. My back was sore again yesterday but seems ok today so I figure I should be ok to push a few things around. Xander will have to do most of the heavy lifting/pushing though, but that’s what husbands are for. That, and reaching the top shelf.

Didn’t end up registering for school this term. I’m glad after speaking to my American friend C. who was also in my class. She said that one of our teachers quit and the replacement is a total bitch. Like that class wasn’t bad enough.. You know it’s bad when even C. doesn’t want to go. She’s one of the most motivated and determined people I know. I figure I have all the materials so I can teach myself, since that’s pretty much what I was always doing anyway. If the gov’t calls or writes giving me grief I’ll just arrange to do the last test and be done with it.

I’ve started cross stitching again. I’m sure it seems like a total grandma passtime to some but I really enjoy it. Besides, I am a grandma really, in bed by 10:30pm most nights and a bad back! haha Anyhow, I’ve had the same cross stitch on the go for oooooh, about five years now. I keep picking it up, doing a little, then putting it away for a year until I remember it again. The one I’m working on is Stormy Weather by M.J. Hummel. I’ve always loved the little Hummel figurines so I got two cross stitches that I liked of hers. The first one was Feeding Time but I didn’t get it finished and left it back in Canada. My mother finished it off and framed it for me so now I have it here. I think they will look nice in our baby’s room.. whenever we have one.

Speaking of babies.. I know I haven’t been talking much about them lately. Mainly because we’ve decided to chill out a bit on the whole baby project. It was getting stressful and disappointing, my reaction to the lack of pregnancy each month was growing more and more with each let down. So we thought we should take a break from it all and act like normal people for a while. I still have to have that test done to see if my tubes are open, which sounds quite painful and invasive. They also want to test Xander again … If nothing is wrong with me I think they will agree to go ahead and try IUI, otherwise known as artificial insemination, or .. the turkey baster method. Basically they’d be giving his boys a boost and getting them in exactly the right place at the right time. Saving them the swim hehe Thankfully we are covered for this for five months with our insurance and that will bring about the results we’ve been hoping for. Anyhow, we still have a month or two to chill out before we get back on that again… so I’m not going to worry or think about it too much until the time comes.

The lost package is lost forever. I got a call from David the other night letting me know that he spoke to the manager of the shipping department at the hospital and from what they can tell the package is gone. It looks like someone just walked off with it or something, the bastard. They agreed to reimburse the money that was lost so I sent the information to Gail so she and David could get the money and maybe get some more movies from Netflix or buy a little something for their house. At least they will finally get something other than hassle from my “Lucky Bamboo”.

Bailey has been biting at his back down just before his tail, causing it to get raw and bloody. It began last weekend and we didn’t know what was going on. I thought perhaps he had a big mosquito bite that was bugging him and his scratching made it get more irritated, but after a day of constantly telling him not to get at it, we decided to take him to the vet. As it turns out, it was a flea bite. He doesn’t have fleas, thank god, but he was bitten by one outside or something and had an allergic reaction. Our dog is allergic to fleas, now that can’t be good! Every year we treat him and the cats at the beginning of spring but the vet said that it’s no good for Bailey because with the stuff we were using the flea has to actually bite him in order to be affected. So she treated him with something else and gave us cream that needs to go on it 3x a day and pills to give him every 2nd day. One flea cost us 110 euros in vet bills, and people say KIDS are expensive!