Just in time for 2008

First of all I want to wish you a good new year's eve. Be careful with the fireworks, afterall we need those fingers to get all that stitching/patching/quilting and other beautiful handcrafts done!

When I mentioned the RR the other day I forgot to tell you that one of the girls had to pul out. Her health was acting up and she was afraid she wouldn't be able to fulfill the commitment. She would have chosen the theme of coffee and tea. To cheer her up a bit I stitched her this coffee mug mat (found at the site cross stitch happy. You ought to pay that site a visit, there are many beautiful things to be found!).

As you might recollect I joined an internet group during my off-line period, the crazy exchange. We did a christmas ornament exchange and I got Carol as exchange partner. I choose a blackbird design to stitch her (the sock). Wendy Jo stitched up my ornament (joy, love, peace ornament) and I love it.She also enclosed a scissorpocket which was an extra surprise. Thanks again!

Looking through the pictures of finished cross stitch thingies I also came across a mailart. This is a design I had on my "to stitch list" for a long time. I stitched it as a RAK (random act of kindness) for a SMO board member. It's a freebie stating "Stitchers come with strings attached" (yeah, I know, the picture isn't to good...)

Then there was my birthday and soon after came Jacqueline's birthday. Here's our exchange of birthday presents. Jacqueline made me this beautiful quilt and the thing I made Jacqueline is sort of .... well, I don't know. It's lying on top of three bundles of quilt fabric and it was made in a super-duper-easy-patchwork workshop.

And there's still more! On the SMO board is a member, Cindy, who invented the Just-4-me-SAL. I just knew I had to join that LOL! Here's a picture of my progress and one of how it should be in the end. 

and meanwhile I had to start another little Just-4-me project and it's finished already!

You might recognize it, it's the second one I made ;).

We had christmas dinner with the family at our place. My mother brought me a belated birthday present. It was from my former neighbour and stitch friend Diana. She surprised me with this beautiful christmastree! Amazing isn't it? Thank you Diana.

Well, more than enough for now. Thank you for baring with me in this rather long and perhaps tiresome blog for today. Hopefully the next will be a bit more up-to-date.

Did I tell you about

Did I tell you about joining a Round Robin (RR)? I did join a RR on the borduurhoekje and so did 4 other members. We all choose different themes. I choose "stitching" as a theme cause I was looking for an excuse to finally stitch Sadie-Stash-A-Lot-Ski LOL. When I sent out my RR she wasn't finished, but I will finish her once she get's home. This is the way she looked when she started travelling....

The first RR I received came from Simone. She choose houses/courtyard as a theme. It's sometimes rather difficult to pick a design for someone else. Initially I choose a cute Country Cottage Needlework design called gingerbread cottage, but when I read her "wish-letter" she explained she didn't want it to be sweet, sugarry or pink.... Well, there you go, gingerbread cottage, gone out of the window ;). 

It left me with the problem of finding a new chart in time, one that would fit Simone's wishes better. It was rather difficult, but in the end I found a Plum Pudding Needle Art design which would be fit for Simone's RR (at least, in my opinion, but as you've read that doesn't always fit the bill....)

The end result was this:

I'm currently working on Marion's RR, she also choose the courtyard/houses theme and she's asked for a LHN design (another problem, but sort of solved). Since the RR should be posted at the beginning of Januari I'm off to do a bit of stitching now....

A dogs life isn't necessarily bad....

Oh boy, try to forget the blogging once a month thingy, cause that doesn't quite work out for me.... LOL. I've got so much to tell you but first things first, I think a dogs life isn't necessarily bad. Look at this picture of my dog, Lars, who has given the word "lounging" a new meaning....

Imagine yourself, sitting on the armrest of your sofa, relaxing and looking out of the window. Would be nice for a day, wouldn't it?

I know.... I know....

I know I should be blogging more frequent....
I know I should put my holiday journal first....
I know many of us have got the same problems in blogging in time....
I even know of a group that stimulates you to blog every day....
I know this wouldn't work for me....


That's why I want to propose a new system, the "trying to blog once a month" or TTBOM. If you are interested, please leave your bloglink and the "word" TTBOM in a comment. I will add you to the sidebar. I'm not going to sent any reminders about when to blog, 'cause were TRYING to blog once a month LOL!

Here is what I actually wanted to share with you. I joined in a needleroll exchange on the borduurhoekje yahoo-group. Saturday I received my parcel from Simone and look what she sent me, she really spoiled me!

Ofcourse I had to make a needleroll myself and it was a bit of pain in the ***. The design I stitched was by the Sweetheart Tree and absolutely gorgeous, but the printing was meant for superwomen, cause it was sooooo tiny! On top of that I had 32 count fabric for the first time ever. Using a stamp magnifier was the only way to stitch with a minimum of mistakes, I simply couldn't stitch without it. When it was finally finished I could hardly part with it. I love the way it looks, and I'm glad that the receiver, Marion, seemed to love it as well.





The theme was "summer". I choose my design because it reminded me of a yellow rose we used to have in our old garden. The silly thing had flowers 4 or 5 times each summer, had hardly any leaves on it and it smelled nice.

Funny little something....

At Willeke's and Simone's I saw something funny. Instead of showing of their results I took the time and liberty to make my own creation. This is the result...

The concept of this fun is:

a type your answer to each of the questions below in Flickr Search.

b Using only the first page, pick an image.

c Copy and paste wach of the URLs for the images into fd's mosaic maker.

The questions:

1. What is your first name? Bianca.

2. What is your favorite food? Italian.

3. What highschool did you go to? Calvijn.

4. What is your favorite colour? I find it difficult to choose one, so I picked rainbow.

5. Who is your celebrity crush? Johnny Depp.

6. Favorite drink? Coffee.

7. Dream vacation? Indonesia.

8. Favorite dessert? Vanilla ice cream.

9. What do you want to be when you grow up? Superwoman..... LOL.

10. What do you love most in life? My kids.

11. One word to describe you: kind.

12. Your flickr name: Instead I used my common webname... nanny ogg (in dutch, ootje-nack)

I think you ought to give it a try as well. It's really funny and I would love to see your results!

Between kids and teeth...

We are having a busy period. In about 4 weeks the kids get their holidays from school. In week 22 we had the "avondvierdaagse", which is a typical dutch thing.Schoolkids in the age of 6 to 12 get to walk a distance for 4 evenings in a row. It's not only for schoolkids though, sportsclubs or families and individuals can also sign in. Everybody gets to walk a distance of 5, 10 or 15 kilometers. My youngest two signed in for 5 kilometers and my oldest son walked 10 kilometers per evening! The kids can't walk on their own, they have to be supervised. I signed up for that task and wednesdayevening I walked the 5 kilometers with my youngest and some of his class-mates. It's a very busy period, cause you have to eat early (in order to be in time). We ate around half past four....
They all got their medal the last evening, so I'm very proud of my bunch!

Then last monday Jan and Teun went on schoolcamp. Jan went to "camping Ronostrand" and Teun went to "camping het Amerveld".

Monday two fathers and I had to help putting up the tents. This was quit an experience since I'm not used to doing that.... (the last tent I put up was 10 years ago!) but we got the job done ;). Tuesday both my boys came back home and they had had a great time!

Then there's the teething part of this blog.... anyone with fear of dentists should probably stop reading right now! Since we live here I had to undergo several dental "projects". I had 3 root treatments and am preparing for a crown (fake molar). Today I had another fitting for the crown. It had been off by half a mm (!) before, this was the third fit and now it's ok. My gums are a bit sore now....

Tomorrow I have to go to the dental lab to pick a colour for the fake tooth, I think purple would be nice LOL. Our car broke down so I have to go by bike. My estimate is that it will take me about 45 minutes to get there.... pfffffff.

I'm off to do some grocerieshopping, bye!

I'll be back

Well, that should have been the title to my latest entry. It's almost a year ago and much has happened since then.

First of all I want to take some time to explain why I've been offline for so long. After we moved to our new home we got into trouble with our internetprovider. They couldn't get their problems solved and left me on my own. After a long struggle of 8 months (yes, you did read that correct, 8 months! Let me remind you of the year we live in.... 2008!!!) we finally got them to terminate our contract.
The first two weeks were the hardest for this selfdiagnosed internetjunk ;). After that I became used to all the spare time and decided to use it to my benefit, and ofcourse my family's.
I did a lot of stitching... and I mean a lot of stitching. Before I could hardly get things finished and in the last period I stitched up quite some works, some new and some things that were on my started-but-never-finished pile. These are a few examples of what I'm talking about....








It's hard to believe but in my internetless period I even joined a new stitching group. It's called the crazy exchange . It's a nice group with the intention of sending members small, cute gifts.If you do receive a gift you commit yourself to sending a return gift within a month. The first gift I got was from Carol-ann. She made me a beautiful christmas ornament. I made her a needle-roll in return:




On the Sanmanboard I joined in a mailartexchange. I got this beautiful envelop from littlemissnaughty

I made this envelop for Angie

Well I guess this is enough for now. I'll soon be back with another update.