Last post

No need to run to your box of Kleenex or secret supply of chocolate (or sherry), because this isn't really my last post. But unless something earth shattering happens (like an unforeseen finish within the next 48 hours), this will be my last post for at least two weeks, because I'm going away on vacation next Monday. My parents rented a cottage in the north of the country, and Pelle, Pantoef and I will head that way as soon as Pelle returns from his stay with the ex (on Pelle's birthday. Picture me sobbing). We will celebrate Pelle's birthday on Monday, along with my parents and my brother, my SIL and my (very probably) niece-to-be. During my vacation I'm also hoping to pay Annemiek's Handwerk Boetiek a visit, because I discovered it's virtually around the corner from where I will be staying. Hooray!

It cost me five years of my life, but I managed to unpack all the boxes between Sunday evening and Tuesday morning, just before my stitchy company arrived in the form of Harmien, Heidi and Margaret.

(Part of) the living room:

The hallway (which will host my tombstone/Halloween/Angel wall once I finish something along that vein)

Unfortunately, Barbara couldn't make it because she was so busy packing for her family's long awaited trip to Maine. We had a lot of fun, though. All the ladies had plenty of time to admire Pantoef in all his glory, which he underwent gladly, before he settled on Harmien's lap for the remainder of the day (defector that he is).

All the ladies came bearing gifts of the most fabulous kinds, for all of us. Feast your eyes on this:

The Halloween pillow came from the nimble hands of Margaret; the pin cushion was - of course - crafted by Heidi; and Harmien managed to remember that this lovely design by Primrose Needleworks was on my wish list. Thank you all so very much, girls, for your gifts and for your company. I can't wait for our next get-together.

While we were busy showing each other the things we had been/are working on, and chatting about stitching, Margaret and Heidi commented that Harmien and I have a tendency to start an awful lot of new things. They looked on in amazement as I emptied my, admittedly rather large, WIP drawers, and they decided they needed to change their own ways (which involve sticking to one or two, maybe three WIPs at most) (very sensible, I should think). They now want to have regular 'HarmAn' days, which means they will start a new project every first day and every fifteenth day of the month. Now it is true that Harmien and I suffer from indecent and incurable (and I fear inoperable) forms of startitis, with the exception that Harmien actually finishes the projects she starts and I... don't. So I thought, if Heidi and Margaret can have HarmAn days, couldn't I have HeiMar days? You know. Picking up a WIP and actually sticking with it until it's finished? There's a thought, I thought. And here's the result of my thinking:

I don't know if this super lovely design by Sampler Girl Tanya ever made an appearance on this new blog, but believe me when I say that I've been working on this one since it came out in 2006. The great stumbling block for me (and please don't ask me why because it is a mystery to me as well), was the wee house. HarHeiMar urged me to finish this house while they cheered me on and once I did, I just couldn't stop! Hooray again! Tomorrow (it being the first day of the month) I will pick up another WIP/UFO and try to do a decent amount of work on it. Now if only I can keep myself from having a HarmAn day as well as an HeiMar day, because that would undo the effect of the former, wouldn't it?

Should you wonder what happened to Noah, have no fear, the first half of his coat is now completely finished. It wouldn't make a very exciting picture, though, because it was only ten more rows of the same dreary brown. Yaaaawn.

As of last Tuesday I'm really enjoying my vacation, which involves a lot of sleeping and reading and not so much stitching, but an awful lot of relaxing. Very nice. I hope you are all enjoying your socks off, too. See you in two weeks!

Yours relaxedly,
Annemarie.

Noah and the Amazing Unicolour Nightmare Coat

Alright. Enough is enough. Noah's coat needs to be finished, because otherwise he will disappear into the drawer with the label 'WNEEGF' (Will Never Ever Ever Get Finished) on it for all eternity. One half of said coat is nearly done.
Before:

After:

Here's progress on my angel, plus the info some of you requested.

It's quite an old Kathy Barrick Dieter design, from 1998, and I've never seen the other angels from the series. It's lovely, isn't it? Is it a real tombie angel, though?

More material for my Primitive/Angels/Tombstone/Halloween wall (or alternatively, my WNEEGF drawer):

Hooray. Now for some balm or potion that will have me stitching like the dickens, and I will be a very happy bunny. Oh, and I would be an even happier bunny if sodding Ikea would finally send me the bolts and screws needed to build up my book cases. All the boxes you saw in the pictures of my previous post? They're still there, in exactly the same place and they're filled, not with stitchy goodies but with books. I cannot WAIT till they're back where they belong, i.e. on my book shelves, because that is when this lovely cottage will finally become my home.

Yours unorganizedly,
Annemarie.

Argh!

We've been busy moving this past weekend. My brother's things went from the cottage (which was originally his) to his new house a few miles down the road and then we went to pick up my stuff in Maastricht. Look at the state of my lovely cottage and keep your fingers crossed that by the time I crawl out of bed tomorrow morning the elves have worked their magic. Although I doubt any magic in the world could make this any better:

The living room

The other side of the living room, including Pantoef who doesn't know what the hell is happening now.

Pelle's bedroom.

My bedroom, to which I shall retire presently.

Yours overwhelmedly,
Annemarie.

Thanks a bunch

Although I do greatly appreciate all of you visiting and leaving comments (and by all means, don't let this following rant stop you), you might -- to use a phrase of Mrs. Bennet's -- want to have a little compassion on my poor nerves. What were you thinking, asking me en masse what my plan is for the Big Prairie Schooler Christmas Project? What plan? I need a plan? I'm sorry, but some of you have been following me and my stitching shenanigans for more than four years. Surely you must know by now that I don't do plans? Plans only lead to frustration and disappointment, at least when I make them. Still, you had me worried there for a bit. Suddenly I found myself wondering if having no plan was such a good idea and so very gingerly, I tried to think of one. The minute I started planning, though, my enjoyment went right out the window, so I'm back to Plan A, which is to stitch this with no plan in mind whatsoever. I just stitch whatever takes my fancy and hope that it will look okay when I'm done. Oh, and it is by no means certain that I will be using that entire big-ass piece of fabric either. I just don't want to run out of fabric before the sampler is finished (hee hee, see how I am counting on finishing it some day? Funny, that, isn't it?)
Anyway, I felt like stitching a certain PS Christmas freebie -- the Barnyard Freebie -- and that's what I was working towards on my last update pic. This is where we stand now:

I'm still incredible restless, stitchily speaking, because I have a number of stashy items that are on the verge of arriving or have already arrived on my doorstep. Firstly: silks for one of the CHS Girls, Molly (the one with the cat). Behold my start:

This is one length worth of Vikki Clayton silk. It's the first time that I've used HDF silks and they're oh, so yummy to work with. I'm stitching this on Light Sand Edinbugh linen (35 count, I believe?).

Secondly: silks for Mrs. Pearson, also by CHS. I'm sorry to say it, but both Blackbird Designs and CHS (my two favourite designers) are, IMHO, bad at doing NPS to DMC conversions. In order to avoid disappointments, I just went ahead and ordered the silks for two of the projects I knew I definitely wanted to do. So, here's Mrs. Pearson. Or at least, part of her hat.

For my Weird Lady Gallery. Now that I look at it up close, though, I don't like the coverage -- or rather, the lack thereof -- of one thread of silk over two on 32 count. What do you think? Go on, be honest.

Here's another start, one that I'm hoping to finish before I die of old age:

This is an oldie by Kathy Barrick Dieter, and it was a birthday gift to me from the lovely Dianne some years ago. This one is for my Angel and Tombstone Gallery. Notice that pretty fabric? It used to be a piece of plain, white linen, but after a coffee bath and a little sojourn in the microwave it is now called Nespresso Arpeggio.

Noah is hiding in a very dark corner somewhere. I'm really upset with him. That dress coat is boring the snot out of me. That and the peacocks.

Life here has been pretty ... er, how to put it nicely... interesting, since the arrival of Monsieur Pantouf. Turns out Pelle isn't so charmed by the idea of having to share his Mama with a spacey looking creature, and he's been having some pretty serious behavioral problems. Luckily, they're all hurtled in my direction, because Pelle is very sweet to Pantoef. I'm pretty sure it will all work out in time. It'd better, because neither Pelle nor Pantoef are going anywhere :o)
I, on the other hand, am going somewhere, i.e. in the direction of my coffee machine.

Yours planlessly (or should that be cluelessly?),
Annemarie.

Of Christmas and restlessness

Let's get this out of the way first, shall we?
Before:

After:
I am restless, my friends. With plenty of time on my hands to stitch to my heart's content, I can't seem to be able to find the peace of mind to settle down with my stitching. I swerve from one piece to the next, stitching not more than one or two lengths on The Blue Lady, Bea Pot, Olde Shaker Tune, Noah and Where My Heart Blooms. I was nearing the bottom of my WIP pile in search of something that would hold my attention, when I stumbled across this one:

Now you may be as surprised as I was when I found that this was the project for me right now -- okay, your surprise probably surpasses mine, because you didn't even know I had this one on the go, did you? Last Christmas, whilst surveying my walls and concluding I did not have one decent Christmas project to adorn them with, I decided to take all the Prairie Schooler Christmas charts I own and stitch them together on one HUGE piece of fabric. Fully intending, of course, to be finished by the time the following Christmas rolled around. Well, that's not going to happen :o) But you know what? It's nearly Christmas, honeybuns. No, really, don't laugh at me. You mark my words, by the time Halloween rolls around you will think back and say to yourself 'Darn. Annemarie was right after all.' And I'm in the mood for Christmas stitching.

My restlessness is probably caused by the new, furry, addition to our family. Amazing that such a little being can have such an effect on your daily life! Of course, this one's pretty special. Pantoef needs me to follow him around with the camera all day, because he needs pictures for his blog. Cheeky bastard...

I'm off to do some more Christmas stitching. Harmien will be here tomorrow for some serious chatting, coffee slurping and stitching. And Pantoef-admiring, of course. I leave you with proof that stitching and cats do not a good match make :o)

Yours restlessly,
Annemarie.

Long time no blog

I've been a bad, bad blogger and a bad blog reader and consequently a positively horrid blog commenter. And it's all because of this little fellow:

Pantoef is here! And he's a joy! As well as a bit of a pest, because he's taken over my laptop computer and started his own blog, the little wise-ass. I think he may have been looking over my shoulder when I visited the Spinster Stitcher and was inspired by his canine colleague, Stewey. But in a way, it is the perfect solution to a problem I had envisioned, i.e. that this stitchy blog would turn into a Pantoefy blog. You need not fear now. Although if he continues with his kitten antics I won't have time for stitching and this blog will go to the dogs anyway.

The only stitching that has occurred is a gift and can't be shown in its entirety, but I can't resist this little peek:

Doesn't this look like the perfect way to spend your evening?

Yours contentedly,
Annemarie.