My stitching weekend

As promised in my last post are here now the pictures of the stitching retreat during the weekend.

The weekend took place at an old country estate called Wuolteen kartano in Hauho. It was just the most beautiful place. Unfortunately the weather wasn't of it's finest. Spring is still far away and we had some rain.

This is the front view of the main building where we had our rooms and took our meals.

The main house seen from the lake side.

The little house on the right is the sauna building. It is right next to the lake.

The whole weekend was organised by the cross stitching shop Emmuli and needless to say Emmuli was open for business during the entire time.

Most tempting for me where all those beautiful fabrics and hand-dyed flosses and ribbons by Nina and I got myself quite some beautiful goodies.

Included in the weekend package was a little stitching gift. 

Quite a few stitchers already finished it during the retreat. Though not me. I was far to busy working on my Biedermeier Sampler. I just couldn't lay it out of my hands and made great progress.

Now that this sampler is almost finished I have to start thinking about the next one. Sari brought along one very old Burda magazine that includes a gorgeous German reproduction Sampler. She was so kind to borrow me the whole magazine and I can't wait to  buy some 35ct. Floba to start it.

But I have also bought another reproduction Sampler chart from Emmuli.

This one is Miriam Chilver's Sampler from 1833 by "Samplers Remebered". The Sampler is most likely American but includes English Symbols. It is much smaller than the Biedermeier sampler and I think I will stitch it on a lower count. Maybe one of my new 30ct's.

After all, I had a wonderful time with good friends and lots of cross stitching. 

A crazy shopping Trip

First of all I'd like to apologize for falling behind on my posts.Things are really busy right now. The Mr. and I are moving back to Helsinki in just a couple of weeks and right now all I'm concerned about is getting all those boxes packed. And believe me there are plenty. 

Most troublesome is to box all my crafting supplies. It's almost as much as the regular household stuff. REALLY! It doesn't really help that just yesterday I went to Estonia to buy even more stash.

My knitting group organizes once a year a trip to Tallinn, Estonia to buy yarn, wool, lace, buttons and whatever else the crafter's heart desires. Since I only joined this knitting group last November it was my first shopping trip to Tallinn and I had been officially declared a "shopping virgin". I was kind of laughing about this title until I entered the first shop named Karnaluks. It was more like a use storage facility rather than a shop. Room after room full with shelves and boxes of wool, yarn and fabrics. They even had a separated room just for ribbons and lazy. After spending two hours in this shop we moved on to the next one and the next one and the next one. IT WAS CRAZY!

All together we were a group of 19 women, all armed with big bags and backpacks. Some even brought big empty suitcases to fill them up with goodies. After five hours of shopping and being back on the boat we all unpacked our treasures and counted how much yarn we bought. While I only bought 350 grams of beautiful pure merino wool the entire group made it to a total of more than 23kg of yarn.

Here are a few pictures of my shopping prey

I bough one meter of each of those beautiful fabrics

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I stocked up on missing DMC colours

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two meters each of this beautiful rickrack ribbon (the black one is velvet)

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this is the Merino wool I bought. It is sooooo soft

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of course I also bought some lace ribbons:

black, brown and green

cream and white

red, salmon and pink

and different shades of blue and violet 

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I can't wait to finish some of my stitching projects with these beautiful fabrics and laces. But that will have to wait after we moved and settled in into the new apartment.

it's almost Christmas

Can you believe? It is already the end of November, which means it is almost Christmas. Have you started already with your Christmas preparations, like baking cookies, decking the halls and buying presents for your loved ones? To be honest, I haven't and I am not sure if I will this year. I am just way to busy with my day job as an upholsterer. Lots of chairs and sofas to repair and rebuild and it all has to be ready before the holidays. 

But it also has its advantage to be an upholsterer and that is all that beautiful fabric scrap. just last week I was able to lay my hands on a fabric sampler book that has been discontinued. 

The fabric comes in 27 different colours and has this roughly woven surface. I just love it. Of course with a surface like this I have to count the threads per inch and....

the count is 22 in one direction and 20 in the other. That makes it almost even and therefore suitable for cross stitching. I think it is perfect for making primitive looking ornaments and other smalls. And if not for the stitching, it is great as a background fabric. 

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Even thou I probably won't do much holiday decoration this years, I've done some Christmas stitching. My German cross stitch group started an advents-calender on November 8 and I think this is the most wonderful idea. Our groupmoms asked a few designer (including me) if they would like to design small holiday related ornaments. Now we are receiving every other day a new Christmas design. There are already 9 designs published but so far I found only time to stitch 2. The first design is by Kathy Bungard but the second one, the Holly branch is mine. I really love how it turned out. 

I've got a lot of positive response on my first published design and that encourages me to now getting all my other designs ready for publishing. This first one I will finish into an ornament and I hope I will get it ready before our next Finnish cross stitching meeting in beginning of December. 

The parcel arrived!

A couple of days ago arrived the parcel from my aunt. The package included floss of the first 10 columns from the DMC color book. The next 10 columns will arrive soon as well. The colors are almost complet. In this batch are only 3 or 4 colors missing. The plastic boxes came along with the floss and I am really glad about. Why? You can see it in the second picture. That one shows the new floss AND the floss I already had before: 6 boxes full of thread twisted on bobbins and a big pile of double colors. Now I have enough DMC thread for a lifetime stitching.

I also managed to fit the rest of my stash into my craft closet. I reorganized all my boxes. So at least for now I don't have to search for new spaces.

Back to normal

The happy family days are over. My parents and god parents are back in there home countries and slightly everything is going back to normal over here.
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On my last post, I have been asked if we really eat reindeer here in Finland and YES, we do. It is traditional Finnish food and very delicious. There are all kind of different recipes out here. Just don't tell your kids about it, we don't want to ruin Christmas :-)
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Than, while reading your lovely comments, I got to know that you are at least as crazy about sweet treats as I am. So here are some more. For teatime on Sunday, I made for my family Chocolate cupcakes with Vanilla cream topping. I got 32 cakes out of the dough and we ate at least half of them.

I love cooking and backing at least as much as cross stitching and I am considering on giving a cooking / backing blog a try.
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I also got a little bit of new stash. The missing colors for my Little Moon Welcome Sampler have been brought by my parents. My aunt has a huge stash in her attic, so I never have to buy those things. I just give her a call and she sends it over. And always, she sends a little bit more. This time I got some 16ct. Aida and 25. and 28ct. linen and two new kits. I have no idea, when to use that all. I have so little time.

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Last but not least. My secretary desk is finished. Well not entirely, there are some small things missing that I will adjust later. But the paint is on and it is standing already in our hallway.

New Stash!

Juhuu! With yesterdays mail, my new chart arrived. It is "The Good Neighbor" from the Drawn Thread. With the moment I have seen this design, I fell in love with it. But I think I will keep this for a little later start. I am really trying to finish up some more of my WIPs before I am starting the next big project.


Today I finished one of my current stitching projects. But I will not show you a picture yet. It is the squares for my Fair & Square round # 12 partner Kim and I don't want to spoil the suprise. I will post a picture as soon as she received her squares.