Drage Feuer Stitch

Postman is sure early today, especially on a Monday. I received 2 packages in my mailbox. It is a set of Hi-5 DVDs Dance Hits with 3 volumes. DD loves the Australian Hi-5 a lot and she loves to dance to their songs too. So, I got the help of a very nice Australian lady to get them for me as I want the DVDs to be part of her 'egg hunting' during Easter at her grandparents' house. She also enclosed some chocolates in the package. That is so sweet of her. I can't wait to see DD's reaction when she find them during her 'egg hunting' . The last time when she received the Hi-5 CD, she was so excited and was showing her aunt, uncles and grandparents the CD.

Today is the day to post our update on our Permin Christmas in Town. My progress is really slow for this one. I've changed one of the gold floss (282) to RG PTB. It was a surprised that my order for this floss reached me 2 days after I placed my order from Stitchdirect in UK. That was really fast! Claire from Stitchdirect UK also has extremely low shipping fee to EU countries. I should had ordered an extension for my Qsnaps at the same time but I was so frustrated working with that DMC 282 that I couldn't think of anything else but just PTB to replace it. I love PTB floss as they are really easy to work with and I am also using them for my HAED projects.

I haven't been stitching much on my Sleeping Beauty for almost a week now. This Christmas In Town will be put aside for a week now while I will continue to work on her. I am starting on the 7th page now. I am quite comfortable by rotating these 2 projects weekly.

I had a wonderful weekend. We went to my in-laws last Saturday for coffee. I baked DD's favourite Lille Fee muffins to bring along as my mother in law is still not well enough to do certain things. It is a relieve that my mother in law is much better and we still can't get over the shock when she landed in the intensive care weeks ago under all kinds of machines.

Father in law (DH's real father) came yesterday. His girlfriend has a booth at the Antique Exhibition in the next town. We drove there together to the Antique Exhibition. To be honest, it wasn't that fun for me. First of all, I am not so interested in antiques. Secondly, DD loves to jump and hop whenever we are at somewhere. So, we were really keeping an eye on her and making sure that she doesn't break any antiques.

Guess what caught my attention last week? Chinese silk floss. A friend recommended them to me and said they are easy to handle once you get used to them. Another friend told me that if I want them, she can send me all her Chinese Silk Floss and I only have to pay shipping fee for them. She is not so keen on the Chinese silk floss and still prefer HDF silk. Anyway, she is sending me some to try out before I buy them online. Though she bought it from a different shop, she told me that they look almost the same when I gave her the link to a shop. Anyone else here tried these Chinese silk floss? Chinese silk floss will be much cheaper than HDF silk but if I have to curse and swear while using them, I rather stick with HDF silk.

More than a week had gone by and still no signs of my mailbox key. Last Saturday, I had to put my arm into the mailbox to retrieve some packages and letters. I had to as DH was waiting anxiously for the packages sent by his auditor. Thank god my arm didn't got stuck in that small opening!

6 full pages done! I am really happy with her. Even though I am juggling 2 projects at the same time, including her, I still can hear her yelling for me to work on her. I will take a few days off from her and continue with my Permin Christmas Street in the meantime. Will work on the right side of her hair during this weekend or next week.

I am doing backstitching on this Christmas Street as I stitch. I am not a backstitching person, so why not get over with it. I just hate it when I have to do nothing but backstitching once the whole picture is finished. The pattern requires 282 Gold and I think that is DMC Metallic. Those metallic are such a nightmare to work with. So, I placed an order for RG PTB Gold from Stitchdirect. Got an email saying it is out of stock and they will have the stock in shortly. Hmmm.... shortly can mean anything. I've dealt with Stitchdirect before and the owner had always been very nice and helpful, so I trust her. Will post my Christmas Street wip next week as agreed with the other 2 stitchers.

I have to look for my mailbox key now. I haven't seen it since last Saturday. I'm not a key or mobile phone person as I keep on losing these 2 things. I've been running to the door since yesterday when I hear the postman on his motorcycle, so that he doesn't throw into our mailbox.

I really don't believe that something bad can always happen each time someone works in our garden. Well, I was pulling weeds in the garden last Sunday while DH took DD to the hospital to visit my mother in law. DH woke up yesterday and got such a bad muscle cramp at his lower back that he couldn't even move. I had to help him out with his lower part of the body, like putting socks, pants and shoes for him. Spooky or what?

This is what DH brought back from my inlaws yesterday evening. I won this used chart on the German ebay few weeks ago. Haven't got the opportunity to take it from my inlaws since all my won ebay items on ebay.de are usually sent to my inlaws in Germany. I had been eyeing this for a while and lost the bidding twice on ebay. I am really lucky this time to be able to win this. This is called Sky and Water I by the famous Dutch artist Maurits Cornelis Escher. The first few times when I saw a picture of this on Arts and Designs, my first thought was HDF silk and a nice hand dyed fabric from Silkweaver. However, after staring it for a few months, I doubt a hand dyed would worked on this sampler, though I am still sticking to using HDF silk to replace the DMC floss listed. I thought if I look at the original chart, I might be able to come to a decision whether I should use a hand dyed fabric. The fishes in the 'sea' are backstitched, that means the hand dyed fabric will be shown through the fishes. Another reason is also because it is like changing a very old and famous artist's work and all significance for this painting would be lost. So, I guess I will use a cream or ivory colour fabric for this pattern.

I started my Permin Christmas Town SAL 2 days ago along with sjoei and Jessie . We will post our wips every 2 weeks on our blogs. It is really nice to stitch a project with lots of colours for a change. I am not abandoning Sleeping Beauty. I've never been good at rotating 2 projects at the same time. I will try to rotate these 2 projects weekly and see how it goes.

A big THANK YOU to Chiloe for helping me out with changing of the backgrounds for my blog. From the links she gave me, I found so many nice backgrounds. I will go through them again and put up a background for my blog.

To all HAED stitchers : Cindy and Wendy created a blog for all HAED stitchers around the world to gather together to stitch-a-long, encourage, inspire, learn from one another and build friendships along their stitching journeys. I am very happy that such a blog is created. Every now and then, I just don't have the mood to stitch on my HAED but just a small encouragement really helps me to pick up that needle and put in those tiny stitches again :0)) . Besides that I can see a lot of nice wips on the blog.

It had been rather hectic for the past few days for us. Mil got warded into the intensive unit on Monday. She has a blood clot in her lungs. The first 24 hours were a bit stressful for us as anything can happen within these 24 hours. Good news is, she got better after 2 days and is moving to the normal ward today. She will have to stay in the hospital for 3 weeks as the doctors still have to monitor her.

DD started to limp yesterday after her bath. She was whining about her knee/leg is hurting. She said she fell from her trampolin. We have a trampolin indoor. It got worse this morning and this time she had tears when she tried to stand on her feet. Took her to the doctor and he said he can't really see or know what it is (typical Danish doctors, isn't it?). I bet he must be thinking that we are one of the 100th parents who just bring their kids to them daily when they only have to whine about some pain. DD is not a whiner and very often she forgets her pain within minutes. If she feels the pain for so many hours, something is really wrong. He said to call him again tomorrow morning if she still can't walk by herself. He will then refers her to have an xray. Let's hope she still has her leg tomorrow.

These 2 incidents got me into recalling something. I noticed that something always happen each time we work in the garden. We had stayed in this house for more than a year. The first owner of this house is a plant and flower lover. A lot of people said he is really good at planting plants, trees and flowers which are easy to take care and also blooming all year round. All the neighbours told us that he took great pride in his garden before he passed away. Our main problem is that there are too many trees, plants and flowers all over the place. We started to chop down a lot of trees and took off a lot of flowers and plants. The 2nd owner who owned this house for 3 years was planting flowers all over the place. It just gives me headache to see flowers all over the place. I prefer to have them situated at certain areas. Last year, my brother in law was here helping to chop down the trees. He digged off 1 huge old tree trunk out that last time and went back to my inlaws on the same day to repair the garage roof and he fell from the roof. He broke his ribs and was in the hospital for 3 weeks. Me, got so sick for 2 months last May. I was working a lot in the garden, pulling flowers and weeds out.

For the past week, I had been pulling out weeds and took all the stones away (a little area just outside the main door for DD's planting). 2 days later, mil was warded into into the intensive unit and now DD has pain in her leg. So, isn't it spooky or am I just being too sensitive? Should I continue to work in the garden or not?