Drage Feuer Stitch

I am pretty amazed that I am progressing rather fast on my Spanish Dancer. I haven't been stitching much since the holidays. The whole family is down with a very bad flu. DD 's flu is not so bad as ours but still we put her at home as she had cold sore. I don't want other kids in the kindergarten to get it too. I haven't touched my Sleeping Beauty for a week now. I simply don't have the motivation to stitch her. I know, I am so close to finishing her but if I don't have at least an hour in the morning to stitch, I won't even touch her as that one needs my full concentration. Really not easy when my nose gets stuck all the time and also with an ear infection. Hope I can get some motivation back once DD is back in the kindergarten and when the house is all cleaned up AND when my blog doesn't look weird anymore. I noticed the layout of my blog is acting really strange recently. I have no idea what is wrong and is still trying to find out what it is.

Even though flu days are really horrible, DD and I did a lot of baking during this period. We baked cookies, bread, cakes and all kinds of boller with different fillings - chocolate, pizza, raisins, marmalade. We are very pleased with the outcome.

Things had been rather hectic for us since Kristi Himmelsfartsdag (Thursday). Both DH and I are down with a very bad flu and DD is starting too. We were invited to 2 families on Thursday and Friday. It was to the twin girls' house on Thursday for coffee and dinner. Their mum is such a great cook. What can I say? She is working as a cook. She can make such simple and great tasting cakes and dinner. I asked for a lot of recipes from her. They spent 2 years rebuilding their house and just moved in 2 weeks ago. The kitchen is really lovely. It is very modern these day to have 'high-tech' and opened kitchens in Denmark. I am glad that we did ours that way too. As always, the twin girls and our daughter jump and hug each other the moment they met each other.

On Friday, we were invited to another family's hours for dinner. We had Snobrød and sausages. Their 2 daughters, as usual, took a long while to warm up to ours. They played really well together for many hours. Since the family is leaving for holidays in France, we are planning for another big party when they are back again. No idea what the party is for but the twin girls will be invited as well. We just want a party!

Snobrød


So sweet of the girls' father giving the girls a ride on his lawn mover. The girls were thrilled to death.




DD and the eldest daughter riding on this electronic car. I pity the laundry the mum was hanging outside as they just ride through all the laundry! These girls need proper driving licence.

Yesterday, we went to Circus Renz in Germany. My camera is not good enough to take pictures from inside due to all those dim lights. DD had a ride on the camel. It was an 2 hour & 15 mins show and I think that is a bit too long, unless it is Cirque Du Soleil :0). We are happy that we all managed to survive 3 days of activities without collapsiing. Our flu is getting worse and I think I am having an ear infection. I think DD has to stay at home tomorrow as she is developing a cold sore again.

Didn't stitch much at all during this long weekend and I hope I can get back into the routine very soon.

I am posting some pictures of my garden here as some of my friends are wondering why I am pulling weeds constantly and not planting :0)) Look at all the bushes and the trees, do you think I still need to do more planting? We've chopped down lots of trees since we moved in. The first owner of this house was a Green Finger lady. They are nice but my ideal garden is just flat with 1 tree and probably one area just for flowers. I am quite an organised person and love things to be at certain areas and not everywhere. Our garden is actually round the whole house.

This old antique 'vase' is too huge to be moved. It was actually situation right in the middle of the garden and we managed to get 3 other friends to move it. Can someone tell me how to dig out bamboo pants without breaking a bone? I've tried and they are too difficult to be digged out.




This is where we planted some garlic, onions and other spices. A lot of the trees at this area have to go too. My brother in law just removed 2 huge ones few weeks ago.




The left picture is the garden at the back and that is the worst area. I think 4 trees were cut down? I had been bugging my husband to get me a cherry tree. Guess what? Just few weeks ago, the flowers were blooming on this tree and we realised it is actually a cherry tree with white flowers! I was wondering why the first owner planted it at the back of the house and at this 'garbage' area (still cracking my head how to get remove all the stuff in this area) and not the front. She was a smart lady, if she would had planted it in front, she would had to sweep the ground everyday when the flowers fall.




It was Lanarte Ballerina which I was so keen on starting at first. However, I can't find a great fabric to go with it. So, I started on Spanish Dancer first. I love the colours on her dress. I usually start off with the face when I work on a project but this time, I started from the bottom. I know I won't have the urge to stitch fast once her face appears before the rest. Maybe Ballerina will be started very soon. A friend of mine is sending me a SW solo from her stash. She said it will look great on Ballerina and the fabric has all the colours I am looking for. If I am not happy with it, I can always send it back. So, I am really looking forward to take a look at this fabric.





I received this lovely baking book from Japan few days ago. It was a surprise as sometime back, Chie wrote to me, saying that she wants to give me some really great recipes to try. I opened the book and it is all written in Japanese!!! I looked through the pictures and found 1 which is so perfect for the kindergarten or parties on certain occasions. I wrote to Chie immediately and told her it is Page 132 recipe in English I need. She will translate it for me and told me she is a big fan of marzipan and cinnamon. Those are certainly not my favourite and I never baked any cakes with these 2 stuff but it is not so difficult to find recipes as a lot of Danish cakes and pastries have marzipan. Thank you so much Chie and I hope you don't take too long to translate Page 132 for me ;0)))



It is Kristi Himmelfarts Dag in Denmark and DH will take the off from work and DD from the kindergarten. We will be visiting the twin girls' and their parents in their house for coffee and grill today. I am so happy that they've moved into their new house finally. For 2 years, they've been rebuilding their house. We will do our weekly grocery shopping tomorrow. We are invited to another family for grill and snobrød tomorrow. We will be visiting my inlaws on Saturday in the morning and then to the circus at noon. I told DH that I am not going anywhere on Saturday evening as Americal Idol comes on every Saturday.

I finished 1 more page today. It is actually one of the last 4 pages which are all slightly less than half a page. I never thought I could finish this page by today. I was concentrating on her so much that I could feel cold sweat on my back. Thank you so much for the comments for the last update which was just 2 days ago. I got an extremely lovely comment from the artist herself - Katerina Koukiotis . It feels like having my first morning coffee at 5am in the morning - nice, fresh and warm feeling :0)) I hope I can finish her by end of June, this year and will present a picture of her to Kat to put on her Fan Gallery. I am going to post her on our HAED Thursday SAL . I am so glad that that blog was started. It is such an E&E blog (Encouraging & Enabling). The ladies there are absolutely wonderful who have nothing but encouraging and kind comments to all the HAED Wips posted there.

I received another wonderful email this morning (yes, wonderful things always happen early in the morning :0)). It was from an extremely lovely Japanese lady whom I know through Ebay. Ebay does bring people together, don't they? Chie told me she has a very very nice Japanese cake recipe for me and she will translate it from Japanese to English for me. She has 1 condition and that is I have to share another great recipe with her. I am thinking of the Danish Drømmekage. I haven't made this cake for a long while but I have to search for the recipe which a friend of mine gave me some time back.

It is a holiday in Denmark tomorrow - St. Bededag . Since it is not a holiday in Germany , we will do our weekly shopping there tomorrow. We will be celebrating Mother's Day this Saturday at my inlaws. We would very much like to celebrate on Sunday, which is the actual day but my father in law travels back to his workplace (4 hours drive) every Sunday at noon. We will have coffee and followed by dinner at a local restaurant. My mother in law and I will each bake a cake for that day.

I wish everyone a great weekend and a Happy Mother's Day!

8 full pages I meant. It is not fully completed. I still have 4 more partial pages, all slightly lesser than half a page.