How Does Your Garden Grow ?

That's the name of a new mystery sampler which is being offered by Papillon Creation It's coming in 13 parts and part 1 just come out. It's very pretty that took me away from my focus wip. You are free to choose the 6 floss colours and I thought what better opportunity to try out my floss from Vietnam. So after a week or so of stitching, part 1 is now done. There is still beads to go but I have no idea what colour I want to use. I think I will wait until more is done before deciding on the beads colour. I'm so happy with it and here are the photoes,








The first one is a scan of the project, but unfortunately the opalescent of the fabric is loss, so I took a picture with my camera for the second photo which is a bit darker. The scan one shows the colour of the floss better.

The floss actually didn't turn out so bad. It was suggested that they may be rayon floss. I have no idea about them. I have heard many unpleasant things about stitching with rayon and was a bit worry. But I had no trouble, it does behave different to cotton though. One things I wish also is the colour variation within the floss are a bit far apart hence make the flowers different. However you could say, that's a good point too. Anyhow thanks for looking.

Another Thing

How could I forget ?

While we were in Vietnam, Amanda wasn't feeling the best at time. The question was raised, could she or couldn't she ? By the time we got back, it seems most likely that she is. So we went and had a scan after we got back and YES, there is a heart beat in there. Which is great !! This one is due on 20 July 2008. Another July baby !!! So I've created another ticker above now. And I think I might have to change the layout of the blog soon. Here is the scan of the little one at 12 weeks






Stitching wise, I'm doing great progress in Wedding Blessing, this is how it was after the weekend. I've been working on it for the last 2 weeks. I did some more on it last few days but haven't taken a picture yet. Hopefully this will be my first finish for 2008. Not bad from starting in 2004. LOL

Wow, how time flies

This blog desperately need upadating....

September and October 2007 went by so quickly. They were 2 of the busiest months at work. Then come November which we spent nearly 3 weeks off holidaying. We went overseas. First to Saigon, Vietnam. We met some of Amanda's families including her 91 years old grandma. Everyone adores Vivienne of course. We then travelled up north to Hanoi and the amazing Halong Bay. Flied down to the lower midland in Nha Trang, Danong, Phan Tiet before returning back to Saigon. Then off to Singapore for a short stopover before heading back to home in December.

I did braught a small stitching kit during the trip but hardly had any time to work on it. We visited an embroidery shop in Saigon or Ho Chi Minh City called XQ. They sell many amazing embroideries. I got talking one of the worker there regarding the floss they were using. SHe gave us a direction to a shop in a market. As we had sometime, the cousin then brought us there. Apparently they sell the floss by weight, so I grapped 1 kg of floss which looks like this






That's a skien of DMC 310 on the side for comparison. Best of all, all these only cost me about A$14. What a bargain !!!

After we come home. I had to rush to complete our RR. Due to the busy time I haven't had time to do much on Larry's piece. Hans and Larry had actually finished in September. They have also posted the finished piece out. I felt terrible as I was the organiser of the RR yet I'm the one who bogged down. So I stitched as much as possible and managed to finished Larry's piece and post it back to him before the new year. I also added the year '2007' on my piece. Overall it had been a very succesful RR. If I ever participate another one, I need to be extra careful regarding my commitment. Here are the 3 finished pieces of the RR, Hans, mine and Larry's