Happy November!

I can't believe it's over a month that I posted the last time! I got busy with the charity stitching (which turned out to be more time-consumming than I thought) and I managed to get two pictures done.

This one is for a children hospital:

Precious moments - Loads of Love

and this one is for the Pink charity (against breast cancer)

Precious moments - Lollipop (OK, it's not called lollipop, but I can't find the name!).

I finished those two late October and went back to stitching on the Enchanter, where I finally completed all the stitching and now I am left with the oh-so-funny backstitching. And since I have been so good with finishes this year, I allowed myself a new start - on the Angel of Grace by Lavender & Lace. Not much to show right now, as all there is is a white blob of her skirt. I mean, what else can you expect after 2.5 hours of work, right?

I went ahead and had my three August/September happy dances framed, but I don't have the pics of the framing yet, but will post them soon!

Two September happy dances!

Since I started a lot of pieces in 2005 and 2006, it's time to reap the happy dances!

Here are two lovelies I finished during September:


Mirabilia - Maidens of Seasons I

and

Lavender & Lace - Angel of the Sea

I am currently working on Passione Ricamo Spring Fairy spirit (not close to finishing, but the piece that is - TW's Enchanter - was driving me crazy with all that confetti stitching - I've had enough of that on Maidens!)

Anyway I’ll put her aside for a month tonight – I am involved in two charity stitching projects and I want to dedicate October to charity only – and will see if I will pick her up after that. Just today I heard the news that a very dear friend is expecting her second baby in March, and I want to stitch her another baby guardian angel, and this time I want to have it done on time!

So it is a week...

that I said goodbye to my furry baby. I wasn't in the mood to write about it earlier, and I didn't even have the time, so here it goes.

Last week, when it seemed that our cat was getting better, I arranged for another rentgen to be done. That was on Wednesday evening and the results were not good - her lungs were filling up with water again. Yet then it still seemed that she would last at least through the weekend (we were scheduled to visit my grandma that weekend).

On Thursday, when I came home from a work gala dinner, I noticed immediatelly that things were bad... the cat was apatic, not moving, and breathing very hardly. I knew it was time... so all in tears I send a text message to our vet (who is my close friend) asking her to come the following day.

It was very tough for me. I did make it through, though, and I held the cat all the time, while the vet gave her a sleeping shot and then the lethal one. I then had the other cat sniff the body so that she would understand, and packed the body in a box (out vet knows better - she brought a box of kleenex and a transportation box for the body), and somehow I was even able to drive 200 miles to my grandma's house.

We buried the cat on my grandma's garden, where all the family pets are. I am actually in a way glad that it turned out like this, because otherwise we wouldn't have a decent place to bury the cat - here we live in an apartment house with no garden. I think the burial was harder for me than what I had to do the day before - I had to ask DH to take the body out of the box, because I just couldn't stand touching the cold and stiff thing that was all that was left from my beloved cat.

I miss her a lot. I don't cry the way I did the weekend after we received the diagnosis, when every look at the cat reminded me of what was to come. I just don't think about it and then it doesn't hurt. And when I do think about her, I try to remember only the good things... but of course, now that I am writing this, I can hardly see the screen through tears.

But I just have to get this out somehow.... you can't really talk about grieving a loss of an animal to people at work or to friends, because they wouldn't understand and they would think you are crazy, and DH just doesn't want to talk about it at all. Wonder if he'd be the same if it was his parents... or me.

Better don't want to know.

A happy dance!

Well actually this happy dance is from end of August, but I never got around to put it up here.

I finished Madonna of the Garden! Go me!

This is her:

Madonna of the Garden by Mirabilia

I really like the way she turned out, and the beading was well worth the effect. I still need to wash her and take her for framing - I am thinking a massive golden frame, no matting, to give her the look of old rennaisance paintings - then she will be a great addition to the style of my 12th century church building (did I ever mention that I did this piece as offering to church? Two years ago, when I was getting ready for my legal finals, and scared to death that I wouldn't pass them, I went to church, prayed hard and promised to finish the piece and give it to church if I made it through the finals. It took me some time, but now it is done! In the medieval ages, people would offer to build a church building, I am not that rich, but I put a lot of work in that to please the Lord, so I think that counts as well). Probably will take her to framer's next week, along with Angel of the Sea, which is now also finished (but no picture yet).

I am now working on the Seasonal Maidens, and they are mostly done as well, so wait for some more pictures!

Not all the days are sunny and bright...

After the euphoria of last week, things are much different today. On Thursday evening I realized that one of our beloved cats had breathing problems. Not something that you would notice easily, because felines never let you know they don’t feel well, but it was suspicious. We arranged for an appointment at our vet immediately for Friday morning. It wasn’t until the vet did an X-ray that she realized that our poor cat’s lungs were full of water. She sent us immediately to a specialized veterinary clinic, where they extracted the water and performed all kinds of tests to see what was wrong.

Turns out our kitty has FIP, which is an uncurable feline illness, always fatal. It actually is a mutation of a common feline virus, that most cats have been exposed to, only some end up with the virus taking an ugly turn in their bodies. The form our kitty has is likely to kill her within 2-4 weeks from the start – so by the judgement of the vet in the clinic it would have been wise to put her to sleep right on Friday evening when we picked her up from the clinic.

No way I could have done that – I needed to say my goodbye to the cat, because my furry babies are just my babies, and I love them dearly. So we took DCat home with the anticipation that on the following day, there would be one last trip to the vet clinic.

Well our cat is a real fighter! If we didn’t know she was dying, I’d say she was getting better! She is eating well (something the vet said she wouldn’t do at all), she was even begging scraps of meat as I was cooking yesterday! She of course can’t perform physically straining things, but she will jump on the sofa to be with us, or run for the sound of the food bowl being filled up. I am proud of her.

I spent Friday and Saturday crying my eyes out, can’t really say I am fine today, but at least better. I don’t know how many days more we have, and since there is no hope for a permanent cure, we will not have the cat be operated again (it is likely that her lungs will fill up with water again and that will kill her), buying her a couple more days. Once her health will start failing her again, we will have her put to sleep. Our vet is willing to do that at our home, so it will be peaceful for her.... just like laying down for a long, eternal sleep.

You will always be in our hearts, Miriam...

So, this is it?

Yes, this is it! After 20 years in the educational process (started on September 1, 1987 in elementary school), I have finally completed my last exam and earned my MBA!

I am happy about that, really happy, and the stress being lifted is a great thing – this stress of “I should” and “I must” has been ever present for the last 8 years in university (it just always was the way that the exam period of one semester rolled into the next semester and there already would be new assignments...) and now it is gone!

Of course, I will still be going to work, so it is not like I’d have loads of free time to do whatever I like, but I can dispose with my free time after work any way I want! (well, it still would be a good idea to do some cleaning around our home, as there are piles of papers, books and stuff everywhere from me trying to frantically prepare for my finals). I haven’t really picked up my stitching since I passed the finals on Monday – I was out for a celebration dinner with my parents on Monday, and a party with friends on Tuesday, but I sure plan to do that tonight!

I will post my progress tomorrow, today I just wanted to share my biggest happy dance!

Ok, so I wrote that on Tuesday, but since blogger was down again, it is a little late :-)

Finally some progress!

Yesterday evening, I finished all the beading and backstitching in Angel of the Sea! I happily took her off the hoop... only to remember later on that in order to be truly finished, she really needs the name and the date of birth of the little girl I stitched this piece for!

But I will post a pic nevertheless:

Angel of the Sea by Lavender & Lace

And I picked up Maddie in the meantime and started on the beading and backstitching (did I say I didn’t like beading?) and this is how she looks now:

Madonna of the Garden by Mirabilia

Just when you would think everything is OK,

something major backfires. This time, “something major” means my final thesis. Yes, the final thesis the formal presentation of which is part of my final exams at economy college 19 days from today. Without going into too much of a detail, it is possible that it will not be accepted and therefore I will not be able to take my finals and graduate, which is really stupid, as it took me 8 years to get there and losing everything over administrative procedures AFTER I’d passed all the exams and written that bloody thing (95 pages of analysis on certain holding company and possible improvements in its organizational structure) will kind of upset me.

Of course that will not be the end of the world. My family will not love me any less over not getting an MBA (I, after all, do hold a degree in law, so I did fulfill the family tradition of us being an educated lot). I will not be paid any less in my job – I will not even be missing on a payraise, as I am being paid based on my skills and not education. I don’t think it will be a hindrance in any future job interviews – nobody seemed to even notice the lack of the degree when I was looking around for a new job this year. So, no big deal really. I did learn my lessons at school, and I have the skills and knowledge associated with the degree without the degree. But it would be nice to have the degree as well.

On a lighter note – we’ve seen the movie “Next” yesterday for our date night, and it was a great movie. And as it was pretty short, we got home early and watched some TV and I work on the Angel of the Sea. I must say I don’t really care for beading. Worked on it for over 2 hours and am almost done with the beading on her skirt, but it goes sooo slow! And the idea of switching over to Madonna, which happens to also need lots of beading, seems less than appealing. I want to have a 5-hour rotation now, and am thinking of making the Enchanter the next piece. He still needs some stitching before I will get to the beading and backstitching...

Oh, and I realized I am actually missing 1 color of DMC to finish Angel and 1 color of DMC to finish Madonna. That sucks, as the closest needlework shop is pretty far away... I am thinking about ordering it online, but the shipping will cost a fortune. I need to go thoroughly through my stash, maybe I have a little bit somewhere? (of course, I only need about 7 stitches altogether in both colors)

Talking of stash, that is another think I should deal with – especially since I am longing to order something new and also to do a new start!

In the last couple years, I have accumulated the following:

Celtic Spring (Lavender&Lace): pattern, fabric, floss, beads
Angel of Grace (Lavender&Lace): pattern, fabric, floss
Guardian (Teresa Wentzler): kit
Storyteller (Teresa Wentzler): pattern only
Merrick (Black Swan): pattern, fabric, beads
The Best of Teresa Wentzler fantasy I: pattern book
Cattitudes: pattern book
Precious moments (Gloria&Pat) : pattern book
Just cross stitch magazine: 17 issues with about 30 designs I’d love to do
And of course wide assortment of local fabrics.

If I started something new tonight, what would it be? Something easy and quick (there are several lovely designs in the magazines, especially a “Ladies fashion” collection of about 6 designs with old sewing patterns tops), or something elaborate, like Celtic spring, which I bought 3 years ago?

Monday update

As promised, I stitched like crazy over the weekend. Don’t have picture yet, but the lower border of Madonna is almost finished, and next I will pick her up I think I will do the beading in the whole lower half of the picture. It will really lighten her up and since I have a smaller hoop, I will not even squish the beads once I start on the upper part again!

But first, I need to finish the beading on Angel. I plan to take two or three days off work for studying for my finals, but I can squeeze in some stitching – all work no play would drive poor trissie away! :-) So hopefully by Sunday she will be finished, ready to go to the framers. I also have Celtic Christmas, which I have started back in 1999, finally finished and ready to be framed, but I am not sure if I can afford getting so many pieced framed.

Dollar rate is dropping big time, so I am really tempted to buy something from abcstitch.com before the rates pick up again, but I promised myself that I wouldn’t be buying anything as my stash is rather large and my stitching time limited!

Currently, my WIPs include:
1. Angel of the Sea (Lavender&Lace) – 95% finished, missing beading
2. Madonna of the Garden (Mirabilia) – 90% finished, missing beading and upper border
3. Enchanter (Teresa Wentzler) – 85% finished, missing part of border and back-stitching (there is a lot of that there)
4. Maidens of Season I (Mirabilia) – 85% finished, missing part of border and beading
5. Mother (Dimensions) – 90% finished, missing back-stitching and couching (I don’t like their BS and can’t force myself to finish it!
6. Spring Fairy Spirit (Passione Ricamo) – 25% finished, I think it must be 2 years since I last worked on her!
7. Portrait of Elegance (Dimensions) – 75% finished, the dress is almost done, missing head, bouquet and a part of the border. (I don’t like color charts and this one drives me mad, so again haven’t touched her for 2 years)
8. Rose of Sharon (Mirabilia) – 5% finished, I couldn’t resist starting her, but then returned to older designs
9. Lady of Shalot (Teresa Wentzler) – 1% finished, dtto as Rose of Sharon
10. Wedding (Lavender&Lace) – needs to be ripped out completely as I had two different shades of white and it shows. Still thinking if I will or not buy new fabric altogether.

I want to finish the first two on my list, and then maybe think about a new start? I haven’t done a new start in 2007, but I had 4 new starts in 2006 and I told myself that I would only do a new start after 2 finishes – and I’ve so far had 6 of those in 2006 and 2007... so maybe it will be the silly Mother cup and the Seasonal maidens before I start something new. And there is a lot in my stash to choose from, so I definitely have something to look forward to!

Blogging again!
It's over a year since my last post, a busy year indeed. M. and I got married last June, which was the highlight of last year, at least in my eyes.
This year, I changed jobs - I stayed in the same company, but now I am an investment fund manager (previously worked as financial specialist) and that means a lot more work and travelling, so I have far less time for anything.
As for school, I did graduate from the law school last spring, and now am about to take finals in my economy school, which is of course a stressor.

Stitching is still my beloved hobby and I work my way through my WIPs as fast as time permits (of course, with the occasional new starts, but they do not count, do they?). This is what I have on the hoop at the moment:

Mirabilia, Madonna of the Garden

and this beauty is almost done as well, only missing beading and some of that golden thread - I took her off the hoop to wash her before the beading:

Lavender&Lace, Angel of the Sea.

I hope that with 1st and 2nd part of Lord of the Rings on TV tonight, I will finish the lower boarder of Madonna (that picture is a week old and I do have some progress since) and then switch over to Angel of the Sea again. That one being a birth announcement, it would be lovely to have her finished before the baby turns 1 this coming September :-)