Illness is a waste of time!

What a time we've had of it since my last post! We've both had feverish colds, but I decided to branch out and develop a vicious sinus headache for almost 2 days, and now am fighting with tonsilitis that doesn't seem to wish to clear. Hmmm. Well, at least I got back to the water violets yesterday afternoon and evening.


This photo shows progress from the last two stitching sessions. I don't think it's terribly well worked and I'm dismayed at how little I'm enjoying it really.=( I guess I just have so many 'brain' projects going around in my head at the mo that stitching isn't top priority and I feel like I'm being kept away from my reading and study!! I haven't the least umph to get on with the other project(s) either...

I've just applied for a job in the local university library looking after the East Asian Studies collections, which requires reading ability in Chinese/Japanese/Korean. I'll probably not have too much competition for it, unless there's a PhD student in the School who needs funds and/or someone's been telling the Oriental students about it. Still, precedence should go to Brits unless no suitably qualified local can be found. Anyway, we'll see. It's so hard to get a job that I'm by no means holding my breath, but you never know.

Getting sick of stem stitch

I've moved on a bit with the Water Violets and fish design, but still wading through all the copious stem stitch on the underwater fronds! Still plenty to go.... I'm hoping that I can get most of this design done within the next week as it's the main wedding gift from one couple to the other and is also the simpler to work. Slightly depressing that a few commenters liked this design and didn't say my own was nice. Sigh. Still Ms Stevens has considerably more experience and knowledge of nature than me, so I can't expect too much more!!=)

As many will know (and be experiencing themselves), winter has hit here. It's pretty unusual for snow to start in November. In fact, it's only the last 2 years that we've really had old-fashioned winters again in the UK - the last I remember was when I was about 15 in 1986/7. These were taken through our living room window about 5 minutes apart this morning. Snow was actually falling in the first shot, but not enough to show up. Good studying and embroidery weather!! Glad we did the shopping on Monday and that we don't have to go out until tomorrow evening. There is an advantage to not having got work yet!!=)

Too many WIPs!

I usually make it a rule to have no more than two decent sized projects and one small one (such as a bookmark or a piece for a card) on the go at any one time. At the moment I am in serious violation of that with four projects in progress and none of them qualify as a 'small' piece by my standards. Here they all are laid out temporarily on the ironing board. (Through the window you can see what very wintry weather we've having at the moment too!)

There are to be two gifts for my sis, the personal one from me to her that I showed the design process for yesterday, and the promised blue cushion cover which I agreed with her as the 'official' wedding gift before I left Taiwan. I bought a piece of blue fabric over there which is lovely, but I just couldn't get it to work with the sorts of designs I had in mind, so it's been put aside, perhaps to be used as a backing, in favour of a plain old navy blue. I've settled on a Helen M Stevens design from her 'Masterclass Embroidered Flowers' book. Here's the fabric ready and threads to hand (good old stranded cotton as usual - I've enough on with the silk on silk on the pouch!) with the piece I'm working from on the right.

Here you can see the first bits of stem stitch that I put in last night whilst relaxing in front of the telly and our old favourite 'Pride and Prejudice' video. (Yes, we still have videos!) Looks more black than blue here!!

Above we have the design traced onto the silk for the manicure pouch and the padding for the leaves and the upturned edges of flower petals attached. I plan to press on with the monogram part of it this evening as well as completing the stem stitch on the cushion cover. With an outside temperature of -7C at the moment, it's an ideal time for embroidery!

Designing a manicure set pouch

About five years ago, when my second sister announced her decision to (finally) stop biting her nails, I promised her that, when she cracked it, I would buy her a nice manicure set as a reward (and to fill a new need!!). I confess that it slipped my mind at the time and when I did remember (long after she no doubt forgot - she doesn't have my elephantine memory, lucky girl!!) all I could find on the market were trendy teenage designs that I frankly wouldn't insult her with. So, I realised I was going to have to make one myself. I bought all the things I planned to put in it - scissors, emery boards, tweezers etc, and did a design.

OK, so the project went no further. Problem I think was that, unless there's a discernible deadline, things rarely happen with me, so it got kind of unintentionally shelved and the manicure tools hujng around on my bedroom shelf for a long time. Well, she gets married out in Taiwan next month and alongside the 'blue cushion cover' we agreed on as her wedding gift, I decided it was high time that this other one was made and it's a great occasion to give her a personal something. Naturally, now the time is finally upon me to do the project, I can't find the manicure stuff!! I've seen them since we moved and I put them somewhere just too safe!!

I looked at the design I drew back in '05 or '06 for the pouch and decided that it was cluttered and just wouldn't work after all, so set out to rework it yesterday afternoon. When I went with Rosie to a stitching and craft show once, she'd admired the stumpwork blackberries on display in one retailer's booth and said, 'They look good enough to eat!' So, I there and then decided to do some for her at some point. Marrying the two ideas, we get the following design process.

I don't go for drawing things out and then re-doing it until I like the layout, so instead I drew a box the correct size and cut out a few berries, leaves and a flower (yes, I know blackberry flowers are long gone before the berries ripen, but this is only art...) and played around with them until I had an arrangement I liked.



The next stage is to draw out the best layout and colour it in (got a chance to use the yummy Derwent Coloursoft pencils I treated myself to on my last full day in Taiwan). This is basically what I'll be stitching, only the flower will be moved to the right a little so as to be at the end of the stem and thus look more realistic. I consulted my 'British Wildlife' book quite a lot during this design!!

This is the floss toss showing the Madeira silks I plan to use, the beads for the fruit and 2 options of lining material. Now the pink looks a bit nicer with the antique white silk - just matches better, but I know Rose likes green more, so I won't decide on that one yet, but will see how it looks when the embroidery is done.

I've cut and washed the silk fabric (which I think shrank a bit!) and I just need to check with Rose that she will take her hubby's name before I put her future initials on the back. I can't see her not taking it, but you just can't be sure, so better safe than wasting time on a 'G' when an 'E' was required.=)

Stitching due to start over the weekend, all being well!

My new pad

Does anyone else have this exasperating problem? That when you manually highlight the whole post, just to make a copy in case the publishing goes mad and deletes/connection times out etc, it just deletes the whole thing anway? I just watched that happen and, as I was taking it in and thinking, 'Quick! Take advantage of the 'draft save' facility, the dratted thing kicked in all over again and saved the now blank screen. Talk about raging!

Anyway.... This may well be shorter than the original was!! Click on the photos for clearer views if you want them.

Here we are all settled into our new home, which is somewhat bigger than our last and has given me my own study/studio AT LAST! As many bloggers seem to be reporting on their creative spaces right now, I thought this was a good time to get back to my long neglected blog. It's a very small room, as you're about to see, so you may have to breathe in...

This is my desk area. Thankfully, I have a big desk that can fit lots on it and still give plenty of room to work.=) On the front wall are things like favourite bookmarks and some souvenirs from our travels. I like the Korean dress (hanbok) best and plan on finding out a good deal more about things Korean in the future.

On the windowledge I have pots of pastel pencils (and brushes) and tubes of paint and the yellow container there is mostly flashcards for language learning - many of which are crammed with vocab I encountered on my recent course in Taiwan. On the right hand wall you can see scissors and tape measures for ease of access and there's my laptop open at my Google and Blogger homepages.=)

On the desk are the materials and initial design things for me next project. Not that I've touched the current two WIPs lately, but....

To the left of my desk I keep these three silver grey stacker boxes. The bottom one contains mostly regular fabrics, (although there are some nice cotton oriental rolls in there and some lurex seriously fancy things that I got direct from the mill that produced them as a child. My dad had his workshop just above the mill and rented from them. They gave me offcuts sometimes and odds and ends on reels of lurex!). The middle one holds mostly embroidery kits along with a bag of felt pieces and a folder of odds and ends of patterns - old iron-ons, for instance. In the top are counted thread fabrics, black, white and cream surface work fabrics and 'helpers' such as Vilene, Bondaweb and so on. There are also zips, trimmings and a few other things in there too.

Next to that we have a basketweave bag of hoops and frames and then my 'outdoors' bags, such as my handbag etc.

Onto the bookshelf space:

It wasn't possible to get a full length view of the shelves as the room is just too small and I was sitting well back on the desk in order to even get these! So, this is the top half. On the very top of the right hand one there are two baskets, one with my lovely oriental fabrics and the other containing my silk, satin and sheer fabrics - all carefully stored in clear plastic bags. The cat litter tray on the other side holds the audio components of some of the many language courses I own - cassettes and CDs aplenty.

The sun bleached out Japanese - Thai on my upper language shelf, (languages are stored alphabetically, but Chinese is kept mostly elsewhere) and the linguistics end of the lower shelf, so that's what you can't see well here. Science is at the top and in the box on the lower left shelf are my silk and fabric paints.

At the bottom here we have mostly needlework and art stuff. Lots of magazines as you can see and also many pads of multi-coloured art papers and tins of pencils. In the little 2-drawer arrangements are my pan watercolours (as opposed to tubes) and top quality pastels as well as a number of things like stumpwork wire and so on.

I'm hoping to get some shelves above where the stacker cartons are to get the boxes of greetings card blanks, papercraft materials, general stationery, pens and pencils off the floor under my desk!!

So, hope you're enjoyed this brief visit. I'll be doing my art, craft and design work in here, (as well as plenty of language study and some science stuff), but stitching will be on the comfy sofa in the living room as ever.=) Hope to be sharing the fruits of my labours in here via my various blogs over the months and years to come. Today I hope to get on with the finalising of the design here on my desk and get that into commission and will post more about that soon.

Cross stitch and Korean embroidery

So, here I am in the public library, using one of the internet access PCs there and just taking a few minutes to post some recent photos.

The first four are from our trip to Korea late last month. These top two were taken through a shop window (it had lots of horizontal bars across it as it was closed at the time and so I could only get these close-ups without the bars spoiling things), which seemed to be selling very richly embroidered 'hanbok' - traditional Korean dresses. I think these are likely to be wedding clothes.


Later on we visited a tiny knotwork museum where there was an embroidery display. These items here were used by the owner for her son's first birthday traditional celebrations.

This was the corner with several lovely embroideries and knotwork examples. Aren't they gorgeous?

Just before leaving Taiwan, I finally managed to get the field mice cushion made up and sent. It's been received and its new owner is delighted with it, despite it being somewhat uneven at the bottom, but she would never notice that!!

And this is how far I got with the narrowboat cross stitch piece whilst we were in Germany for the first 12 days of September. The last time I posted about this piece it was just the green blob on the right, but now, thanks to the brown and grey bits, it actually looks like a tree, bushes and a bit of a fence!

Thanks a lot for all the well wishes that came my way following the last post. Thankfully, it wasn't neuralgia, but a tooth nerve that had actually been sensitive for a whole year. After a deep filling coming very close to it, it went potty, but I've had the initial treatment done and, except some post-op type of discomfort, I'm pain free again.=)

Anyone whose been reading for more than a year will know that we had trouble getting our shipment through customs on the way into Taiwan. Well, our return one has been stuck there again for the past fortnight plus and they even planned to send it back, despite instructions on the address labels under no circumstances to do this! Anyway, we seem to have stopped that and are literally praying that they are finally satisfied with the documentation and can get the boxes to us soon! Also having trouble getting the new car insurance sorted, finding a new home, getting work organised and what have you, so all is anything BUT smooth right now! Still, the weatehr's nice, we have a place to stay for as long as we need it (within reason) and we're keeping on trying to get stuff done. It will feel all the better for the amount of work it's needing.....

© Elizabeth Braun 2010

We're home!

So, we finally made it back to the UK in the relevant two pieces and with all bags safely in tow.=) I won't be posting much, if at all, until we get totally re-settled in a new home as we only have a very slow dial up service here at my mum's and that's no longer really any good with today's web functionality!

We spent a weekend in Seoul, then almost a fortnight in South Germany and have got back just in time to miss all the flats/apartments we were interested in in the pre-univeristy term housing rush, but we'll find something in time.

Other than that, I have appaling neuralgia in my lower left face after having two deep fillings done in my teeth 2 days ago. I've been haviung nerve problems there over the last year and now they seem to be shot to pieces and giving my real hassle. Anyway, that should settle over the next few days and I see the doc on Monday about it too.

Will post more when I can! Hope everyone's well and will catch up with you when I get bcak to good old broadband!

So, what's next?

There are now only 3 full days left before we leave Taiwan and you should see our living room! It's absolutely covered in things waiting to be packed into the 2 big, strong packing boxes I got from the Post Office. Looks like we're going to need a third really, but we'll take that as it comes tomorrow, when I/we plan to try and get the stuff into them.

We've had a number of invitations to farewell dinners for this week etc, so I've not had to worry much about cooking, but the friends who came to our little 'open house' do on Sunday brought so many goodies, that we sent the last few away with a good number of slices of cake etc and are still giving stuff away now after off-loading all the pop (soda) etc onto Sir's old teacher who hosted a lunch for her students yesterday!

I've saved the goldwork viola, the narrowboat cross-stitch and this new project on the right for the journey home. I don't expect to get a great amount of any of them done, but at least I have some variety in there. Hmm, looks like including my hardanger scissors might be a good move too. Best not put those in a box! Anyway, this is one of the Cross'n'Patch designs that I'm planning to stitch up for my mum - the green version of what you can see in the photo here.

Below are the paper things I got in Japan - a few origami papers in delightful designs and a set of bookmarks, which I daresay will provide inspiration for some future projects. I really like Japanese art much better than Chinese and am looking forward to seeing what Korea has to offer next weekend whilst we're there.=)


More soon, but I can't say whether it will be from here (should be as I need to get the fieldmice cushion finished up - planned for tomorrow, if poss), from Seoul or from Germany...

Japanese Kimono

I'm rather badly behind with blogging at the mo, especially here and on Brauns on Tour, but I'm just so wound up with the conclusion of our Chinese classes here (finished this lunchtime) and now the preparations to leave. Be that is it may (and it is!!), I thought most readers would enjoy some photos from Japan in the form of my being dressed up in a traditional kimono! It starts with these amazing socks that make your feet look so odd (I saw a local chap here in Taipei wearing leather boots like this recently too!):

Then you move on to the underwear stage. There's a special, cotton undergarment that forms a base layer to the whole thing. This photo also shows that you don't need to speak the same language well in order to share a laugh! My 'dresser' here only speaks her native Japanese of which I know only a little.

Next comes the white layer you can see here with the red belt, which seemed almost an outfit in it's own right to me. I rather like the colour scheme too.=) Here you can see the patterned top layer going on as well.


Here's a shot of the trickiest part, tying the big 'obi', the belt. I think that took almost as long as the rest of the dressing process put together!

After having a fancy hairdo done - plaited across the back and then formed into a side ponytail, which is a very trendy style in Japan (mostly without the plait though as you need someone else for that), this was the finished look, complete with the correct sandals.

And here from the back out of the local street. Our, mercifully, Chinese speaking Japanese friends wanted me to go out onto the Shiji Dori, Kyoto's main shopping street and walk down there, but anyone who knows me well would know how little I would enjoy that! As a rule, unlike the Chinese, the Japanese don't stare at white people, but they do when one appears in a kimono!!

Hope you've all enjoyed our little excursion into traditional Japanese culture!

I've no stitching to show at the mo, although the field mice are further on in terms of being finished up. However, we took a trip to Tokyo on our last full day in Japan and visited the Okadaya textile crafts emporium. I was really inspired by all the lovely embroidery threads available on the 5th floor (there were also trays full of Japanese embroidery silks, which I've always wanted to drool over) and that fired my enthusiasm again.=) I didn't buy anything, but it was fun and here's a photo of a class that was being held during my visit. I think they're doing crochet or something like that.

Hope to post soon with the completed cushion cover and progress on the goldowork which, ideally, I'd like to have done before we head back on 28th.

© Elizabeth Braun 2010

Last stop before Japan

Just a quick post to show off my latest finish - the hardanger doily! I completed the edging whilst enjoying a TV mini series and it was all quick work from there. Well, all except the weaving, which I always find long winded and which I regret not dumping in favour of plain old wrapped bars, as I usually do. Here it is anyway and I hope you like it!

I'll be taking the narrowboat cross stitch to Japan with me even though I really should get the goldwork done out of the way before working more on this one. It's not a project I feel will travel well, so the cross stitch is better. I rarely get much stitching done when travelling, so I don't expect to make great strides with this one either.

The field mice has been about half finished up into a cushion/pillow cover. I've done the front (which was 4 sections) and now just need to get another piece of fabric for the back and put it all together. I've decided against the piece I bought a few weeks ago and just need a nice cream piece now. See what I can find in Japan??

A finish - gasp!

Yup, I finally got something finished up - the hardanger needlecase. A couple of weeks ago I got some green fabric to use as a backing for the actual stitching and also found the cotton doctor's flannel that I'd cut and brought with me specially. Here's the finished results.

Front:

Back:

Centre with the green backing showing and the cotton doctor's flannel 'pages':

I've also done a few more lengths of thread on the current hardanger piece and got about half way through the buttonhole edging. I think I'm more getting the hang of it now, but it's still a bit uneven in parts. I'll get there and no-one but me will notice anyway. Sigh! The curse of perfectionism!!!

Next up is to get the 'field mice' finished up into a nice cushion/pillow cover. I've got the first few pieces of fabric cut and pressed and should have that started over the rest of the weekend.

Too busy to stitch again!

I did spend a little time on the hardanger piece the other day, (I gave myself an hour's 'weekend' whilst watching a Sherlock Holmes on Youtube on Sunday!!), but I ended up having to pull a lot of stitches out as I'd gone wrong. I don't like buttonhole edging, grrr! So, nothing to show there.

We've had unexpected guests for the past three days which, along with being back at language school, (I was able to stitch and post a lot during that last lot of holidays), has kept us very busy. Anyway, yesterday was a public holiday - the Dragon Boat Festival, so we went up to the Yangming Shan national park, which is all within the Taipei city limits, and visited one of Chiang Kai-shek's 15 homes there!!! This was his 'guesthouse' apparently, and it's green! Had it been white or stone coloured, it would have been nice, but the green was a bad, BAD choice. So bad that I won't post a photo!! Whilst we were looking around the rooms, however, I got a lot of great design inspiration photos from the artefacts and trimmings there, such as this firescreen:

And this red vase:

And the set of 4 seasonal blue glass internal windows, of which this is one:

I can see that done in silk and sheer fabrics in appliqué etc, can't you?=)

Hope to get back to being able to stitch something soon, and at least get poor Dianne's package in the post, then I can show off the nice fabrics I bought last Thursday. It mightn't seem much, going to two hours of class a day, but add in transport, extra classes and/or library time etc and we're out of the house for at least four hours per day, and up to seven!

Now, Carol S asked me about the field mice cross stitch chart and where it came from. Carol, I can't tell you exactly at the moment as I don't have my mags with me and I'd been using a copy I made to bring with me, which has no indication of date. All I can tell you is that it's by Maria Diaz and it appeared in 'Cross Stitch Crazy', probably some time in 2003, (I bought a fair few cross stitch mags 2002-4, but very few since). As it's an autumnal sort of design, it might be something like the September issue. I checked on the publisher's website, but they don't have it available as a download to sell. Leave me another note with contact details and I'll see if I can help further.=)

New works in progress

Made a start on both new pieces. Here's what I did on Tuesday on the cross stitch, i.e. part of the tree bit in the upper centre. Doesn't look much thus far, but new cross stitches rarely look anything to shout about. It'll look much nicer once I get some more done, I'm sure.


The hardanger doily's shaping up nicely and I've got to the border part. Actually, I hate buttonhole stitch edging as it's relatively slow going and it's really hard to make my stitches as neat and even as I'd like them to be and turning corners and fastening on new threads is a bit of a pain. Thankfully, I found a good tutorial page here and printed off the relevant bits to use.

I haven't done any more on either of them since I put my needles down 2 days ago, but I think I might just have a go at putting in a stitch or two when I've finished here. But I doubt it, I'm pooped!

Rachel has been kind enough to give me one of her home grown 'Blog Inspiration' awards. She's come up with several categories and what I like about this logo in particular is that she's created it herself and the hardanger piece you see in the background is her own first forays into the world of counted thread work with a very pretty hardanger kit I look forward to seeing her complete.=) So, many thanks to you, Rachel and I'm glad to have been of use to you in getting you started in stitchery. It's not anything like as hard as it looks (as indeed most things aren't), but we Brits do tend to be scared of our own shadows and will more easily believe that we can't do something than that we just might be able to, if we can only persuade ourselves to try!

Field Mice Done - YAY!

I can't believe how long this piece has taken me to finally complete the stitching on! I started in in January, I think, and it's now almost the last day in May! The pattern estimates that it will take '15 evenings', but I sometimes wonder both how long those evenings are expected to last and whether the stitcher concerned is expected to have anything else going on in her life, such as making meals, doing dishes, dealing with other stuff and, of course, the small matter of family!! Anyway, whatever, it's done and I hope to get to the fabric market within the next week or so to get the material I need to make it into a sofa cushion/pillow. Anyway, click on the photo to get a better, larger view.

Whilst I'm there I also want to get something to back the hardanger needlecase with, although I may just use the doctor's flannel. Yes! Good news! I found out today, whilst looking out the stuff for my camera case, that I had actually brought the piece of cotton doctor's flannel needed for the pages of the needlebook/case, so I can finish it up after all. Margaret was so kind as to send me a piece of the woolen doctor's flannel, but it wasn't quite what I needed. However, it will come in for something and I've, at the very least, learned that there are two types of this particular cloth.

Here's the next project I want to start, a hardanger doily type thing. A local friend has been great recently, dropping in every so often with big bags of fruit. The funny thing is, she often seems to do this when we've run right down and I don't feel really up to lugging heavy bags around. So, I want to make her this little piece as a 'thank you'.


The next cross stitch I have in mind is this lovely narrowboat design I've had my eyes on doing for years. It's another 'Cross Stitch Crazy' magazine design that I copied out of my own mag before coming here, and, although the chart makes it look considerably larger than the field mice, it's as wide as they were high and so not so very big after all. The chart has larger squares. This one will be for me to put on the wall of my study/studio when we get our new home.=)

This is the book I plan to take most of the pattern for the camera case from and also some of the small pieces of fabric I brought with me for it. The shiny one is the outside and the other one the lining, which I bought here just over 2 years ago.

More on these soon, I hope!

The new blog is going well. Yesterday I did a short piece on blog design and how not to overdo it with fancy trimmings and today's posting contains 2 simple, but important, tips on how to avoid tooth decay!! Hop over to the Fluff and see for yourself.

New blog link now working=)

Thanks to Jules, Rachel and Dian for letting me know that the in-text link didn't work for the new blog. It does now, as I'd just input it wrongly!!! Told you I was an idiot!!!!!!!!!!!=) Some managed to find their way over having followed the RSS feed link on blog itself, but anyone trying to access via reader software would have come up against problems. Anyway, all up and working now on the last post and I've checked it to make sure too! Now then, let's see if I can get it right here too.....

PS Field mice almost finished! Just another hour's work needed on them and I'm ready to display.=)

Some changes on blog

Nothing directly craft related in this post, but just a notification really.

I've finally got my newest blog going, which is called Fluffy Little Idiot and is devoted to non-craft things, such as reading, learning, (will cover my studies other than art and needlework, so my music etc), human potential and intelligence and a fair few other things that interest me - including how I succeed in developing a good recipe or two for vegan ravioli! I've also got a blog outline in prep for if and when I'm able to start the Open College of Arts drawing and painting courses, but until that happens, art work will stay on this blog.

So, I've moved my CV and Goals pages to the new blog and added in a '2010 Goals' page which also includes what I want to do craft-wise. I've also moved the Reading List to there from the Google Sites page I've been using for a while. I've got feeds to all my other blogs active now here and on the new one and will put them on the other two later on.

Made in Taiwan will soon be re-named Brauns on Tour and kept for travel photos and notes in the future. There'll be pix from Taiwan, Japan, Korea and southern Germany, plus wherever we move to when we get back to look forward to during the rest of this year on that site. I hope to use the language one more as time goes on and I develop my interest in linguistics and creative language learning and teaching (possible research degree on the horizon....).

So, please visit me all over, add yourself as a follower on any and all sites that interest you even a little and leave comments when you have chance. It's lovely to know folk are reading along and it makes blogging extra worthwhile. An explanation of the new blog's name appears in the very first post there. Curious? Go over and see!=)

Oh, and yes, it's raining cats and dogs here at the mo!!

Finally.....

....term is over and we're on the first full day of 8 days off school. Hurrah! However, you can tell it's our school hols as the rain is due to start tomorrow and last until we go back. Happens every time....Grrr!

....I got to go around the other large bookshops looking for 'Inspirations 66', but it seems not to have arrived in Taiwan at all, so I've given up on it.

....I got around to going to the 2nd nearest library and borrowed 3 books - 2 stories and 1 guidebook on Japan, where we go in just about 2 months.

....I've got around to starting revising and developing my Japanese language in earnest. I even bought the CDs for the course I've had hanging around for the past 6 months!

....I got on with the backstitching on the Field Mice, but I'm not showing that off until it's totally finished. I've done all the blackberries now and also about two thirds of the rose leaves.

....I bought two of the 'local' stitchcraft books. I put 'local' in inverted commas as they're not Taiwanese at all, but translated from Japanese books. There's an enormous collection of patchwork and quilting titles in several series', many of which are the muted 'country' style, which doesn't float my boat much, but seems rather big in Japan! Anyway, these are the two I bought, one on simple Japanese embroidery and designs and one on patchwork items decorated with embroidery and ribbon work.

Below are some spreads from the Japanese-style embroidery book, which I thought were rather nice, although I know they'll seem terribly over-simplified to those who've been taking the specialist JE courses!!=)

And here are some spreads from the patchwork/ribbonwork book. There are some really lovely things in this book and, despite the instructions all being in Chinese, the diagrams look pretty clear and I should be able to make good use of it - in good time!!

Aren't they all lovely?