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.=)
