A swan landed in my mail box!

Staying away from the computer and the Internet for a week was so good!
A couple of things that I wanted to tell you last week before leaving but did not have time then.
This was a surprise parcel from my dear sea glass friend Ian from England. He painted it himself and sent it to me. He knows me so well. I love swans and I really appreciate his thoughtfulness to send it to me.
This will be framed in the fall.

The sea glass on the corner is John and Juliana's from Scotland.
Something small I bought from a lady who came to sell her handmade jewelry at school a couple of days before we closed.

It is sitting on an otchipotchi lace stone.
Just before leaving I finished the part of my Balinese Dancer that I had aimed for. Now the whole head and flowers is finished. Isn't she gorgeous?
 I decided not to take this along to the summer house. It is too big and too complicated so I took along something smaller and summery! I will show you when it is finished.

These are the 17 books  I took with me. They are both in English and in Greek. Do you think I am too ambitious? Yes maybe I am. But I read really a lot in summer, in winter I stitch more!
The majority are from foreign authors and they were books I had in my library already, some I had bought at book bazaars and are second hand, very few are new purchases. I decided to take them all at the summer house to see how many I will manage to read. And I am going to read them in an alphabetical order of the author's surname. Some of them will be donated afterwards.

And here are the only two magazines I had bought this spring. My always favourite Marie Claire Idees which are the only affordable ones.

 Here are a couple of the ideas in them I liked. I admit I don't find them as interesting as I used to a couple of years ago. Maybe because the Internet gives you so many ideas that magazines haven't got much to add anymore.

I am now back from the summer house. I had a great time. You will see in the next post.Thank you for your summer wishes.

WIPApocalypse

Well those who read my blog but have nothing to do with the cross stitch blogland won't understand the title of today's blogpost so I have to explain.
WIP means Work In Progress. It took me a long time to find out too so don't worry.
Anyway since October I have stitched lots of things mostly gifts. Now the gifts are all finished and most of them are already framed waiting to be received by their recipients. When they do I will finally be able to show you too what I have been stitching all this time. Maybe many of you are not interested but I know that my cross stitch followers and friends are.
Anyway welcome ladies-fellow stitchers who have recently become followers of my blog!
All this time that I have been stitching gifts I have in the back of my mind that one day I have to start again my HUGE  project!
It is a pattern I bought as a kit and started many years ago more than ten I think!
I don't know what came of me and I bought that huge and expensive kit with all those details and dozens of hues of the same colour! But I did and at some point I have to finish it.
But every time I start stitching it I just do it for a couple of days and then stop it because it moves so slowly and it is so detailed and I have to change my thread every couple of stitches that I always dropped it back to the bag, no back to my wardrobe.
This time I decided it was high time I made some progress on it.
I had stitched the face ten years ago and then a couple of years ago I did a part of the flowers on the head. The flowers use about ten hues of off-white and beige and I really cannot see that well any more. But I started stitching it again and after  ten days I can show you some real progress!
So here it is.
The magnificent Balinese Dancer by Thea Gouverneur!
This is the colourful photo of the kit with the completed work of art!

 That's how it was in the bag in my wardrobe for ages.
The face was done ten years ago and then the back of the head and the flower two years ago maybe.
When I took it in my hands again on May 29th I really couldn't make my eyes concentrate on the various hues of the colours in the flowers.

 And my progress was slow for a couple of days.Just a small piece of the flowers on the top part.

 Yes only that!

 Isn't she beautiful? Look how many colours she has!

Then I started progressing faster as I managed to stitch a bit before school too, early in the morning as well as a lot of stitching was accomplished every evening in front of the TV. And now that the Euro is on I am happy to say we won't be going out so more time for stitching will be accomplished before schools end and we leave for the summer house.
Here is the rest I managed to stitch the last couple of days!The flower on this side is completed and the biggest part of the crown.Also the flowers on the other side were started.

I hope I will manage to give you a good part of progress next time too. Have a nice weekend!