The Secret Garden in Cross Stitch

I found this book in a public library here in Hong Kong back to 4 years ago, it was in very good condition then (first publishing in year 1999), and I thought that I could find it anytime so I had no intention to buy it at all... However, when I found it again few days ago, I was so shock to find it's poor condition, it has become a worn out book which could break any stitcher's heart!

There were some pages being stolen (!!) and no one could do anything to stop it from happening again!!!! The librarian told me on the phone "just let us know the damage of the book when you return it to us", and THAT'S IT, what if there are more pages being torn by someone again?? Well, I understand it's hard to catch such thief, nowadays we return our books simply by dropping it into a box... and the librarians would put them back on the shelves so long as no damaging reports... who cares, who knows the problems inside all individuals?? How can you prove the book was damaged by certain people??

Since I can't protect this book, I decided to own one at home and let it retain its charm forever! The original price was GBP19.99, I checked with local leading book shops, no stock, and one of them told me that "it's permanently out of stock at the publisher!!" I tried ebay, but the seller doesn't want to ship it to Hong Kong (I guess the shipping charges is very dear, it is a giant hard cover book after all), and I checked with Amazon online shopping.. Some of "used but in good condition" ones at US$25, but again, they don't ship to Hong Kong!!! Others are way too expensive to me...


Before the whole thing vanished, let's admire its beauty...







I bet you would love to stitch these plums too...











and the apples are so "real"...













Must stitch the cornflowers too!!














Can you resist the charm of these poppies?










and these roses...













Maybe I should think of buying a new scanner instead of getting a new book. It could be cheaper, and I could keep all these images forever.

Thank You

To my dear friends and students, and the blog friends online, I wish you all a Happy & Healthy, and Prosperous New Year!!

I had a very quiet Christmas and the new year day. Most of my students went back to their hometown during the festive seasons and came back with very tired body and mind! They surely enjoyed their time a lot, and some of them remembered their teacher during the holiday, so they bought me gifts! Hm... alright, I'll forgive you for not answering properly in Mandarin, lol...





This is a gift from my old student Michael who is in New York right now and he's preparing for his photo exhibition. You can click here www.asianimages.blogspot.com to see some of his brilliant work!

I normally use only pencils while teaching, and this is definitely the most valuable one in my pencil case now!



In return, I gave Michael and his wife this handmade cushion cover.

There's a Chinese character in the middle (that's my cross stitched work!), we read it "Fu" (in Mandarin), it means "happiness/ fortune", it's one of the most popular Chinese character especially these days as the Chinese New Year is coming soon!!




This is a gift from my Dutch student Alex, it's a book about the messure words in Chinese, one of the useful teaching materials he gave me!! Alex speaks good Mandarin and he can read quite a lot of Chinese charaters, he definitely knows the importance of these messure words! Big THANKS to you, Alex!!!



This is my favourite cross stitching magazine, and it's a gift from my British student Helen!!
This lovely issue is not available in Hong Kong, I have to buy it thru ebay each time... Now you see how happy I was to get it from Helen!!
There are many sweet designs that I want to stitch immediately!! I have already started the cover bear and it will be for Helen for sure!!





This is a very tasty gift from a sweet 20yrs old Korean lady. She's a cheerful university student and has returned to the US. I look forward to seeing her again by end of this year!





hmmm..... goodness inside out..











I failed to make my posting for a few times. Hopefully this time it works!! I started to doubt that blogger treats me as a stranger, I can't leave comments to many others and experienced so much hard time even on my own posting!!

I will be back soon!!