Stitchy things around my home

There are a few things in and around my house that are cross-stitched, but not made by me. I want to show them today.

The first item is a foot-stool. My parents bought this on on a market, it was made by a lady who collects old cross stitched items, and makes them into furniture. I know she makes couches as well, but those are pretty costly. When my parents bought it, they always told me they were going to give it to me one day, when they grew tired of it. Of course, I didn't complain. A few months ago, they finally decided to give it to me. I love it a lot, it really fits the decor of my house, and it is very practical too, as you can open it up, and store stuff in it.

As you can see, I do have to be very strict on the cats to not sharpen their nails on the fabric. It is Nemo's favorite place to sleep on, and he really wanted to sit on it while I was taking pictures.

I use it as a place to store my crocheting stuff. I don't crochet very much, but yarn takes up a lot of space, so it is a very convenient storage bin. 

The second item I want to show you I bought on Queen's day a few years ago. Queen's day (now called King's day because we have a king instead of a queen nowadays) is a yearly holiday on the birthday of the monarch. All over Holland it is celebrated, with games, concerts and in every city is a big flea market. It is called de 'vrijmarkt', which translates to 'free market' since it is free to sell your stuff anywhere. This celebration is biggest in the capital, Amsterdam, and I live in the area with the biggest flea market, and since I love buying second hand things, it is my favorite holiday!

I am also a big fan of our monarchy, I like having a king or queen and I love our royal family. So when, on Queen's day, I found an embroidered piece to celebrate the coronation of our queen, I needed to buy it. It hangs proudly on my wall since then. I think I only paid 1 or 2 euros for it too.

When our King was coronated in 2013, I looked for a similar pattern, so I could honor him as well. But I didn't find it, and haven't looked for a while. So if anyone knows where to buy a pattern like that, please let me know.

The last thing I want to show you are some placemats my father's aunt embroidered. He gave them to me after she died, because he found them when emptying out her house. I assume she made them herself. They are very pretty, and made on an amazingly small count. 

I think it is stitched on linen. The x'es are all very neat and very tiny. I hope I will be such a great stitcher one day. I really regret I only started cross stitching after all the old ladies in my family died, it would have been so much fun to talk about our hobbies with my grandmother and great-aunts. 

And of course, I want to show you a picture of Nemo being a silly attention seeker. I think he was thinking 'Why are you taking pictures of that, I am way cuter!'