J is for Jewel

This post is really late - I came home from work, crashed, and took a three hour nap!  I'll never be able to get to sleep tonight!!!  Also it's really dark so the flash burnt my pics out a little bit.

One of the first gifts someone in my family gave me when I started stitching was a Gold Collection kit called 'Jewels of the Orient'.  I didn't start it immediately, shockingly enough, for two reasons.  First, I was pretty sure it was going to be hmm, high impact? and I loved it and wanted more experience so I wouldn't screw it up.

And secondly, they bought it from someone on eBay, and it had been opened - and the pattern was gone!  Kind of hard to stitch something that way!  I finally emailed Dimensions with a question as to whether I could buy a replacement pattern, explaining why, and they sent me it for free!  I love Dimensions : D

Anyway, I still haven't started the kit, but my family decided that since I loved that one so much, well - there were more!  And the next year for Christmas I got two more Gold Collection kits.  These are the lovely three:

Jewels of the Orient, The Mighty Samurai, and Elegance of the Orient.  I did start the Samurai - can't resist a handsome fellow, lol! - but he's only got around one hand done and a bit of pink belt.  This is a really bad picture taken a while back:

The thing was, that my family calls all these kits 'those Jewel kits', and ask when they'll be stitched.  So I refer to any Oriental-style project or kit as a Jewel now.  Hence the post title!  The reason my family wonders when these will be done is that my bedroom is done in Oriental art, and I wanted these for that reason.  If I ever get my pictures up - they require some work support-wise because they're heavy - I'll take some photos and show off : D

I eventually bought these miniature kits to go with the big ones, after seeing them on other blogs:

Mai, Samurai, and Elegant Geisha.

I also have these two - the first one was a gift, and the second I bought a few days ago at JoAnn's:

Three Geishas, and East Meets West.  That last one will be huge - 16x20!

And then there is HAED - my eternal weakness!  One of the first two patterns I ever bought was Stephanie Pui-Mun Law's 'Poet'



Then Marta Dahlig's 'His Only Friend' came later:


And recently I got Asian Fantasy 3 by Gracjana Zielinska:


All three of those are fully kitted and ready to start.

And lastly, there's these pretty Pinn Stitch patterns:



Chinese Blessing Fishes and Fish of Fortune.  These are not kitted up yet.

So I guess what this post should tell you is that I am insane, that my family is fond of me, and that I have enough stash to last me several hundred years!

PS - here's a wee freebie pattern I did a few years ago - Kimiko from the International Bears that Vermillion Stitchery made.  You can buy the bears in book format now, with a bear of the opposite gender to match each one.