Author: Anne S

Brightening my life one stitch or one card at a time, and sharing my joy of needlework and card-making.
Home & Family TO BE FIXED, Melbourne

A Walk on the Wild Side & an unexpected gift

Anne S

Actually the title should probably be “Animal Quackers” ‘cos there are a few birds in these shots (surprise, surprise haha).  We survived a day at Healesville Sanctuary yesterday in the sweltering heat (38C), although we were exhausted by the end of the day.  We finished the day off with a quick stop at Emerald Lake Park, but we were so tired from the heat by then we just took a couple of duck photos and left again.  Anyway, we thought we’d share a couple of our favourite shots of the local wildlife from yesterday … makes a change from stitching 😉 (all the piccies are clickable for bigger versions)

 
An Aussie wildlife park just wouldn’t be the same without a Wallaby or two!


A Lace Monitor – he chose the time of our visit to clamber around, so it was hard to get a photo of him sitting still … but I love the pose in this one!


The pelicans reminded me of a holiday in Greece – two were casually walking among the visitors … I went a bit pelican-mad photo-wise, so I’ve just chosen one to share.


A male Lyrebird – first time I’ve managed to catch sight of one – the last time I visited I couldn’t find him in the aviary!


A Kookaburra taken through fine mesh wiring, so it came out really well considering … I really love this shot.


I’m not sure what type of duck this one is but she’s cute!


Awwww, I just love this one – my favourite type of all ducks, she’s just beautiful!!

Today we braved the elements outdoors for a shorter period of time and just walked up to the local Video Ezy store to pick up a few DVD’s to watch – even with just an hour in this heat and we were ready to retire in front of the electric fan for the afternoon.  I had an unexpected birthday gift left by my apartment on our return, though … it decided to give me a piece of the architraving – such a generous gift, but I really wish it hadn’t!  So tomorrow will be spent giving my real estate agent a kick in the pants, as well as phoning the landlord directly because the agent is doing sod all about these cracks … I took a few other piccies as well of cracks that are worsening, but I won’t bore you with those.  I will, however, share the lovely birthday gift we came home to … or at least where it “used to be” 😦

PhotoHunt

PhotoHunt – Antique

Anne S


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Not being into ‘antique’ items, such as brooches, furniture etc (I’m more of a modern girl at heart), I struggled with this week’s theme – I thought of putting Mum’s photo up, but she wasn’t amused 😉 (actually she did suggest it later when I was still struggling).

This is the best I could come up with … some ‘antique’ buildings from a visit to Egypt about 10 years ago.


Temple of Hathor at Abu Simbel (an extremely long day trip from Aswan, but sooooo worth it!!)


From the Temple of Kom Ombo on the banks of the Nile


Inside the tomb of Ramses IV in the Valley of the Kings

Cross Stitch, Finishes, Gifts TO BE FIXED, Melbourne, Stitching Smalls, Works in Progress

Leporello & more birthday gifts

Anne S

As promised yesterday, I can finally share Nicki’s beautiful gift with you – every time I’ve seen one of Nicki’s gorgeous over-one stitched letters I’ve drooled … now I can drool over my very own one!  I just adore my pinkeep, it’s stitched and finished perfectly as always … and once again very scrummy colours! 😉  As well as my gorgeous pinkeep, Nicki also sent a really cute notebook too, which will come in very handy! 😀  Thanks again Nicki, I love everything and will treasure my pinkeep always! And I love the clever personalisation on the back! 😀

   

The other photos I have to share are of my Stitching Leporello – part one is now all finished.  I just realised I had the stitching on a bit of an angle, so the camera has blurred the bottom part of the ‘frontal’ photo as I used my SLR, but you get the idea … also I tried to take one photo on an angle to show up the beads.  I really need to get a tripod so I can take better photos – another challenge for the year, I think, to improve my photography skills!  In the meantime, though, these’ll have to suffice.  As usual with this sort of design, the photos don’t do the project justice whatsoever … it’s just gorgeous in real life!  Unfortunately, though, it won’t see the light of day for at least another 3 months, as my upcoming stitching time will now be spent on the CA Wells class projects plus a birthday gift or two.

 

And on that note, I’ll shut down for the day, as Mum and I are off to Healesville Sanctuary for the day – and if we have time we’ll call into Emerald Lake Park before coming home.  It will be nice to have a day out in the fresh air.

Thanks again to everyone who has left me birthday wishes – I really appreciate all the comments, e-cards, and private emails I’ve received … thanks for helping to make the day extra special {{hugs}}.

Cross Stitch, Gifts TO BE FIXED, Stitch-alongs

Wonderful birthday today

Anne S

Today was officially my birthday (the 16th), and I had a very very restful day … it was spent unexpectedly stitching with Mum, watching DVD’s and just generally relaxing – I now only have 15 beads left to go on part 1 of my Stitching Leporello … I was so hoping to have it finished today, but I ran out of time before we had to sprint out the door.  I have to say those little pieces are very deceiving – it’s taken me forever to finish that one square, but I did enjoy having a spot of selfish birthday stitching 😉

This afternoon we drove into Camberwell early to clear the PO Box of its contents, and do a bit of shopping to kill time before dinner at Cafe Platia (my favourite Greek & Mediterranean restaurant).  I bought about 12 big packets of chocolate bars (individual little Mars bars, Snickers, Malteser bags, Bounties etc) and took them into work for my work colleagues … they thought it was crazy me going into work on my annual leave just to bring them in choccies for my birthday when I’m not even there to share them, but I couldn’t wait until my return in a week and a half!  Fraze was almost in the dog-box when he rocked up to dinner well over an hour late, but he redeemed himself by bringing me a birthday card 😉  Mum and I shared a bottle of Yellow sparkling wine, and we stocked up at Dan Murphy’s for a day in tomorrow … with another two bottles of wine for me, and a “slab” of Victoria Bitter beer for Mum haha 😀

During the week I received some gorgeous birthday gifties from Katrina and KarenV – my sincere apologies to you both for the delay in posting my gift piccies … I meant to do it yesterday, then realised the piccies I’d taken weren’t very clear against the blue of the sofa, so I re-did them today against my turquoise pashmina.  I also received another beautiful gift from Nicki this afternoon, but the light is shocking in my flat in the evenings so I’ll have to wait until tomorrow to take a piccie.

The first piccie I have to share is of my gorgeous pillow from Katrina … it’s in the most scrummy blue colours, and I just adore the little tassels at the corners!  I feel very honoured to have this beautiful gift, it’s just sooooo lovely!  And to top it off Katrina also sent me a home-made birthday card too, which is just awesome 😀  I love everything Katrina, and feel very spoilt … and how perfect are those colours for me?  Yep, they’re definitely Annie colours! 😀 

Next up is a beautiful pillow from KarenV … it’s quite funny because I’d just sent Katrina an email asking if she would be willing to offer a tutorial in making one of these little flanged pillows for the new finishing blog, ‘cos I’d love to make one myself (and Katrina is the Queen of Pillows, not just Needlerolls!) – and here I have one in the flesh!  The first thing I did was to be nosey to work out how they’re made, and I think I finally have it worked out 🙂  I just adore the fabric and threads used (it’s my all-time favourite Anchor variegated thread), and the design is just so “me” 😀  I adore my little pillow, but to top it off Karen also sent one of the charts off my wishlist, Grandma’s Stitching Accessories, which I can’t wait to stitch (I’m already thinking about silk threads I can substitute for the Dinky Dyes ones) … but there was an added little extra that I truly LOVE – a little ducky keyring!!  How gorgeous and perfect is that??  I’ve been looking for years for a nice duck keyring, and now I have one.  I love everything, Karen, thanks again so much 😀 

I also have a couple of stitching updates for the week – it’s been a couple of weeks since I’ve shown my progress of the Macaw SAL with Carina … I can finally show some actual progress after this week’s stitching on Wednesday – it’s even starting to look like something more than a blob!  It’ll be a long long time before this one is finished though!

Next up is my progress on the Bordeaux Sampler – I did my stitching earlier in the week, and there’s not a great deal to show for it … I unpicked the errors I’d made in the previous band and restitched the leaves in green – probably no point showing a piccie, as it looks no different than last week really … aside from band 3’s leaves, I just added a bit more of the green grapevine ‘stems’ on the left-hand side.  Hopefully next week will show more progress on this one.  Carol has now almost caught me up … I told her it wouldn’t be too long before she’s overtaking me on this one, but she thought I was joking haha.

I was hoping to show my Leporello finish today, but that’ll have to wait until tomorrow now after I’ve attached those last 15 beads – then I can also unveil Nicki’s beautiful gift as well.  For now, though, I’m going to check out Healesville Sanctuary online, and see if it’s close enough to Lake Emerald to visit both in one day … as that’s possibly in the pipeline for tomorrow, if I can get out of bed early enough … especially seeing as it’s midnight already! 😉

Finishing

A blog is born … “Focus on Finishing”

Anne S

Yes, the time has come when our new blog can finally be revealed in all its glory, and the welcome mat is officially laid outside the front door! 


You can either click on the piccie above, or follow the hyperlink to our new blog home:
 http://focusonfinishing.wordpress.com/

I’ve copied our information from the blog to remind you what it’s all about:

“This blog has been set up as a resource both for stitchers who already enjoy finishing their own stitching creatively and want to develop and share their skills and also for those stitchers who would love to do so but don’t know where to start. It aims to be a place where you can learn new techniques, receive and give finishing help and advice and share pictures of your finished items with everyone. It also aims to provide a centralised information resource of finishing techniques, with pages dedicated to both tutorial links and links to websites/online albums for inspiration.

We hope to organise regular finishing classes where people can learn specific finishing techniques and also have regular FALs (Finish-A-Longs), where we set aside a certain time every week or month to finish up some of those stitched-but-not-yet-finished projects using any method you like. More information can be found on the Class/FAL schedule page.

If you wish to contribute to this blog as a poster rather than just a commenter, you’ll need to create a WordPress account (no need to create a blog, unless you want to) and then email Anne or Karen with your details (including the email address you signed up with).”

This is a blog that will be assisted greatly by your contributions – especially in feedback as to what you’d like to see included by the way of tutorials and finishing techniques, and sharing any finishing you’ve completed yourself.  Also, if you know of any finishing tutorials online that we don’t have included, or any stitcher’s albums that have some great inspirational finished items, we’d love to hear about them … sharing is definitely to be encouraged!

We hope this will turn out to be a great place to hang out with friends and learn something new, as well as those with more experience sharing that experience with others.  We look forward to seeing you there, so please do visit and make yourselves at home!

Cross Stitch, Gifts TO BE FIXED, Stash

Birthday joy & Finishing blog

Anne S

My face must have told a 1000 words yesterday if you’d seen me open my birthday parcel from Carol  … certainly the girl next to me at work got to share a fair bit of the excitement! 

Thank you so much my dear friend for my gifts – as I said to you via email, I absolutely adore everything!  I’ve never seen a tin-topper in real life, and this one is absolutely perfect in every way!  Carol says the design is reminiscent of New England, her home, which makes it extra special to me.  She was also thoughtful to send the stitching details along with it (what a great idea!) – it is Down East Tin Topper by Samplers & Such, stitched on Dirty Belfast linen with DMC … and I just adore it! 

Not only the tin topper, though, Carol also send a darling pair of scissors and some needles inside the tin (I forgot to take a piccie, sorry) – and I’m going to add the wee scissor fob Carol sent me for Christmas to the scissors, as it’ll fit nicely in the tin … which is going to take pride of place next to me on my stitching table.  The tin topper would have been plenty enough, but I also received a large selection of Crescent Colour threads, which are one of my favourite overdyed threads, and the most scrummy turquoise fabric (that I’m planning a use for already, so you’ll have to watch this space later in the year!) … I still can’t believe it’s all for me!! 😀 

hanks again, Carol, you are a total sweetheart, and I love everything!!

 

My free time over the last couple of days has been spent playing with my photo editing program to get a header together or our new Finishing blog … and Karen and I have been tweaking it a bit so we’re not far away from being able to publish details about it.  I’m really looking forward to this new venture, and already thinking of finishing techniques I’d like to learn.  Anyway, watch this space for the details soon!

The rest of my time this week has been spent on finishing two birthday gifts (which unfortunately will be arriving belatedly at their new homes), and planning my stitching time for the next two months in readiness for the CA Wells class in April.  There is an exceptional amount of work involved, and I’ve worked out what I’ll need to get stitched by the end of each week between now and then to have everything finished in time … all I can say is I’m grateful I’ve got two weeks off work as at 11pm tonight, as I think I’m going to need it!!  I also have to get cracking on another birthday gift … I’ve got my heart set on a project, but it might be a bit ambitious going by the timeframe hmmm.

And on that note I’ll sign off again – partly as it’s now time to go to work (last day for two weeks, yippee!!), and partly ‘cos I have nothing else to say LOL.

Cross Stitch, Gifts TO BE FIXED, Needlerolls

Birthday Gifts

Anne S

This is just a quick post, as Mum and I are busy today … but I just wanted to share the beautiful gifts I received in the mail this week from a couple of dear online friends.  I’ll be floating around on cloud nine all day today grinning like a banshee, as I love my gifts very very much!

First of all, from Becky I received this gorgeous needleroll – it’s one of my favourite needleroll designs, and I just adore it!  I was actually going to stitch this one for myself at some stage, but now I don’t need to 😀 And the extra stationery goodies are wonderful too, as I just adore stationery items.  I love everything, thank you so much Becky … and I’ll always treasure my needleroll stitched by you!

  

Next up is the gorgeous book I received from sweet Isabelle … reading how I’ve been wanting to try my hand at Cartonnage, she chose a cartonnage book that is filled with wonderful projects for stitchers … how perfect is that?  I’m really keen to stitch the button box on the cover, and my head is now getting filled with ideas.  I can’t wait until I can start making one of these!  I really love my gift, Isabelle – as I said to you in my email, it was a perfect choice! 😀

Now I just have to apologise in advance, that I’m not getting much chance to read blogs at the moment while Mum’s here.  I’ll keep popping online every now and then to read, so I can try to keep semi-up-to-date, but I may not be leaving many comments.  As Barbara said in a comment, I need to enjoy the time during Mum’s visit, so my online time will be more limited over the next few weeks.  I’ll pop in and post every now and then when I’ve got something to share though 😀

Cross Stitch, Finishes, Food, Gifts TO BE FIXED, Home & Family TO BE FIXED, Works in Progress

A sip of Bordeaux (updated with finish info)

Anne S

Seeing as Carol as published her progress piccie of Bordeaux, I can now show my week’s progress as well – it’s a good thing I did my night’s stitching a couple of days ago, as I’ve been too busy yapping to Mum to concentrate on much else 🙂  This week I just managed one more little ‘man’ and a few more Rhodes grapes to complete the hanging vines, plus a couple in the border … I’m now exceptionally close to being halfway, and hopefully in about 2 weeks I’ll have met that milestone!

Mum and I just popped over to The Needle Point (old Bustle & Bows in Malvern) to find a couple of buttons, seeing as they have probably the best selection I’ve seen in Melbourne to date … unfortunately they didn’t have what I had in mind, but I managed to find a couple of charms that fit the bill quite nicely, so now I can put the final touch to my best friend’s belated birthday gift, and the last ornie I stitched.  Vicki’s birthday was in November, but that was when I had my financial meltdown and couldn’t afford to buy bread and milk, never mind parcel postage costs, so I’ve been unable to think about mailing it until recent times.  I don’t know if she reads my blog regularly, but I don’t think she’ll mind a sneak preview anyway, as it’s been long overdue … I’ll post another piccie when it’s finished-finished, as I want to make it into a quilted wallhanging (which’ll be a first for me).  But here it is, with all the stitching completed … I ended up choosing a silver heart charm instead of the recommended button/bead, and it seems to compliment the design well (you can click for a bigger piccie on this one).  On the whole I enjoyed stitching this one, but it took a lot longer to stitch than expected … the only part I didn’t enjoy was the outside borders of smyrna crosses in #8 pearl cotton (yuk!).


Friendship by Calico Crossroads
Stitched on mystery 28ct linen with recommended threads
substituted silver heart charm for Mill Hill glass treasure

You can tell Mum’s in the country … from my meagre pantry offerings from the last few months, the following plate is definitely NOT the norm, and probably won’t be seen throughout the rest of Mum’s stay (after that, that is haha) – but it was a wonderful treat for our first night 😀  Yep, we’re both prawn MAD … don’t they look scrummy? 😀  That was our snack in the afternoon … then the rest of the prawns for dinner along with some Turkish bread and a selection of dips (Tzatziki, hummus, spicy capsicum), stuffed green olives, Kalamata olives, stuffed bell peppers, grilled mushrooms and artichokes … yummo!!!

 

Now on to the awesome gifties Mum brought with her … I received a lovely sarong from Auntie Trudy in Auckland – even though it’s not blue haha, I love bright colours, so the orange has gone down a treat, especially as I love all the Hawaiian/Fijian style prints like this. 

Then of course there was the usual ‘Red Cross parcel’ from Mum – this time she came loaded up with Twisties, Griffins Gingernuts (sorry, but they beat Arnott’s gingernuts hands down in my eyes), and Malaysian style noodles packet mix that you can’t buy here … and to top it all off some NZ Cadbury chocolate – believe it or not, it’s very different to the Aussie Cadbury chocolate, and is actually a bit creamier.  Bang goes any thoughts of a diet I might have been having! haha. 

Last, but certainly not least – this is my Christmas present from my very best friend Vicki … my jaw hit the floor when I opened up this gift, and I actually felt quite overcome.  I absolutely ADORE this photo of us at Vicki’s wedding – we just look so ‘in tune’ with one another and completely at ease and loving the moment … I have to say it has been my favourite wedding ever, and it brought some wonderful memories back.  I’d just become a poor student before she got married, so I never could afford to buy some of the official wedding photos from the photographer at the time – it’s just wonderful to have one to grace my walls now.  I have to say out of everything, I adore this gift the most … it has a very special place in my heart!  Thanks so much Vicki, with all my heart!!  (Sorry about the poor photo, with the reflections from the windows etc – but it should be clickable) This is also the wedding that I promised the “Dratteds” (Dolphins Domain) as a wedding gift 😀  Also very special is the necklace I’m wearing – Vicki made that herself … the dangling part is from an earring that was her very favourite pair she bought at the Vatican – she lost one of them, and chose to give me the remaining one as part of my necklace … something I’ll always treasure, as I know how much she loved them!

The last photo I’ll show is of a few of the small gifts I gave to Mum … a couple of Christmas XS mags full of ornies for her to stitch, plus a pair of Gingher’s shears for her dressmaking (an early birthday present, even though her birthday isn’t until May it’s unlikely I’ll be seeing her again before then), plus some small Gingher’s scissors for her embroidery.  I also had a pile of Christmas fabrics for us to share, but we haven’t divvied it up yet, so no piccies. 

And on that note I’d better sign off … I’ve managed to get tomorrow off work, thank goodness, as I’m still really struggling to get over my night shifts this week, even more so than normal.  Even Mum commented how dark the circles are under my eyes today, just to cheer me up haha.  Now we’re off up the road to pick up a few more fresh groceries ready to cook dinner … the final lot of prawns we bought (we’re making a Thai Green Curry from half of them, and Garlic Aioli Prawns from the other half).  Then we’re back to having cheap food like spaghetti bolognaise for the rest of the week LOL. I actually received two other birthday parcels, but I haven’t opened them yet … I think the temptation may finally break tomorrow though! LOL.