Author: Anne S

Brightening my life one stitch or one card at a time, and sharing my joy of needlework and card-making.
Melbourne, Works in Progress

Still alive …

Anne S

… but not getting much stitching done! Been very very tired this week, and ended up with dizziness and throwing up compliments of a 24-hour virus (which also knocked Mum out yesterday too) – that meant a day off work yesterday, but back in again today. Sat here in a pool of sweat, with a temperature of 41C (if I’ve worked out the temperature correctly, that’s approx 109F!!) – seeing as we don’t have air conditioning in the flat, there will be no stitching done tonight/tomorrow!

I’ve been getting a lot behind with blogging yet again … having Mum here has upset my usual routine a bit (although I’m still loving having her here) – and she sees my time on the computer as being ‘time wasted’ … I may wait until she’s back home before I get back into the swing of things again with blogging …

One thing I’ve been loving over the last week or so, and that’s that the rainbow lorikeet population has been increasing in its fly-overs at the end of the day. There was one day during the week that there was a flock of what must have been at least 100 lorikeets – it was incredible! These are the most amazing birds to look at, although they fly over with the speed of a bullet, and an incredible squawking racket! They’re a really beautiful sight to behold 🙂 That’s one thing I love about being in Aussie – the amazing bird life. It amazed me to be driving down the road on the main roads, to see Gallah’s feeding on the median strips – and this morning we had a couple of sulphur-crested cockatoos squawking on the next door neighbour’s roof – just wonderful!

As far as my stitching’s been going, the only progress I’ve had is on my Le Jardin Silk Sampler – I just have 1 hour left before I finish my 10-hour slot in my rotation (I’m trying hard to get back into the rotation habit again!). Now I’m off work for a few days with Mum, so some more sightseeing is on the menu (although, we’re praying for an easing off in temperatures). We’re supposed to be going to Melbourne Zoo tomorrow during the day, followed by an open air jazz concert at the zoo in the evening … at an expected 42C again, though, we might only go to the zoo for a short time, and hide indoors for the rest of the day LOL.

Cross Stitch, Gifts TO BE FIXED, Works in Progress

There is an Angel out there …

Anne S

… and her name is Tobie!! I hope Tobie doesn’t mind, but I have to share something that happened to me today … Work today has been exceptionally difficult, in that I started at 4am – that means the alarm went off at 3am … and I’ve really really struggled to get through my day until 2pm this afternoon. They were needing people for overtime from 4am-7am to help with handling ex-London calls … deciding I really need the money for my birthday dinner, I put my hand up … never, ever again will I do that! My rostered 5am starts are bad enough, 4am is just WRONG! LOL.

So, today I left work like a rat up a drainpipe as soon as the clock hit 2pm … I felt like death warmed up, and probably looked it too! Anyway, my PO Box is a short 5 minute walk from work (I figured that was a more stable address than my home living situation when I first moved here, so that made more sense having one near work … but I digress …) – I made my daily pilgrimage to post my mail, and pick up the day’s bills … only to get the surprise of my life – sitting in that little PO Box was a parcel … thinking it was my Silkweaver FOTM finally arriving, I thought ‘that’s nice’ and wandered out the PO again. Then I started looking at the envelope thinking it was quite large for SW – then I looked more closely … it was NOT from SW – it was from an angel in the name of Tobie. Now I have to admit I knew a gift was coming from Tobie … which you can see from the following piccies:


Before (my current snippet ‘bag’)

After (my new, beautiful snippet bag!)
However, that envelope seemed awfully large for a little snippet bag (and if you haven’t seen these on Tobie’s blog beforehand, you’re really missing out!) … Sure enough, Tobie didn’t stop there – inside that envelope/parcel was a little stitcher’s treasure trove, and my jaw hasn’t been removed from the floor ever since I opened it! Inside was the snippet bag (in a beautiful blue, of course!), along with a kit of the Thistle Bag from M Designs (which was on my wishlist) – not only that, but also the fabric that is suggested on the chart (a lovely Lakeside linen) … but she didn’t even stop there – tucked inside the snippet bag was the most adorable hand-dyed threads by an Oklahoma designer called Windy Hill Designs … WOW!!!!!!!!!!! I don’t know what I did to deserve all that spoiling, but I feel very very blessed. Thanks again, Tobie, from the bottom of my heart! You’re a real sweetheart!! {{hugs}}


I did manage to pick my jaw up for 1 1/2 hours tonight, though, to take me 1/4 of the way through my 10 hour rotation slot for a new piece – Le Jardin Silk Sampler from some 1998 JCS magazines … just to prove it, here’s the progress piccie – not too much to show for it though – I think I was so boggle-eyed with tiredness tonight, I was stitching at about half speed haha. And I’m an hour late getting to bed, so I’ll be moaning again tomorrow when the alarm goes off at 4am … {groan}

Finishes

I met the challenge!

Anne S


I was a bit slow off the mark, but today I took part in a 24-hour stitching challenge on the FGBB – we had from 7pm last night to 7pm tonight to stitch something small … I was so exhausted last night I didn’t even choose a project never mind stitch on it – so today I started a bit late at 2pm … and finished 5 minutes late at 7pm – I’m pretty amazed I actually met the deadline (well, pretty darned close anyway!). I decided to do my Xmas ornie that is due to be stitched ready for posting 16 Feb, so it was a good excuse to get a ‘commitment stitching’ project out of the way early I stitched “Merry Yule” by Erica Michaels designs from the 2005 JCS ornie magazine. As part of the same group, I’m committing to stitching one Xmas ornie every month, and we’ve allocated a different designer each month to give us a bit of flexibility of stitching designs for the SAL – the designs I’ve chosen for the year are as follows (all from JCS ornie issues):

  • Feb – With My Needle – Star of Wonder (2002)
  • Mar – Prairie Schooler – Herald Angels (2003)
  • Apr – Homespun Elegance – Holly Noel (2005)
  • May – Full Circle Designs – Perfect Gifts (2004)
  • Jun – The Workbasket – Quaker Christmas Bulb (2003)
  • Jul – Jeannette Douglas Designs – one of her needlerolls
  • Aug – Threads Through Time – Reindeer Garden (2000)
  • Sep – The Sweetheart Tree – Merry Christmas Bellpull (2004)
Works in Progress

‘Blue Elegance’ update

Anne S


I finally managed to finish this week’s stitching assignment for my Blue Elegance piece (officially “Apricot Elegance” by Cindy Valentine) – I’m using Blueberry Watercolors thread on 28ct Cashel linen in an unknown blue colour from my stash … I thought it was quite ‘chunky’ on the 28ct linen, but I’ll keep persevering with it as I think the colour really blends well with just a bit of subtle shading. I’ve really enjoyed stitching this piece so far – it’s a nice change to stitch with some chunky threads and having something that grows so quickly!

The rest of the week has gone in a bit of a blur really … I finished my night shifts at 5am Monday morning, but only managed to get 4-5 hours sleep again … and was back at work again for 11am Wednesday – feeling very tired and very cranky! LOL. The only way I can explain it is that it’s like going from Australia to London (totally opposite time zones) to work for 3 days, then flying home to Australia again and going straight to work off the plane! Usually we get 4 days off after the night shifts to recover, but because I was covering the Hotline for two separate staff members, I ended up with split shifts and only 1 1/2 days off to recover … never ever again! I’ve felt like death all week – then Fraze came to stay on Thursday night (which was lovely to have his company as usual) so I didn’t get quality sleep again – now it’s my weekend and I feel like a train wreck 😦

Mum made me laugh last night – she knows I hadn’t been feeling great, so I walked in the door to the following greetings – first of all a bourbon and L&P all ready to add ice (sheer nectar!) … and the 2nd thing is she’d lined up my ‘lounge ducks’ in a row on the floor along with Bukta in front of the TV, saying they’d been having a lovely time watching cricket with her as a family night in – she’s a crack up! I swear she’s going through her second childhood! LOL. Poor Bukta (on the left) belongs to Fraze … it’s his childhood toy that we’ve tormented dreadfully since I moved to Aussie. It’s a long story how it all happened (and it was initiated by his best friend Scott), but we decided Bukta was a closet transvestite and dressed him in a dress, made him boobs, and a wig and he feels so much happier … you had to be there at the time, but it was hysterical to see Fraze’s face when he saw him (we attacked Bukta while he was at work). When I moved out I told Fraze I’d really miss Bukta in his little pink outfit (it never got removed, ‘cos it made us laugh) … so Mum and I hijacked him to play a joke on Fraze – we took him for a walk up to the beach here and I made him a little hammock out of chopsticks and a handkerchief … then we took a photo of him and sent it to Fraze from Bukta saying he was having a lovely time on holiday at the beach with Auntie Anne … we howled ourselves silly! And to this day Bukta still resides happily here – I keep telling Fraze to take him home, but he says he likes it here! So he sits permanently on top of my computer desk keeping my printer company 😉Can you tell I haven’t done much stitching this week? Not much to show at all, really – hence the other pictures haha. I don’t have much energy today, so stitching will be the best thing for me to chill out, I think (actually, I was told by Mum that’s my best relief, so I have to put a DVD in and get stitching – gee, I’m gonna miss her when she goes back home!). Am trying to talk Mum into staying an extra couple of weeks to the middle of February so she will be here for my birthday. I wasn’t going to do anything this year, but seeing as it’s a “decade” birthday, we’re going to go out to Dracula’s for dinner – it a theatre restaurant, and is fantastically funny! It’s not cheap, but it’ll be a good way to say goodbye to the dirty-30’s and hello to the naughty-40’s 🙂 The food is usually pretty good, and the show is absolutely side-splitting … then there is a big group going “grape grazing” the next day, which is a wine tasting tour on buses – they’re trying to talk me into going to that as well, so it will be a very unforgettable weekend all round if that’s the case! haha. Anyway, enough driveling on about nothing – off to wake up and try stitching again …

But a quick reply for Cathy … yup, I really do work for an airline, and yup you guessed the airline correctly! 🙂 We’re apparently the ony airline worldwide that has a call centre open 24 hours a day/7 days a week – aren’t we lucky? LOL. I worked for them in Auckland for 3 years, then moved to the ‘mother country’ where I’ve continued to work with them for another 2 1/2 years so far … and most of the time love it! I’m an international consultant there, but also do relief cover on the Supervisor (staff assist) Hotline, where we help consultants out finding information when they get stuck, taking escalated calls (not my fave part of the job), and trouble shooting … it can be very interesting, to say the least! 🙂

Blogging Memes

The Anthology of Anne – A to Z

Anne S

From Jenna’s blog:

A is for Age: 39 (but not for much longer!)
B is for Booze: Jim Beam and L&P (a Kiwi soft drink – I miss it!), or ‘original’ Margaritas, or Quick F*** shooters, or Golden Dream cocktails, or … yeah, OK, I enjoy a drink now and then! Jim Beam is usually my ‘fave’ though 🙂
C is for Career: Travel Consultant with an Airline
D is for Dad’s Name: Terence Henry
E is for Essential Item to Bring to a Party: Friends
F is for Favourite Songs at the Moment: Beautiful by James Blunt
G is for Goof-off Thing to Do: Web-surfing (usually stitching-related)
H is for Hometown: Doncaster, South Yorkshire (birthplace), but count Auckland, NZ as my actual ‘home’ – currently in Melbourne, Australia
I is for Instrument You Play: Used to play the recorder (!) and the viola (‘cos the saxophone classes were full!) – don’t play anything anymore
J is for Jam or Jelly you Like: Orange marmalade or Plum jam
K is for Kids: None
L is for Living Arrangement: 3rd floor 2-bedroom apartment/flat on my own
M is for Mom’s Name: June
N is for Names of Good Friends: My two real best friends are Frazier (Aussie) and Vicki (NZ)
O is for Overnight Hospital Stays: Gallbladder removal; Tonsilectomy
P is for Phobias: Spiders – BIG time!! I get chills just typing that word!!!
Q is for Quotes you Like: “What the…?” (from Rove, Aussie TV host/show)
R is for Relationship That Lasted Longest: Glenn (2 years, but long-distance)
S is for Siblings: None
T is for Texas: It’s also for Taupo, Tekapo and Toetoe!
U is for Unique Trait: Generous nature and sense of humour
V is for Vegetables You Love: Everything except cabbage! Really like fresh peas (but they never ever get in the saucepan!), asparagus, and silverbeet
W is for Worst Traits: Lack of confidence/self-esteem
X is for X-rays You’ve Had: Head (after concussion), knees (for joint pain), neck (for back pain)
Y is for Yummy Food You Make: Thai red curry and Mars bar slice (not together!)
Z is for Zodiac Sign: Aquarius

Finishes

And Many More …

Anne S


Yippee, I put the final stitches into my Any Many More needlecase – an exclusive kit for Silver Needle by Just Nan. As you can see from the initial in the centre of the ‘back’, I’ve decided to give this to Mum so it carries her first initial of “J”. Don’t know if I’ll get the actual finishing done before she goes back home to NZ, but I’ll give it a shot 😉

The back is shown upside down, but of course when it gets folded up, it will all be the right way round 🙂

Finishes

Finishing weekend

Anne S

Well, I managed to survive my 3 days of ‘doggo’ shifts – but I don’t know how!! The night before I started my first one my adorable neighbour downstairs was playing his Rachmaninov (or other ‘heavy’ composer) orchestral music at full bore until after midnight – I just about sprained my shins from stomping on the lounge floor in fury … very very inconsiderate! When he plays it that loud you can feel the vibrations through the floor up here, and hear every note as if you were in the room with him. Then yesterday, while I was trying to sleep during the day, he cranked it up again – can’t blame him, though, as it was a Sunday afternoon after all … was still annoying to only get 5 hours sleep, as it made for a very very long night last night – then for some reason today I had the problem of not being able to sleep … I managed 4 hours sleep, and here I am – if nothing else, it’s given me chance to finally catch up on everyone’s blogs, and I’m up to date again … phew! Now thanks to Newsgator it will be really simple to keep track of blogs to read in the future 🙂 It’s probably a good thing I woke up so early today, as I should be so exhausted by tonight, that I’ll get back into a ‘normal’ sleeping routine again … well, that’s the plan anyway! Then I have tomorrow off before starting back at 11am again on Wednesday.

It was the designated ‘finishing’ weekend for the WFBB this weekend, concentrating on ‘smalls’ – in my hours before work I managed to frog out the wrong stitches in the border of the LB Spring needleroll (and found they had printed the whole leaf round the wrong way on the chart, not just printing it one space out!) … but now I have another needleroll for my smalls basket, as I did the finishing on it yay.

As for today, we were going to go out, but with me looking like Frankenstein’s Bride today I think the best thing is to just blob out in the front of the TV and stitch … I’ve been managing to get a few stitches done in the evenings of doggo shift (the only shift I can really stitch, as it’s much more casual with only about 12 of us in the office), inbetween fixing dramas with people calling from Vienna airport without tickets and quoting fares for travel out of London and a multitude of other problems … I actually do love my job on the Hotline 🙂 So, the plan is to get my Just Nan needlebook finished (it’s almost done already – just another couple of hours will see it completed in full).

Finishes, Stash

First small finish for 2006

Anne S


Just a really quick post as I’m feeling pretty wrecked today … pulled a 10-hour shift last night (9pm-7am), and energy levels are a bit lacking … oh well, 1 shift down, 2 to go, then next week I only work 3 days before having a 2 day break again (which I’ll need!).

Managed to finally get my Love needleroll ornament finished – so it’s now gracing my smalls basket along with Jenna’s Peace ornament 🙂 Will get one more ornament stitched this month as part of an ornament RR – wonder which one it will be?

Other news is that I splurged again – the final part of my Christmas money has gone … I replaced my copy of Janice Love’s “Basics and Beyond” hardanger book – an old work colleague stole my original copy along with over $200 of other books (embroidery ones and Lonely Planets) … she borrowed them and never returned them, even after many requests, then left work never to be heard from again boohoo. Oh well, I’m glad to have this book back in my library again – it’s the best hardanger book around for beginners, and I really want to pick up hardanger again this year.

That’s it for me – hopefully I’ll be back blogging soon … I can just imagine all the lovely projects you’ve been stitching while I’ve been gone – it’s gonna take me a full week to catch up! I’ve tried loading up Newsgator to try and help to keep on top of blogs, but for some reason it’ll only pick up about 1/3-1/2 of your blogs with the RSS feeds – and I don’t know why as most people use Blogger … not my area of expertise, that’s for sure!

SBQ

Stitching Bloggers Questions

Anne S

Oops, forgot last week’s question, so you get a 2-for-1 deal this week 😉

Image hosted by Photobucket.com The 28 December’s SBQ was suggested by Nancy and is:

“How do you balance your stitching time with your other obligations such as work, household chores, etc?”

What do you mean? Are we supposed to still do chores as WELL as stitching?? Oops … haha. I have to admit, work always comes first – but as a shift worker my hours are pretty erratic, and affects my energy levels (both mental and physical) which affects how much stitching I get done, which can be negative or positive depending on the shifts. As for housework etc, now I live on my own I’m much more lax with housework than I used to be – I don’t cook every night, and can easily ignore the dust, which helps to allow more free time haha. My biggest downfall for stitching time has, to be honest, been my blogging/computer time – I can lose track of hours at a time, and sometimes look at my stitching and think about how much progress I could have made if I hadn’t been looking at that computer screen 🙂 But if I hadn’t been blogging or sat here, I wouldn’t have met such wonderful online friends – so it all balances out :))

Image hosted by Photobucket.com The 4 January’s SBQ was suggested by Renee and is:

“Do you do your stash shopping at your LNS, ONS, or both? Which do you like better? Why?”

Aha, an easy one to answer – I shop from both, but predominantly from offshore ONS. The reason for both is easy – I prefer to shop from my LNS where I can see first-hand the colours of the threads etc before making a decision, but the only problem is for imported threads (which is 90% of them) we pay almost double what people pay in the US … so I tend to buy most of my supplies (except DMC, only because it’s easier, and I usually need that ‘now’ – DMC is still a lot more expensive too at up to AU$1.00 a skein) from ONS such as Stitching Bits & Bobs. I buy when they have their 25% off sales, which then offsets the postage costs, and I still save money overall. I would much rather support my LNS and keep them in business, but can’t justify the extra cost (especially now my finances have changed dramatically, and every cent saved is a good one!).

Uncategorized

Just a quick visit

Anne S

I haven’t been blogging for a few days – to be honest, I haven’t been in the mood … just been chatting to Mum after work, and getting a bit of stitching time in. I’ve managed to get over halfway on the And Many More needlecase by Just Nan. I’m loving stitching this one, but Mum reckons it should be her initial in the centre of the circle instead of mine … hmmm looks like I might have lost my new needlecase already! The only thing that really annoyed me when I bought this kit, is that there are no finishing instructions whatsoever in it … mutter mutter mutter. You have to buy the instructions and finishing kit from another source – considering I don’t want to have prissy pink flowers on the inside of my needlecase (you may get the impression that I’m not overly keen on pink, and you’d be right LOL), I don’t want to go to the expense of getting the kit just to find out how to finish it. I’m not worried about finishing the needlepages like the petals of a flower, so I’m hoping I’ve got it worked out OK – if anyone can make a better suggestion for finishing, I’d really love to hear your suggestions! I figure I’ll finish it something like a bellpull, in that I’ll place the lining fabric on it (right sides facing), stitch around the outsides up both long sides and around the ‘point’, and leave the bottom short edge partly open – then I’ll turn it back the right way, finish off the bottom edge, then stitch oblong needle pages (made from wool flannel) along the edge where it will be folded … does that make sense? That’s my first attempt at working out how to do it.

I also forgot to post a piccie of another Lorri Birmingham needleroll I started in the last few days of December – I didn’t get very far, but it’ll go into the pile for finishing in 2006 (hopefully sooner rather than later!)

I also finally decided on my fabric and threads (well, most of them anyway) for my Apricot Elegance SAL on the StitchingSmalls Yahoo group – just for a change, I’m stitching mine in blues … still have to do a test stitch to see which will work out better on the fabric for the main satin motifs, either the Caron Collection Watercolours (my preference) or Wildflowers, both in Blueberry. The contrast is an overdyed perle cotton #8 by The Dyepot in NZ – I’ll either order a #12 skein from them for the weaving, or find a ‘normal’ thread in a turquoise to match (can’t find a PC anywhere that is just a nice turquoise colour boohoo). You probably can’t tell from the photo, but the perle cotton has a lovely mix of mauve, purple, turquoise etc – it’s really pretty. Just have to do the gridline basting this week, before the stitching begins next week – looking forward to seeing this one stitched up 🙂

Am on the ‘doggo’ shifts after tomorrow so my routine will be out the window again – just love those shifts from 9pm-5am … not. Oh well, if nothing else, it means I have a full day to myself on Friday to stitch my little heart out. Hopefully after this weekend I can get back to my blogging habits too 🙂