Anne S

Food, Heartstrings, Home & Family TO BE FIXED, Photo Hunt, PhotoHunt, Uncategorized

Photo Hunt – Half (15 May)

15 November, 201025 February, 2012 Anne S

The theme for 15 May was ”Half” and here are a couple of crayfish cut in half and baking in the oven. The dreadful thing is that there were only three of us for dinner, so we got an extra half to share (and mostly for the chef, me – yummo! 😀 I think this is my favourite way to cook crayfish (lobsters to you, up north), however at $50 each crayfish it’s definitely a real “treat” once in a decade! 😛

Then of course there is the Half a pumpkin that I’m still working on in the lounge … it’s almost growing at the same rate as a real pumpkin, very very slowly. Fingers crossed my threads arrive this year so I can get it finished sooner rather than later!

Cross Stitch, Forget-Me-Nots in Stitches, Photo Hunt, PhotoHunt, Uncategorized

Photo Hunt – Miniature (16 October)

14 November, 201025 February, 2012 Anne S

PhotoHunt | PhotoHunt

The theme for 16 October was ”Miniature” and here’s one of the smallest pieces of stitching I’ve completed – and most definitely the smallest I’ve ever had framed (and the smallest the framer had ever completed, they found it quite a challenge!). The stitching is just over an inch tall and just under 2 inches wide 🙂 (The bottom photo is the closest to the actual colour of the fabric etc.)

Friends & Family, Home & Family TO BE FIXED, Photo Hunt, PhotoHunt

Photo Hunt – Mother/Mum (8 May)

14 November, 201025 February, 2012 Anne S

PhotoHunt | PhotoHunt

The theme on 8 May was ”Mother/Mum” and for a change here’s a photo of my Mum’s Mum – Nannan herself. The photo was taken in June 1956.

And if that’s not enough, here’s a photo of my own dear Mum in her younger days 🙂 Unfortunately I don’t know how old Mum was in this photo – can you help me out with this one Mum??

Cross Stitch, Finishes, Great Pumpkin Challenge 2010, Halloween, Just Nan

More pumpkins

14 November, 20106 April, 2014 Anne S

Yesterday I had a productive day that started off with planting up some parsley, thyme and chives into pots, along with a stunning velvety red pelargonium, followed by 3 loads of laundry, and finishing with a few hours of quality stitching time while sitting in front of the goggle-box clearing out some taped movies and TV shows. This is the end result of my stitching efforts last night (plus the final 15 minutes of backstitching this morning):

“Horrified!” by Just Nan
Stitched on 32ct Pipi hand-dyed Belfast linen by Countrystitch
with recommended DMC threads
(but used B5200 instead of Blanc)

Then this morning I started another Just Nan ornament, which I forgot to take a photo of … it will probably only take me a couple more hours to finish it off, so I might as well wait until it’s finished now before taking piccies. That one is called “Scream Girls” – just perfect for my Sunday Halloween SAL with Shelleen 🙂

And on that note, I’m heading off to put the electric fan on, and put my feet up in bed and stitch for a couple more hours 🙂

Photo Hunt, PhotoHunt

Photo Hunt – Itchy

13 November, 201025 February, 2012 Anne S

PhotoHunt | PhotoHunt

This week’s theme is ”Itchy” and quite frankly I’m at a bit of a loss for an appropriate photo for this theme. The only thing I can think of is a dog I had to look after during house-sitting in Melbourne – she had such a bad flea problem, we were both itchy for the entire time … until I finally got so fed up I went out and bought some flea treatment for her!! Other than the flea problem and the incessant barking, she was a beautiful mild-mannered dog that was a pleasure to house-sit for 🙂

I will look at posting photo choices for the themes I’ve missed over the next few weeks.

Cross Stitch, Gifts TO BE FIXED, Halloween, Stash, Stitching Smalls, The Drawn Thread

Awesome squishy mail day!!

10 November, 201025 February, 2012 Anne S

Today I braved the surface flash flooding and pelting rain of a late afternoon storm and cleared out the PO Box, and was thrilled to see a little card in the box – ‘cos that means there’s squishy mail waiting for me inside the building. Sure enough, I was absolutely THRILLED to open the parcel sent from Marnie, as it contained my prize winnings from her recent prize draw. Unfortunately the photos don’t do this little beauty justice – this little vampire stitching case is seriously awesome! The finishing is absolutely stunning, and there is even the most perfect little pincushion and scissor fob tassel inside! All I need to do now is decide on the perfect pair of scissors to live in this beauty permanently, and it’s going to be on display all year round … I mean, seriously, could you put this away until next Halloween? I definitely can’t! 😀

Not only did Marnie provide the stitching case itself, but she also added a little vampire Pez dispenser (so I am no longer a “Pez virgin”) – alas, the pieces inside the dispenser didn’t survive the drive home, which was a marathon due to the surface flooding, as I scoffed the lot during the drive! Also in the parcel was a few really cool Halloween freebies, that I can’t wait to stitch up. I’ll be cutting up fabrics for them this weekend, and adding them to my Halloween “to-do-pile” for the coming weeks. Thanks again Marnie for an AWESOME parcel of treats – I love, love, LOVE everything! 😀

The other mail was compliments of Ann in Scotland having a stash sale – I’m now the proud owner of 4 Drawn Thread charts (Toccata 1, 2, 3, and Chatelaine and Scissors Keeper), along with some of the threads needed (plus the chatelaine fabric). I’m looking forward to starting at least one of these soon, once I’ve procured the remaining threads. They look like they’ll be really fun stitching a motif or two each night/weekend 🙂

And on that note it’s time to switch off the “fun” side of the computer, and switch on to the “work mode” side … things are beyond hectic at work thanks to someone’s oversight in another department at the 11th hour, and having an unstable test system … I’m days behind in my own work, so I’ve brought it all home with me tonight to try and get at least 1-2 hours done at home. I just have to force myself to keep away from the fun stuff on here, which is really really hard … 😛

Heartstrings, Works in Progress

Two more pumpkin rows

9 November, 201025 February, 2012 Anne S

I managed to get two more rows finished on my Heartstrings pumpkin last night before we shut down all the power on the PCs etc and hid in our bedrooms for the rest of the night. We had a horrendous lightning storm last night that had the room lit up for most of the night and so close you could hear the sizzle of the strikes before the main crack of the lightning and booming thunder … to say I wasn’t particularly enjoying myself last night would be an understatement! Anyway, I still managed to get some decent sleep, and the PCs etc are all working this morning so the power spikes don’t appear to have done any damage thank goodness. And on that note, here’s my latest stitching progress (our boss made us go home early yesterday afternoon due to the storm and impending hail that was about to descend – didn’t have to ask me twice, it gave me more stitching time at home haha) 🙂

Cross Stitch, Heartstrings, Just Nan, Works in Progress

Stitching update

8 November, 201025 February, 2012 Anne S

So much for my fantastic stitching day yesterday – after pottering around and wasting most of the morning and early afternoon, I gave in to my body’s whims and ended up having a 3-hour nanna nap … which felt great at the time, as I obviously really needed it, but it wasn’t exactly conducive to sleeping when it was eventually bedtime! So, at 10pm I pulled over the stitching frame and started a new little Halloween piece. I didn’t get too far along with it, but at least it’s a start – even if it currently looks like a funky bright flower, not the four pumpkins that it will eventually be 🙂

Shelleen invited me to join her for a Halloween SAL on Sundays, and I have so many Halloween projects that I’d like to stitch, so it’s likely that most Sundays I’ll do just that. So this is my Sunday Halloween SAL progress for the first week (although I don’t know how I’m going to stop myself from not stitching on them again until next Sunday – I’m kinda getting used to being a ‘one project stitcher’ … kinda … LOL).

I’m still stitching occasionally on my Heartstrings project in the lounge, with the odd row stitched here and there during the week. I’m looking forward to getting the missing threads, though, so I can get further along with the embellishments on each row. It’s an interesting stitch, this one, and it’s nice to be able to complete one little section of rows each stitching session.

Ducks, Home & Family TO BE FIXED

It’s Annette’s Fault!

7 November, 201025 February, 2012 Anne S

Thanks to Annette posting her piccies of Halloween prize draws, I spied a little rubber Vampire duck in one of the photos … OF COURSE I had to run straight to Ebay to track one down myself … so the following is all on Annette’s head!

It’s not identical to Annette’s one, but it comes along with other Halloween friends, and I just aodre them!!! 😀 (If you’re in Australia and you want to buy your own, check out this Ebay seller.)

And these others just decided to come along for the ride … haha. I intend having a regular little seasonal display on my side table next to my stitching chair throughout the year, and what could be better than adding a duckie or two in each display?? Do I need them? No, I don’t … Do I love them??? Oh Yes, I do!!!! Where ducks are concerned, I refuse to ever grow up 😀

Home & Family TO BE FIXED, John Travolta, Sydney

Star-struck (picture heavy!!)

7 November, 201025 February, 2012 Anne S

Yesterday it was the 90th Birthday celebration for my employers – and staff and family were able to get free tickets to an Open Day at the Sydney Jet Base. Unfortunately the weather was dreadful and the rain affected a lot of the offering on the day such as food stalls etc, but we had the opportunity to climb onboard a number of different aircraft and enjoy some live music throughout the day … and of course the SPECIAL highlight was when John Travolta flew his Boeing 707 to join us for the day. It was a real treat to see his plane taxi up to the crowds and watch him climb out of the plane in his pilot’s uniform.

Our CEO did the official opening speech, but John Travolta stole his thunder pretty quickly … JT gave a wee speech which was lovely, then he cut the 90th birthday cake and we all sang along to the Happy Birthday song with JT leading the group. Quite frankly it was a really special day, and one that will always remain as a true highlight for me … even the pouring rain didn’t hinder our enjoyment that much, and thankfully the main pelt-down waited until seconds after JT was whisked away after signing autographs and having photos taken with some lucky staff members.

Here are a few token photos from the day – if you want to see more, you can check out my Webshots album (yeah, there is a bit of overkill with JT LOL).

Then last night we had an early Christmas drinks party in Newtown – it was an entertaining end to a wonderful day, especially as my absolutely favourite person from work (or ex-colleague to be exact) was there, and it’s always a treat to catch up with him. All-in-all a blissful day … and today I intend to put a couple of stitches into ‘something’ while I catch up on some TV, I just can’t decide what to put stitches into! 😛