Author: Anne S

Brightening my life one stitch or one card at a time, and sharing my joy of needlework and card-making.
Cross Stitch, Gifts TO BE FIXED, Stash

A week of highs and lows

Anne S

Starting with the lowlight of the week … 😦

I was incredibly saddened this week to learn that an old colleague from Auckland passed away this week – every time I go home and visit my old workplace I always make sure I stop by and have a chat.  He was made redundant from his job a number of months ago, which saddened me, but the news this week was really devastating.  The world is an emptier place without you, Toni – I will always remember you fondly and with love, and will miss your beautiful smile and wicked sense of humour … Rest in Peace my friend xxx

This photo of Toni (in the top left with the blue shirt on) is from our last Christmas party before I moved to Australia to work, and that beautiful smiling face is how I’ll always remember him in my mind 🙂

Moving on to the highs of the week … all pretty much postage related!  I haven’t had chance to pick up parcels from my PO Box for a couple of weeks or so now – I did one pick-up the day after I returned from sick leave a few weeks ago, and haven’t done it since!  To say my mailbox was overflowing is an understatement!

I’ll start with the best stuff … I received friendship gifts from two of my close online pals, and I love, love, love everything! 😀  I’ll show them in order of when they would have arrived, had I managed to get to the PO Box sooner…

First up is this wonderful gift from Margaret in NZ, the founder of StitchNZ Yahoo Group, and a dear online friend.  I agree with you Margaret, that I too hope we will get to meet F2F one day!  Margaret treated me with a chart from my wishlist (LHN’s Spot of Coffee), pearl cottons threads in scrumptious colours (oh so me!), and a gorgeous piece of fabric that I’m already matching up with an overdyed thread from my stash in some future stitching plans 🙂  Thanks again Margaret for my parcel of goodies – I love love love everything! 😀

Next up is another wonderful gift, this time from my “northern twin” Jenna in the US.  Jenna was one of the first online pals that I “clicked with”, and remains one of my dearest friends online.  When I stitched my turquoise and purple biscornu a couple of years ago, in my mind it was ‘me and Jenna’ in that biscornu, as that’s the blend of our two favourite colours.  And to prove just which colour was MY favourite, see if you can guess from the scrumptiousness of this photo! LOL.  Yep, you guessed it, turquoises and blues (if you didn’t know already) make me scream with joy (and both Margaret and Jenna know me incredibly well, as they so proved with their gift choices!).  These turquoise threads are scrummy enough on their own (and I just want to keep playing with them and stroking them), but Jenna also included a really gorgeous beaded fob as well.  I’m going to see if itwill fit on my mobile phone so I can carry it with me each day, but if not I have a pair of scissors itching to be adorned too 🙂  Thank you again my dear friend – as always your taste is impeccable, and I love everything! 😀

The next part of my overflowing mail was expected … I went on a bit of a spending splurge on the Bay of Evil, and with the exception of one item none of it was stitching-related, but rather DVD related instead … here’s the biggest piece of exciting shopping (and biggest splurge) … the entire series of ER on DVD – seeing as I keep missing episodes because the TV channels changed or the TV channel just opted not to play an episode or three, I’ve missed lots of the last couple of seasons … so now I get to re-live all the fun from day 1 of the show – I can’t wait! 😀

Of course I had to get the first three seasons of Little Britain as well, plus a couple of movies that Jensen is the main character in (My Bloody Valentine and Ten Inch Hero), and a couple of movies from my youth … of which I don’t think I’ll embarrass myself and spill the details … 😛

The one stitching related item I bought was the set of Valdani threads for Quaker Diamonds by Rosewood Manor … Love, love, love this design 😀

Talking of which, I have to say I’m really loving being “out of fashion” where designs are concerned these days – I think I’m just about the only person in blogland that can’t stand the ‘historical’ or ‘primitive’ samplers and designs out there (with the odd exception every now and again) – and that seems to be the main focus by stitchers these days.  While I enjoy seeing them being stitched on other blogs, I have no great urge to run out and buy one, and it’s saving me lots of money this way!  It used to be that every blog I opened there’d be some new design tempting me – now it’s only one every now and again … oh the joy of not running to update the wishlist on a daily basis, and enjoying the existing stash I have already – such bliss 😀  Anyway, I digress … moving on from my eccentric stitching tastes and back to the mailbox goodies …

The final stitching thing that I had ordered during a recent stash sale at The Stitching Post arrived – a handful of Delica beads, a couple of JABC buttons and a packet of Mill Hill beads for my Halloween Fairy (to replace the packet I already own that have somehow gone AWOL – of course now I’ve bought a new packet they will arrive out of nowhere someday soon …)

Then one last non-stitching item of greatness … I misplaced my glasses that I use for driving, and now the evening are dark as soon as we leave work I was straining my eyes driving home … I finally opted to buy a cheap pair from Glasses Online, not really caring how they looked as a fashion item, and I’m pretty darned pleased with them … AU$150 including the frames, lenses and anti-glare coating, you little beauty!!!  Of course, Murphy and his sodding law proved correct as always, the day after I send my credit card whizzing through the computer cables I found my old glasses sitting in their glasses case under the bed … I’d only been searching for them for 2 whole months!!!  Pfffft……. 😛  Obviously I don’t really “need” them (the prescription is only 0.75 in one eye and 0.5 in the other) otherwise I would’ve been shopping a whole lot sooner! … but boy, oh boy, it feels good driving and having that focus tightened up just that fraction more sharply! 😀

I also have an exchange that I’ve received (and sent) and a couple of small finishes, so I think I’ll open up a new post as this one is getting pretty lengthy!

Chatelaine, Cross Stitch, Egyptian Garden Mandala, Works in Progress

Egyptian Garden Mandala

Anne S

The only stitching done this weekend was on EGM – I spent a reasonable amount of time on this one on Saturday, then had a break while I polished off book 4 of the Black Dagger Brotherhood (Butch) … then managed a few more hours last night while Katie and I watched a few more episodes of Dark Angel.  TV viewing has been appalling just lately, with many of our favourite shows now off the air, so we’ve been working our way through our TV shows on DVD instead.  Initially we dedicated Friday night each week as our TV DVD night (and what felt like never-ending weeks of Dawson’s Creek initially) – but lately we’d rather watch our DVDs than anything on actual TV.

Tonight was no exception, and I managed to put another couple of hours into Egyptian Garden Mandala (“EGM”), bringing the latest stitching effort to look like this:

EGM 12Jul10

I can honestly and truthfully say that this is a true “labour” to stitch … not a labour of love, just a “labour”.  I truly detest the fabric I’m stitching this one on … I will never ever in all my days choose an opalescent fabric to stitch on again – and don’t get me started on trying to stitch little over-one fishes in metallic thread in the centre of this piece, ‘cos I’m seriously VERY close to ripping the whole lot out, filling in the centre with normal cross stitches, and stitching on some mother of pearl fish buttons or something similar!  I keep getting tempted to scrap the whole thing and start over again on a new piece of normal Belfast linen, but the fact is I’ve come so far with the stitching now, I don’t know if I’d ever bother picking it up again … so I continue to force myself to stitch, and hope like hell each time that I’m getting closer to the edge of the next section, as each section that gets completed takes me one step closer to ending this stitching journey (which will, alas, be quite some months in the future I fear!). 

No sign yet of my back-ordered threads arriving at the overseas store, much less leaving the US, so this one will continue for a while longer yet (even though I have to strain to see over the top of it a bit in my stitching chair) … unless the urge to throw it out the window grows so loud that I’m starting to take notice …

I guess the good news is that it’ll be like motherhood when it’s finished … all the pain of the actual childbirth will be forgotten, and the beautiful creation that remains completed at the end will wipe all the memories of pain and suffering away … and it’ll all be worth it in the end … especially once it gets is sparkly beads stitched on.  In fact, I tried adding some more of the shitty over-one fishies over the weekend, ‘cos once they’re stitched up I’m going to start adding the back-stitching and beads as I go … and I think once they start getting added it’ll add a bit more ‘spring to my needle’ 🙂

Chatelaine, Cross Stitch, Egyptian Garden Mandala, Quaker, Works in Progress

Egyptian Garden makes a come-back

Anne S

Back to work again for me today – still not 100% healthwise, but I managed to survive one day at work before the weekend is here again … the bad news is I’m so far behind in some work it means I’ll probably be going into the office over the weekend for a couple of hours to catch up, because deadlines are looming and I’m in meetings most of the day on Monday … c’est la vie 😦

Stitching-wise I managed to re-stitch my Quaker Huswif section while I was off work, and am moving on to the bottom section … which means it won’t be too long before I’m at the halfway mark on this project.  Unfortunately I took the photo this morning in dark light without much indoor lighting and the photo is dreadful … c’est la vie once again …  Once I’ve finished this project I’ll try to take some decent photos during daylight that will show off the colour of the thread and fabric nicely.

Quaker Huswif 8Jul10

Then tonight, also in poor lighting but this time only using my daylight bulb immediately over the fabric, I managed to take yet another appalling snap of my stitching update with Egyptian Garden Mandala (this time totally washed out!) … but I can’t be bothered waiting until daylight to take another one 🙂

Egyptian Garden 9Jul10

Each time I look at EGM I think the little border of birdies just isn’t ‘right’ – the blue/green birds blend in too much into the border background, so I think at the end I’ll backstitch the tops of all the birds to add a bit more emphasis to their shape.  I almost didn’t bother taking a progress piccie because I don’t feel as though I’ve made much progress, but when I look at the last progress piccie I guess you can see some headway made … just 😛

Egyptian Garden is such an unwieldy project on its huge Qsnaps that it’s a right royal pain to handle, so I’ve decided it will be sitting on my lounge stitching frame for a wee while longer … at least until my back-ordered threads arrive to complete Halloween Fairy anyway.  Quaker Huswif, as much as I don’t want to stop stitching on it, will continue to be my sitting in bed stitching project, so it may now take a lot longer to get much further along with it.

Anyway for now it’s time to stop gabbing and take my ringing ears and blocked sinuses off to bed … maybe time to read a chapter or two of Book 4 of the Black Dagger Brotherhood (Butch) … depending on whether the tumbler of port and brandy that I consumed this evening will allow me or not (for medicinal purposes, you understand LOL).

Cross Stitch, Quaker, Works in Progress

Quaker Huswif update

Anne S

I’ve been sick all weekend, so my usual stitching time didn’t happen over the weekend, but I did manage to get a bit done last night while watching DVDs (Hostage with Bruce Willis, great movie) – after going to the GP today I’ve been given another 2 days at home while my infected sinuses and fluid-blocked ears are recovering, so today I’ve been making the most of it and putting my needle to fabric.  This is how it looked last night before I rolled up the scrollbars (love, love, love this project, and the photo in no way does it justice!):

Quaker Huswif 6Jul10

Then, this is how it looked at lunchtime today after a few hours decent stitching time:

Quaker Huswif 7Jul10 before

And this is how it looks now after I unpicked all this morning’s stitching thanks to having a blonde moment and starting the entire section in the wrong place … ho-hum …

Quaker Huswif 7Jul10 after

Now it’s a case of putting all those stitches back in again – I was originally hoping that I could finish off this entire block by tonight, but having to restitch everything again is putting that a little bit in jeopardy … oh well, tomorrow is another day … 🙂

And hopefully tomorrow there will be none of these … ‘cos I’ve done enough frogging for the week!

Quilting

Quilting help needed, please!

Anne S

I want to start a quilt (I’ve only ever made one cot quilt before, so this is a major achievement in itself wanting to make a big queen-sized quilt) that I’ve been wanting to do for a few years, but when I look at how it’s made up, I wonder to myself why it’s done that way.  You see the individual block looks like this:

And when you start putting them all together it puts a seam smack-bang in the middle of the cream blocks:

Which then made me think, why don’t they stitch the blocks then piece together on the diagonal, either in large blocks with connecting smaller strips, or just big long strips – I’ve tried to make a picture that will explain what I mean:

If anyone could offer advice I’d really appreciate it before I start cutting up my fabric.  While I can understand the simplicity of putting everything together when it’s all symmetrical blocks, it seems an awful lot of seamwork where there doesn’t need to be any … but it could just be me trying to make things awfully difficult for myself for my very first big quilt! 😛

Basically I need to know if I should just suck it up and continue doing the quilt as it was designed in the magazine and make things easy in myself or whether doing it one of the other ways will give a more pleasing result, even with the extra brainwork involved …

Cross Stitch, Works in Progress

Oops … I forgot …

Anne S

I’ve had a couple of questions about my old UFO in my recent post, wondering what the project is.  This is what it will grow up to become (apologies for the piccie, I just ‘stole’ it from an overseas Ebay site, ‘cos I can’t be bothered finding my original copy and scanning it!):

This is “Le Jardin Silk Sampler” from really old issues of JCS magazine (it was originally printed in two parts) – the designer is Sandy Orton.

As you can see, I’m a looooong way from a finish on this one – from memory I completed one 10-hour rotation on it, then my rotation went out the window when I packed everything up to go into storage, and I haven’t picked it up since (not to mention I’m absolutely detesting one of the Kreinik silks, which also put me off stitching it).  Time to “suck it up, Princess” and get on with making some headway with it … it’s got plenty of specialty stitches thrown in with the XS to give some challenges along the way (not to mention that grotty revolting silk thread which provides a challenge on by itself!).