Challenges & SALs – Page 10 – Feather Stitching

Crazy January 2013 Challenge, Finishes, Mirabilia

Bluebell Pixie

15 April, 201315 April, 2013 Anne S

Just a fly-by visit while I’m sat at the PC … to show my latest finish, which is fresh off the Qsnaps tonight. Sadly the photo was taken under the glare of my OttLite on a dark winter’s evening with just my iPhone, so it doesn’t show off her bling etc very well, but she’s WAY more stunning in real life … you’ll just have to take my word for it …

“Bluebell Pixie” by Nora Corbett (Mirabilia)

stitched on 28ct hand-dyed Cashel linen by Stitches & Spice ~ colour Dawn Light
with recommended threads – with the exception of a couple of small changes, which are:
skin colour I chose DMC 950 (instead of two-toned), DMC 792 for the bluebell backstitching,
and some additional laces on her ‘back’ leg

2013 WIPocalypse, Crazy January 2013 Challenge, Cross Stitch, Round Robins, Stitch-alongs, Works in Progress

March WIPocalypse … a teensy bit late …

4 April, 20134 April, 2013 Anne S

Since I last posted there were substantial changes to Dad’s status, and over the Easter weekend I returned home and back to work once again. Dad was still struggling to eat in the hospital, and really wasn’t improving greatly, and since he had proven himself a little bit with a 6-hour home visit they opted to let him come home. His surgery wound is still not healed properly so he has a District Nurse that visits every couple of days – he is managing to empty and change his bag himself, though. He is still very weak and has dizzy spells when he stands up, so he has to go back to his GP tomorrow – he’s still not eating well, but starting to walk up the driveway a bit each day to build up his strength and get him walking again. The Hospital provided him with a walker that he will now keep permanently, which is great – I could go on and on about what they did well, and in particular what they did poorly – I had my say to the staff at our family meeting before bringing Dad home and told them where I felt quite disappointed … but I won’t get started on that right now, or I’ll never shut up! Let’s just say we’re still continuing to have a couple of unresolved issues and discrepancies, even after he’s come home … not helped by the fact he was let home a week earlier than planned …

As for me, when I got home I switched on my beautiful Samsung TV only to find smoke billowing out the top … which is out of warranty now … and then when I went to start my car the next day my battery has died, along with my car registration and insurance!! So today I finally managed to get a new battery installed, then a Pink Slip (warrant of fitness), Green Slip (CTP/Compulsory Third Party insurance), Car Registration and comprehensive car insurance … a lovely total of $1,600 out of the bank account today, which means I’ll be living on whatever is in the pantry and freezer for the next fortnight until pay-day ! It’s not the first time, and it sure as hell won’t be the last, I’m sure. I’m very very happy, though, that my car is now drivable and registered so that’s one HUGE relief and big stress removed from my shoulders!

Since I’ve been home I haven’t managed to do any stitching whatsoever – after working each day I’ve been really exhausted, so I’m hoping that next week I’ll be ‘back to normal’ again and can get back properly into a routine. In the meantime, though, I can share the tiny bit of stitching that I have done since the last WIPocalypse update in February – starting with the final Round Robin piece in our group of 4:

Dyah’s Round Robin – Elemental Dragons by Dragon Dreams

Then I made a very small start on Little Blue Potting Shed by Brown House Studio. This is a chart that was gifted to me by Barbara years ago, and I’ve finally managed to get around to stitching it. This was on my list of 2013 Crazy January Challenge pieces, and I fell in love with it years ago when I saw part of the design stitched over-one for an exchange gift. How can I NOT love it when it’s stitched in exquisite blue shades (well, at least the shed is anyway!).

That’s all the ‘new’ stitching I completed since the last blog post – of course I had also completed some other stitching efforts, which were shown in my previous blog post, but which I’ll post again here for the purposes of this little WIPocalypse update for the month …

Petite Christmas Angels (round robin) – Joan Elliott

And now I think it’s time to actually drag out that stitching for a short while … it might just help to restore that sense of peace once more, and make better use of my time while I catch up on more recorded TV …

Crazy January 2013 Challenge, Finishes, Joan Elliott, Mirabilia, Round Robins, Works in Progress

Update on Dad and a bit of stitching

20 March, 201320 March, 2013 Anne S

It’s been a while since I posted – I’ve been putting daily updates on Dad on Facebook, but once again keep forgetting that my blog exists … since this is supposed to be a stitching blog, though, I’ll show that first and then if you want to keep reading I’ll add an update on Dad afterwards 🙂

While I’ve been home I’ve managed to get a bit more stitching done (more than I usually do at home, as it’s been more as a stress relief than anything else really!) – partly on my own pieces, but also the Round Robin pieces that have been due … our Round Robin started up on 1 February, just before Dad got taken in for his surgery! The girls have been great, and they’ve sent the last two pieces to me together in NZ, so I’ve had the opportunity to continue stitching over here … mind you, thank goodness I taught Mum to XS on her 70th birthday, as she had the full set of DMC at home – if she wasn’t a stitcher, I’d have been truly stuck!! So here are the Round Robin pieces to date:

Ann’s RR … I stitched the top right section (round 2 completed)

Kate’s RR … still working on this one, but just have the gold braid backstitch left to do (round 3 WIP)

The next piece is one of my 2013 Crazy January Challenge projects and is for me … she is my favourite pixie of all time from Nora Corbett (Bluebell Pixie), and it’s awesome to finally see her start to come to life on fabric after lusting after her for so long! Sadly, though, I hadn’t realised that the spool of Kreinik 1432 I had was only a part one, so I’ve come to a halt stitching on her until I can get home again and check my stash for another spool or order another one to be posted over to me. I’ve also decided that I’m going to leave off the beads and the Waterlilies silk thread until I get her home anyway, just in case she has a bad trip home and needs to be washed and ironed. So sad that I can’t keep working on her, but this is how she will just have to stay until I eventually get home again 🙂 I’ll add all the fabric details etc when I finally get her finished.

As for other stitching, I just need to finish off the gold braid backstitching on the current RR piece, then I have the final one to be started immediately afterwards. That one should be a relatively quick stitch, as it’s quite blocky, and it’s in my favourite colour … b l u e … so I’m going to enjoy stitching that one immensely!! 😀

Once that’s done, though, Dad had better be ready to come home again, because I only have one XS project left at home to start working on (although a medium size so it would last me a while) … my laptop died a few weeks ago and is currently in the repair shop (of which I’m about to send a complaint letter to the branch manager …), and it contains all of my freebie charts etc which was my back-up stitching library if I ran out of stitching!

Update on Dad:

It’s been a long road for Dad the last few weeks – he gradually became more lucid, and is now mentally alert once again (almost back to normal once more in that way). For a few he was having lots of problems with his ileostomy bag and having to have it replaced a few times a day – that was causing his skin to become red raw, not just around the stoma site, but pretty much all down his abdomen and top of his thigh … he was screaming out in agony and crying his eyes out and begging for his life to be ended … it was the most heartbreaking thing to watch. Mum had to leave the room, and I have to admit to barely keeping it together watching him suffering so much. Thankfully, though, they have eventually found a bag that seems to be staying in place and not leaking, and the last week he has been much more stable, and with that a lot happier within himself. He’s been through so much over the last 6 weeks (I can’t believe he’s been in there for so long!!), I just don’t know how he’s managed to pull himself through!!

Anyway, about a week ago now he was moved to a new ward, to the Assessment Therapy and Rehab ward for Older People – they’re still struggling with him to get him eating, but we’ve now been asked if we can bring in food from home so he’s at least getting some sort of nutrients into him. He’s a really plain eater and fussy as all hell as to what he will eat, so he lifts the lid of the hospital plate, takes one look, and puts the lid back down again. I remember as a teenager making Spaghetti Bolognaise at home and asking if he wanted some (Mum and I eat pretty much everything), and his response was “I’m not eating that, it’s foreign muck!” … yep, that’s my Dad! LOL. Mum took him some sausage rolls in for his dinner last night as requested, but got upset that the Dr said he shouldn’t eat the tomato that came with it due to the skin … poor guy, that’s one thing he said to me the day before his first operation, that he couldn’t wait until afterwards when he can eat tomatoes and baked beans again, ‘cos he’d been on a strict diet for the previous 2 months … and the poor guy still can’t eat them 😦

Other than that, though, he’s finally on the road to recovery – we spoke to his Dr on Monday afternoon, and I got the OK to take Dad out in a wheelchair … in fact she was so keen for us to do it she went and got a wheelchair for us there and then! It was quite a momentous occasion for us, we took him down to the hospital cafe on the ground floor and got ourselves a coffee then sat outside in the fresh air and drank it – it was the first time Dad had breathed in fresh air and been outside for 5 1/2 weeks … I think that really lifted his spirits astronomically 🙂 He also got the go-ahead yesterday morning by the Dr that he can use his walker to go to the bathroom etc without having to call for a Nurse, so now he thinks he’s Superman! He wanted to go down to the hospital cafe on the ground floor on his walker, but I refused to take him unless we could take a wheelchair with us as a back-up … he got a bit cantankerous then, but I stood my ground, and he eventually backed down and said he could be taken in the chair, and he wouldn’t bother with the walker. On Monday the Dr had stressed that his body was exceptionally weak, and that his Rehab stay was longer than normal because of that – his body gets tired really quickly, even though the mind is extremely willing his body isn’t quite up to it yet. Hopefully it won’t be long, though, before he can get out and about more himself.

So after all this length of time, and almost 6 weeks of daily visits, it means we can finally see a light at the end of the tunnel, where the light is his discharge papers and the ability to come home. We now have to have home assessments done and see whether hand-rails etc have to be installed for him … but at least we’re starting to have some concrete plan of action to get him up and home again! 😀

2013 WIPocalypse, Crazy January 2013 Challenge, Finishes, Little House Needleworks, Shepherd's Bush

Early WIPocalypse update

24 February, 201320 March, 2013 Anne S

I realise that we’re still 2 days away from the full moon appearing, but I’m deciding to post early anyway … there are a lot of things happening at home at the moment, so it just seems ‘right’ to do it now while I can.

For any readers that don’t know (and I’m sure I can count readers on one hand these days anyway), I flew to NZ to be with my parents as Dad had surgery on 7 February. The plan was that I would continue to work from home as I have a lot happening at work … but that I’d work either side of having hospital visits with Dad while he was recuperating after his operation. Mum doesn’t drive, so that also means she had a mode of transport to and from the hospital … I say that that was the ‘plan’ but it seems plans don’t always go as you hope …

Unfortunately Dad’s surgery didn’t quite go as well as expected, and 3 days later he went downhill and was taken into the Intensive Care Unit and then in for emergency surgery – they found a tear in his bowel which was fixed in the 2nd surgery. For the entire next 1 1/2 weeks he was totally vegetative and non-responsive, aside from getting agitated and trying to pull himself out of bed and pulling his tubes out. Last week I decided it was too emotionally draining to try and work as well, so I spoke to my boss and we both agreed that home should come first and I stopped working entirely – I’m incredibly blessed to have such an understanding work group, and I’ve been able to take carer’s leave (using my sick leave balance).

We were invited around to our closest friends home for dinner last Sunday night, and while we were there we had a phone call from the hospital to say Dad was in a really bad state again, and they were concerned with the CT scan results from that afternoon … he was taken in for yet another surgery. We truthfully didn’t expect him to make it off the operating table, and weren’t looking forward to the next phone call from the surgeon. I have to admit it was really good to be with friends when we got the news, so we had some more support to fall back on.

The biggest surprise is that when we went in to visit him the next day he was actually up and awake, and actually recognised us when we walked in and spoke … Mum and I were totally gobsmacked!! We had a good visit with him that day – while he was still far from perfect, he was coherent enough to make sense and respond to questions etc … we tried not to be hopeful, and still felt really positive about his recovery after the odds being so stacked against him.

Sadly, though, his recovery has gradually gone downhill since, and the last couple of days he has been reverting a little bit to how he used to be. He’s been agitated and his speech has eventually got more difficult and he’s been speaking rubbish and been very confused and ‘doped up’ for want of a better word. His tummy wound is still oozing, he’s not coughing like he should be so there’s a possibility of him getting pneumonia, and the Dr had a frank discussion with me this afternoon about his condition. Unfortunately Mum has also been a patient over the last 3 days, as she put her back out and has been laid up in bed for 3 days, so she wasn’t able to hear that discussion first hand. It turns out that they’re gravely concerned about him but that they don’t believe he will improve at all if they operate again etc – they will continue to try to see him on the road to improvement but will need to do it with physiotherapy and antibiotics etc … but essentially won’t put him through any more major risks medically. I was asked if I understood what that meant and if I’m OK with it … what else can you say in circumstances like those? I know they’ve done everything they possibly can do for him to get him better, and it’s been emotionally devastating watching a family member suffering and deteriorating so rapidly. It’s all up to him now to fight the good fight if he still has it in him … all we can is to be there in support for him as much as we can.

So, I guess that’s the reason I’m finding it the right time to post my WIPocalypse update today … I just don’t know what I’ll be doing in two days time … and over the last 2 days I’ve managed to get a bit of stitching done in the form of stress relief, so I might as well post the piccies now as later …

The first week I arrived in NZ I finished off the following (finish #2 of my 2013 Crazy January Challenge projects):

“Little Witch” by Shepherd’s Bush (kit)

And over the last 2 weeks I managed to start and eventually finish (today) the following (finish #3 of my 2013 Crazy January Challenge projects):

“Moon and Stars” by Little House Needleworks
stitched on 27ct blue Linda fabric
with recommended Crescent Colours threads plus DMC 221 (red)

Next up is a Round Robin which is due to be posted in a week’s time, so I need to get cracking on that one … mind you our group is pretty understanding that there may be a delay … fingers crossed I get plenty of opportunity to stitch over the next few days, as that means Dad’s still going OK with his recovery …

2013 WIPocalypse, Finishes, Passione Ricamo, Rotation, Round Robins, Shepherd's Bush, Works in Progress

WIPocalypse update

3 February, 20133 February, 2013 Anne S

Sadly this year to date I haven’t managed to put a single stitch into any old WIPs, but I have managed to get a little bit of stitching done on two projects that were originally on my Crazy January Challenge list … first up I managed to finish the stitching on Shepherd’s Bush Spooky Fob:

Then I managed to start and finish my choice for an Aussie-based Round Robin group – I decided to stitch an old freebie by Passione Ricamo:

Lucky last I used up the rest of the rotation slot from stitching Spooky fob by starting the Shepherd’s Bush Little Witch:

Work is mental busy, so I haven’t had much stitching energy this month – although last weekend I had a stitching marathon for 2 solid days, when I managed to stitch my RR piece. Next week I’ll be flying home to be support for Mum and Dad after Dad has surgery – I’ll be working over there, so probably won’t have much down time either, and not much time for stitching … I’ll still be packing a few projects, though, just in case … I fully intend heading home with a much better prepared suitcase than I did last time! And on that note I’d better hit the hay for the night, as I need to spend the day in the office tomorrow catching up on work before I fly out …

Crazy January 2013 Challenge, Cross Stitch, Finished Items, Finishes, Flowers Trees & Gardens, Frangipani, Goals, Pay It Forward, pincushions, scissor fobs, Stitching Smalls, The Floss Box

It’s a woman’s prerogative…

15 January, 201315 January, 2013 Anne S

No sooner had I set out my stitching plans for 2012 that I started to realise I really don’t know how in the hell I’m going to achieve all of those finishes/goals when I really only get to stitch on the weekends (and not every weekend at that) … so I’m seriously thinking of throwing those previous plans out the window, and just going back to a rotation instead. That means I’ll also be able to focus more on my existing WIPs which are actually starting to bother me, rather than trying to cram in those same WIPs (at a lot slower pace than I’d like) as well as meeting all the SAL and commitment deadlines at the same time … and probably not getting any of them done by the year’s end (but not stressing about it).

Perhaps it’s just that my head is in the wrong space at the start of the year with Dad’s health and some work issues that are still really bothering me. Both of these issues are slowly getting resolved, with Dad seeing his surgeon this Friday, and I’ve started having dummy spits in the office to voice my frustrations at issues I’m facing (including telling a team member they’re doing my head in and they’re not helping my stress levels … yep, there have definitely been a few dummy spits lately in that respect, and probably a couple of months well overdue at that!!). Anyway, maybe removing the pressure of having to finish all these projects will help to restore some sanity to my stitching – most of the projects in my list will still remain there as part of the rotation, I will just have no expectation to actually complete them by the year’s end … plus I’ll have the opportunity to change my mind at a moment’s notice, as I’ve also come across some other projects that I really wanted to stitch, but that didn’t make the cut for my initial 15 projects … I think the stress of only limiting my stitching to a set group of projects also inhibits my sense of freedom, and as soon as that sort of pressure starts mounting I find I don’t end up stitching at all … so perhaps it’s for the betterment of my stitching this year to just ‘let it all hang out’ so to speak 😉

Tomorrow I’m off to the local GP to try and get some antibiotics for my bugs, which will also help to bring me back to a state of equilibrium (and probably less likely to have dummy spits at work LOL) … and perhaps feel more like stitching … but in the meantime I’m going to start my rotation guilt-free just as soon as I’ve finished my Round Robin piece that’s due out for mailing at the end of January … but not before I have fun by adding a few more rotation projects to the pipeline 🙂

And I’m not stressing if I change my mind a million times throughout the year … as the title of this post says, “it’s a woman’s prerogative” … as long as I enjoy my stitching this year I’m happy 😀

Ooh, before I forget, I heard from Cindy that my little gift arrived safe and sound when she returned from holidays – so I can now share the full goodies … just as soon as I find the photos!!! I think I’ve shown the finished biscornu before, but I’ve never shown the finished fob that matched it. It feels good that this is now finished and living in its new home 🙂

“Biscornu 458” by The Floss Box Stitched on 32ct Thunderstorm Belfast linen by Zweigart with DMC threads

While I’m at it, I think there are also a number of framing jobs that I completed in November last year that I haven’t shared on here yet … the Tiger and Summer Snapperland are both for me, whereas the bears and the Letter S are both for gifts. I did most of the framing of the Tiger 2 years ago, but couldn’t finish-finish it as the backing board was too high … he’s one of my first ever finishes (stitched on aida) and I love, love, love him!

Finally here are a couple of yummy things I brought back from New Zealand with me on my last trip – the scrumptious blug electric kettle was compliments of Mum and Dad’s Fly Buys points in NZ, while the bowls are from my ‘glory box’ still in storage over there. Both have already been christened, and I’m totally in love with the jug in particular!! And I can’t WAIT to try out the new Orange Truffle Baileys over a bucket of ice … hmmm, in fact I just may choose that for dessert tonight, the ice will help soothe my throat and the alcohol will help to lull me into sleepy submission … hmmm …

The final photos are of my frangipani plants on my balcony to show Mum – now both plants have finally flowered, although I’m disappointed to see the 2nd plant which has flowered for the first time has the pink frangipani … it’s still very pretty, but I do have to admit to preferring the white frangipani on the whole.

And I think that will do me for another post … I still have some other things to post yet, but think I’m a bit photo heavy already … and it’ll give me something to write about later (if I get over the shock of having so many blog posts in one month!!!).

Crazy January 2013 Challenge, Goals

Planned projects in pictures & health issues

6 January, 20136 January, 2013 Anne S

It seems that Mum and managed to pick up some nasty bug from the hospital while visiting with Dad last week – Mum managed to get away with just a handful of grotty days, but I seem to have picked up the full brunt of it … after struggling with just a head cold and a head like a tap for a few days, I started getting chills and a slight fever at the end of the week … thankfully I’m just starting to come through the tail end of it and just have blocked sinuses and feeling a bit run-down. It wasn’t the most pleasant trip home this morning because of it, but because I hadn’t slept much the last 3 nights I managed to nap through half of the flight, which was great!

We finally saw the surgical intern at the hospital on Thursday … after waiting for 2 hours we were finally told she had been taken into emergency surgery and could we come back again in 2 hours time, only to wait for yet another 2 hours before she was ready to see us! Anyway they are saying that his surgery may not take place now until late January/early February, depending on the surgeon who’s going to be doing the operation. He’s supposed to send Dad a letter with his new appointment, with the surgery to follow approx one week after that appointment … but we don’t know when the letter will be coming (some time over the next 2 weeks). As it was too uncertain when the surgery was going to take place, and Dad seems quite stable with the diet he’s been following over the last week, I decided to fly home and go back to work for the next couple of weeks … then I’ll return to Auckland again once we know the surgery date. In the meantime, though, I need to pull my finger out and get a new passport issued, as it runs out on 7 February!

So all-in-all it’s been a really crappy visit, truth be told … I have to admit it’s been a little bit stressful, as Mum and I haven’t been able to leave home and get a bit of a break and 1o0% relax, especially with all the uncertainty with Dad – he started to feel like a Jack-in-box in and out of hospital for the entire two weeks. While I’ve managed to get an awful lot of stitching done, it has been more as stress relief than enjoyment, and a way to fill in time at home – unfortunately all the things Mum and I had planned to do haven’t got done … so hopefully when I fly over the next time we may get an opportunity to do some of those planned fun things, and to catch up with people I had planned to see this time … It also means that my heart wasn’t really in my stitching either, and I managed to totally stuff up my colour choices for a Lizzie*Kate commitment piece I needed to do (a travelling pattern that I’d been holding on to for way too long). I might try to put the final stitches into this one tonight if I get chance, but I’m not entirely sure whether I’ll be keeping it or not. I want to re-do it entirely in blues, so I may see if I can quickly kit it up again and get cracking on it, as I want to get the chart into the mail by the end of the week at the latest.

To finish off this post I’ve decided to upload piccies of all the upcoming projects I have for 2013 as part of my new rotation … plus other commitments I have to complete that aren’t in the rotation officially. Mind you, I’ve already replaced one of the rotation pieces with another one I just remembered I wanted to complete, so you’ll now see Eiffel Quaker added to the list instead of the Periwinkle Promises one – I’d originally wanted to stitch this while in Paris but we were out and about so much during the day we didn’t get any stitching time! Rightio, without further ado, here come the piccies … you may also see more blogging again from me this year as I try to wean myself off Facebook, but I know I’ve said that before so I wouldn’t hold my breath 😉

Crazy January Stitching Challenge:

WIPs/UFOs:

SALs & other Commitment pieces:

xxx

Crazy January 2013 Challenge, Rotation, Stitch-alongs

Time for a Rotation again?

2 January, 20132 January, 2013 Anne S

I have signed up for so many different SALs and challenges this year that I think the best way for me to devote time for each one is to set up a rotation once again – the first time I tried a rotation it was amazingly successful, but later attempts have been disastrous … perhaps this time it will work … perhaps …

Then again, I also want to continue concentrating on older UFOs/WIPs to finally get them into the finished pile and not languishing around making me feel guilty and gathering dust bunnies …

I guess the first thing to do is to work out what SALs I have coming up this year, along with noting if any of those projects could be combined with the Crazy January Challenge or using existing WIPs/UFOs … then work out a schedule that could possibly work on a 10-hour slot basis. Rightio then, let’s start by noting all the SALs coming up (including those already started while I’ve been in NZ) … here goes:

November 2012 – Quaker Christmas II SAL
1 January – Nora Corbett’s Bluebell Pixie SAL
1 January – Drawn Thread’s Sampler Gameboard SAL
1 February – Aussie Round Robin
14 February – Ink Circles Cirque des Coeurs SAL
1 May – Teresa Wentzler SAL

Add to that the list of potential new starts for me this year as part of the Crazy January Challenge (the only difference is that I’m making up my own rules by choosing and kitting up 15 projects but not starting a new one every day, just rather working my way through the list). I have to admit I grabbed a handful of my chosen 2013 new starts when I did a rushed packing job to come to NZ and ended up already starting and finishing two of them, so I definitely need to re-do that list of projects once again. I am tempted to add the Quaker Christmas II sampler and Sampler Gameboard to the challenge list, but I’m not confident I can see either of them being finished by the end of the year and happy to just have them ‘in progress’ throughout the year. My CJC pieces will be as follows (there are only 2 relatively large pieces in there, so I’m hoping it won’t be too unachievable, but that could be famous last words, if this year’s crappy stitching time is anything to go by!):

Bluebell pixie – Mirabilia/Nora Corbett
Little Blue Potting Shed – Brown House Studio
Blue Bayou – Northern Pine Designs
Christmas Elf Fairy – Mirabilia/Nora Corbett
Bluebeard’s Princess – Mirabilia
Moon & Stars – Little House Needleworks
Trousse aux Fleur Bleues – CMon Monde
Spooky Scissors Fob – Shepherd’s Bush
Little Witch – Shepherd’s Bush
Trick or Treat Box – Just Nan
Acorn Hill – Little House Needleworks
Valentine Fairy – Mirabilia/Nora Corbett
Christmas double flip-its – Lizzie*Kate
Ebb Tide – Northern Pine Designs
Sky Blue Accent – Periwinkle Promises

As well as these projects, though, I’d dearly love to continue working on some of my older WIPs/UFOs, namely:

With My Needle – The Goode Huswife
Flight of the Bumblebees – Ruth Schmuff
English Garden Sampler – Teresa Wentzler
Enchanted Mermaid – Mirabilia
Egyptian Garden Mandala – Chatelaine

Taking all that into account, let’s see if I can work out a suitable rotation … hmmm, this might need a few days to think through, but easier putting it ‘in print’ and then reviewing again … and seeing as I don’t have any software loaded up on Mum’s computer at the moment, this is kinda my drawing board for now …

Nora Corbett/Mirabilia
(Bluebell pixie, Christmas Elf Fairy, Valentine Fairy, Bluebeard’s Princess, *Enchanted Mermaid (UFO))
Halloween
(Spooky Scissors Fob, Little Witch, Trick or Treat Box)
Quaker Christmas II SAL
Christmas Ornaments & Charity Quilt Squares
Canvaswork
(Blue Bayou, Ebb Tide, *Flight of the Bumblebees (UFO))
Other Crazy January
(Little Blue Potting Shed, Moon & Stars, Trousse aux Fleur Bleues, Acorn Hill, Christmas double flip-its, Sky Blue Accent)
Sampler Gameboard SAL
UFOs/WIPs
(With My Needle, *Flight of the Bumblebees, English Garden Sampler, *Enchanted Mermaid, Egyptian Garden Mandala)
Christmas Ornaments or Free Choice

That actually seems quite ‘do-able’ … but I guess the proof will be whether I manage to start it when I get home … which is now at least a week later than expected, depending on what Dad’s doctor has to say tomorrow. I got the go-ahead from my boss to work over here ‘remotely’ for a while, so that’s good news and takes the pressure off a little bit 🙂

Plus Mum and I placed a small order with 123stitch to re-order the missing threads I need that are waiting for me back home – at least that way I can still continue to do some form of stitching over here, which I have to admit I’ve been loving at the moment … I can’t remember the last time I stitched every single day for over a week at a time … sheer bliss!!!

2012 WIPocalypse, Christmas Ornaments, Finishes

Final WIPocalypse post for 2012

29 December, 201229 December, 2012 Anne S

Unfortunately I can’t show piccies of the latest stitching I’ve been working on, as I’m on holiday with my parents in NZ and didn’t bother bringing my laptop with me … and of course I left the cord for the camera … and Mum’s PC is so old it doesn’t have a memory card slot … so the only stitching I can show from the last month is an ornie that I quickly whipped up in my last weekend at home before I flew out that I’d uploaded to Facebook – it was a gift for a work colleague who had had us over for lunch the previous weekend – hopefully she likes it as I didn’t get to see her before I left, and I could only leave it on her desk for her on Xmas Eve. I also just realised that I never took a photo of it finish-finished, so I’ll have to get Pauline to do that for me!

“Joyeux Noel” by Monsterbubbles (I think)
stitched on 32ct white Belfast linen
with totally different Au Ver a Soie and Belle Soie silk threads from the design
(I wanted a more traditional look for Pauline)

The other stitching I’ve been doing is a little bit on a Bent Creek Easter design, and I am about 2/3 through Blossoms and Blackbirds by LHN (most of which was stitched last night). My Dad was taken into hospital 2 days after I arrived home and we’re just awaiting a surgery date for him now – it was supposed to be on this coming Monday, but now there is doubt that it will happen, and we were told to come pick him up from the hospital today and to take him back again tomorrow night. I’m glad I’m here as a support for both Mum and Dad even if it’s just for playing chauffeur service to/from the hospital and taking Mum shopping etc. At least he had a really great Christmas Day with our extended family before he went downhill again 🙂

And on that note I guess it’s time to head back into the lounge and pick up my stitching once again for some more family time – better make the most of it again before we head back to the hospital again tomorrow night!

2012 WIPocalypse, Christmas Ornaments, Works in Progress

Sorry for the missing photos everywhere! & WIPocalypse update

6 December, 20126 December, 2012 Anne S

Really sorry that there are “Temporarily Unavailable” pictures everywhere on my blog … I forgot all my photos on here were hosted on Webshots which has just shut it’s doors … and I need to find the time to upload everything somewhere else and re-add them into the posts once again … that is obviously going to be a MASSIVE undertaking seeing as how long I’ve been blogging for 😦

Unfortunately I’m also working 12-14 hour days every day at the moment, so I don’t have the energy at night to fix the pages up just yet. I apologise for any inconvenience, but I’ll return to fix the blog as soon as I get some spare time, but that may be a couple of weeks away yet.

As for the WIPocalypse, I can also blame my woeful working hours that I’ve barely picked up a needle in the last month. The only stitching I’ve really done has been two ornie finishes for exchanges (which I can’t show yet), and half an ornie for myself that I started about 3 weeks ago and still haven’t finished! If nothing else, I guess I can show you my ‘half an ornie’ for the month … maybe that’s better than nothing, and proof that I did at least pick up a needle at some stage towards the beginning of this lunar cycle!