Enjoying a sense of peace one stitch at a time
Here’s my latest finish – and even completed immediately into an actual scissor fob … I think I may need to lay down for a while LOL.
“Roberta’s Flowers Fob” freebie by Sharon Manspeaker
www.xstitchhappy.com
stitched on 32ct Flax Belfast linen
with DMC threads
Unfortunately the lighting is dreadful again tonight, so crappy snaps of the finished fob follow.
Alas, my wee Lumix is still in hiding – so yet again you are stuck with crappy scans of my current WIPs. The GREAT news is that my elusive back-ordered Rainbow Gallery thread arrived on Friday, so the last two nights have been spent doing the first part of the fill-in stitches on Sapphire Star. Here’s the latest scan of where it’s up to … I’m now in the process of doing little upright cross stitches in the centres of the ‘main’ part of the design – once that is done it’s time to re-do the centre long stitches, followed by the final parts, which is all long-stitch. Every time I pick this project up the colours blow me away and I savour every minute spent on it – I think this one will be finished by the end of this weekend, if not this week! 😀
Friday nights are “Dawsons Creek” nights in our little flat – we have finally finished season 5 (which I’ve probably enjoyed more than the others to date), and this Friday I get to drool over a younger version of Jensen Ackles for the final season of Dawsons. Then I can give myself a HUGE clap on the back and a resounding cheer of “Well Done, Lass” … that I managed to survive the whole series – and once I’ve finished drooling over Jensen (I just have shut out the fact that he will look about 12, and concentrate on that dreamy voice of his – another great thing about stitching!), it means we can finally move on to a different TV series for Friday nights. It seems our next choice is either going to be series one of Fringe (my choice) or Dark Angel (which I’ve never seen before) – or the entire series of Buffy … or perhaps all three in that order! I guess that ties up Friday nights at our place for the rest of the year! LOL.
Anyway, back to stitching … next up is a little freebie I started at the start of last week, but I can’t find three whole DMC colours, and therefore can’t go any further until I find them! Perhaps they’re off having a little soiree somewhere with my Lumix camera – hopefully they’ll take photos of their little antics hmmm. Anyway, I guess this one is now on hold until I can make a run out to Spotlight to pick up some more DMC – so much for being a quick stitch to whip up in a day! 😛 (I’ll add all the chart details etc once it’s finished.)
Lucky last is a piece that I started working on on Sunday afternoon. I decided to take up a Ghost Trappers challenge (one of the two Facebook games that I’m stupidly addicted to), which pretty much meant being chained to my PC for the entire weekend … or at least all of Sunday anyway. I ended up setting up my little lapstand on my computer desk, so I could click my mouse every 4 or so minutes … yes, demented, I know … but I enjoyed having some “me” time in my room and enjoyed killing three birds with one stone – stitching, playing games, and reading an audiobook! Pretty much summed up in one word … “Heaven” 😀
Anyway, here’s the WIP from my Sunday stitching session (Lizzie*Kate’s Hocus Pocus) – this may not get touched now until Sapphire Star is finished, or it’ll remain my ‘bedroom stitching’ project until I can pick up my missing DMC skeins for the acorn freebie. Either way, it’ll probably just take one more day or two nights’ stitching and it’ll be finished.
Reading-wise, one book I managed to finish last weekend was The Kite Runner by Khaled Hosseini – I don’t know of a single person who hasn’t raved about this book after reading it, and I have to admit I really really enjoyed it. I even shed a tear or two in a couple of places, and very glad I took the time to read it. Savage and raw in places, touching and tender in others – this was a really enjoyable read!
Next up I started and finished reading Scarpetta by Patricia Cornwell. I’ve read all the Kay Scarpetta novels over the years, and enjoyed every single one of them, and this one was no exception. I have to say, though, I was glad that I’d read the previous book first, as Scarpetta referred often to an incident or two in the previous book – while you could have still followed the storyline easily, it was much better knowing the full background to the situation being discussed. The only books I’ve ever disliked of Ms Cornwell’s were Hornet’s Nest and Southern Cross, the Andy Brazil series – I disliked them so much I didn’t even bother getting the 3rd book in the series, Isle of Dogs, and it took me a while to get back into buying her books again. Thankfully Kay Scarpetta et al continue to provide me with good reading fodder with her forensics expertise and thrilling crime writing! Way to go, Ms Cornwell, you kept me hooked for another 13 1/4 hours! 😀
As for the next book, I decided to try a different style of writing, with a shorter story, and clicked the play button on Ruddy Gore by Kerry Greenwood. Set in the 1920’s the awfully English accents and dandy characters are quite fun and are easily wiling away a few hours. This one has been very easy listening, and I’m only 1 1/2 hours away from the book’s ending. I have to say for stitchers audiobooks are yet another of life’s great inventions … while it takes a while to get ‘into the mood’ of an audiobook, once you are ‘in the right mind space’, it’s a wonderful way to combine two loves – a love of stitching and of reading 🙂
And I guess on that note I really should get into bed – as much as I love audiobooks when I’m stitching, my actual preference is to hold a physical book and devour its pages one by one … these days, though, my stitching has been taking a priority while I’m in the mood, and physical books have been well and truly lowest on the list. I’ve decided it’s about time I got further than the first chapter of J.R. Ward’s first book in the Black Dagger Brotherhood series, and I’m going to put my stitching down 1/2 an hour early each evening and read a few pages before bedtime … sounds like a reasonable plan, except I know that once I get my teeth into a good book I get into true reading mode and end up propping my eyelids open with matchsticks while glancing at the clock in the wee small hours of the morning and thinking “just one more chapter …” 😉
Which is a good point … perhaps I should just switch the light off and go to actual sleep before midnight … that’d be an interesting change 😀
I managed to complete some stitching today – here is my latest finish (my photography tonight was appalling, so I placed this one on the scanner):
“Halloween Roll” by Shepherd’s Bush
using kit fabric and threads (Tobacco linen and DMC)
Then I made a start on a Christmas ornament by The Victoria Sampler – with any luck this one won’t take too long to finish.
Stitching has been very cathartic for me today! 🙂
I haven’t heard from my exchange partner directly, but I noticed on Becky’s blog today that the list shows that she’s received my pin pillow exchange for her. I hope she liked it 🙂
Anyway, I’ve decided to go ahead and show the pillow I made for her now I know it’s been received, ‘cos I’ve been champing at the bit wanting to share the piccies. My recipient was Jayne, and I read on her blog that she likes the colour purple, alphabets and quakers, so this was my choice for her (I personalised one side with both of our initials):
“Quaker Heart” freebie by Piecework magazine
Stitched on 28ct Lavender Bliss Cashel linen
with Carrie’s Threads “Lavender”
finished with a beaded edge
Now I’m considering joining up for Becky’s next exchange – a scissor pocket … I love it ‘cos it’s a “no extras” exchange again, which is really appealing to me, rather than sending extras than people may not want.
We spent the evening watching some TV and Supernatural episodes while I split my time between trying to resurrect my laptop (it keeps dying) and my stitching. I managed to stitch as far as I could on Sapphire Star, and realised I am missing yet another thread somehow … will have to check my stash to make sure I haven’t just forgotten to add it to the ‘kit’. Anyway, it’s looking great, if I say so myself!
Then I decided not to start anything new, but to pick up a very VERY old UFO that hasn’t been touched since … um … well … since April 2007 … yikes!!! I haven’t touched any of my old UFOs since I finished Chatelaine’s Stitching Leporello last year, so I decided it was time to put a few stitches into it … I didn’t manage a great deal, but did manage to finish the stitching of the ‘bird band’ on the outside. I still hate the over-one section in the middle, and would dearly love someone to wave a magic wand over it to make it be “finished” … perhaps I’ll make myself do one strand of over-one stitching each time I pick it up before I stitch more on the fun parts – but then again that may put me off picking it up full stop – hmmm, maybe I should just leave it until the end, so it has to be done before the beading, that should be incentive enough! The “Before” picture shows the fabric colour more accurately.
Before
After
Today I’ve been struggling on and off all day with a nauseous migraine, so have been in bed most of the afternoon. I was getting restless so thought I’d tempt fate and sit up for a few minutes – but now I think it’s time to go back to bed again …
I didn’t have the energy and attention span to start a new project tonight, even though I’ve got a few kitted up and ready to go … so after rummaging through my WIP basket for a while, and finding nothing else that took my fancy, I pulled out Laura J Perin’s Sapphire Star.
I managed to complete the filling stitches of most of the outside border, and will probably fill in the little squares next with the relevant metallic threads … then it will have to go to one side yet again, as I’m still awaiting my thread to arrive from the US. This is from a ONS who is notoriously slow in posting, BUT they did have the thread in stock at the time (and not many places stock Rainbow Gallery threads), and of course they have regular 20-25% off sales, which is what I used at the time … alas, according to the order status online we’re still awaiting the arrival of back-ordered embellishment kits (teeny white buttons from Lizzie*Kate so I can finally finish my Boo Club piece from last year – as the charts were used, on loan from a friend, I’ve had to find my own embellishments and let’s just say it’s been an ongoing challenge, so I was excited to see them for sale on sale ONS site … of course now I’m playing the waiting game … still … ho-hum …).
Anyway, without further ado, here’s my latest update of Sapphire Star – I still drool over the colours in this one every time I pick it up and have started to fantasise about how I’ll get it framed … assuming my thread turns up while I’m young enough to do the framing! LOL.
The needles have been flying tonight – although to be honest there really wasn’t much stitching left to do on this one. Tonight I managed to put the final stitches into Boo! My absolute favourite part of this piece is the wee scissor fob – I love, love, love it!! I need to wait for my sewing machine before I can do the finishing on this one, but I’m taking an extra two days off work after Easter, so perhaps I can get my machine back before then and have a mini finishing frenzy 🙂
“Boo! Scissor Keeper and Fob” by The Drawn Thread
stitched on 36ct Sand Edinburgh linen
with recommended NPI Silk threads (with the exception of black,
which I substituted with a Hand Dyed Fibers silk)
Before I called it a night tonight, I also started a new ornie, only ‘cos it was sitting here all kitted up in my bedroom, laying on top of a pile of books … so I figure it was as good a time as any to finally get it stitched up and out of the way! It’s supposed to be stitched with 1 strand of DMC 501, but to be honest I wasn’t thrilled with the coverage whatsoever, so I went back into my bedroom and rummaged through my silk piles … and ended up using a skein of Premium Hand Dyed Fibers silk called “Jewel Weed” which is almost identical to 501 but much, much thicker … personally I think it was a great choice, and I’m enjoying seeing this come together – I guess this will take me a couple of nights to complete this week, then I need to start thinking of what project to start next.
I have to admit I’ve really been enjoying having a bunch of small finishes – after having a bit of a ‘dry spell’, it’s been great seeing that finishing pile start to build up again over the last two months 🙂
Of course there’s still one more finish to show you, but it still hasn’t been received by my recipient yet, so I can’t share yet … geez I wish the postman would hurry up, though, ‘cos I want to share! 😛
I managed a tiny bit of stitching again last night, and was able to add one little ghostie to my scissors purse. I also managed to add a bit more to the fob by finishing the pumpkin vines and little black cat plus 2/3 of the wording – I’m hoping to have this one finished by the end of the weekend (stitching-wise anyway!).
Tonight I’d really like to see the scissor fob stitching finished – anything else is a bonus, although I should probably be able to get the back ‘panel’ finished on the purse as well … that just leaves the front panel to be stitched over the weekend … and the finishing – although I don’t know if I have any suitable fabric to use for the lining yet … will have to check the stash, but I’m pretty positive it’ll entail a trip to Spotlight or a quilting shop somewhere! Yep, I’m pretty sure this one will have to sit in the finishing basket for a wee while yet!
Boo! Scissors Purse and Fob by The Drawn Thread is my current Work In Progress – so far I’ve managed to get almost halfway down the scissors purse, and about 1/4 of the scissor fob stitched. I’m still really tired in the evenings, so my stitching is going r…e…a…l…l…y s…l…o…w…l…y. Here’s my progress to date – once again, very washed out under the daylight bulb and even Photoshop Elements is struggling to get the colours right with a ton of manipulation! I started this one in about the middle of last year, but hated the feel of one strand of silk, and just never found a rhythm … I stopped halfway through completing the little pumpkin on the ‘flap’, and it’s only this last week that I’ve pulled it from the depths of my WIP basket and decided to give it a little bit of love again. And before you ask, yes, the “Boo” part at the top is supposed to be upside down … you see, it’ll fold over and then be the right way up again 😀
On Sunday I had a really lovely day out with my favourite Sydney ladies – Alison and Amanda … as always it was a riot, and much laughing and chattering was to be had. We went to the new craft show that was held out at Homebush at Sydney Olympic Park. I was on a stricter budget than normal, and there wasn’t too much to tempt me this time, but I still managed to come home with some great wee treasures … more in the shape of BIG floss rings for my threads (which are like hens teeth to find here!) and some more scissors (hey, a girl can NEVER have too many!!). I also bought a strand of beads that I think will be awesome as a scissor fob for the Gingher Roberta scissors … plus some necklace ‘thongs’ to put together some chunky style necklaces for myself and Katie. Hmmm, sorry about the green shopping bag that was used for the photography … not the best choice as a background to show off stitching scrummies! LOL.
And just LOOK at my favourite splurge of the day … I’ve been drooling over these Eiffel Tower scissors for the looooongest time, and that was my parting gesture to the show … and without doubt my very FAVOURITE purchase – I love, love, LOVE them, and don’t begrudge the AUD25.00 it took to procure them! 😀
Saturday was spent doing a bunch of tidying up in my pigsty of a bedroom, and tidying up my threads and stitching things – I finally grabbed a few of my kitted up projects that actually have DMC in the bags and entered all those threads into an Excel spreadsheet. It seems that these days I’m constantly putting projects on hold part-way through stitching ‘cos I’m one or two threads short, so hopefully this will help me know where to start rummaging when I’m hunting for an elusive thread! One other GREAT thing about tidying up my thread inventory is that I found the teeny tiny bag of embellishment beads for my January Accent Sampler by Periwinkle Promises … which also means I now have no excuse not to get it finished. All I need to do is to add the little beads, and my initials/year, and stitch the back-stitch border on the backing linen, and I’m all set to do the finishing … not much, right? … well, let’s just say it’ll get done some time soon either before or after I finish Boo! 😛
I’m hoping to take Friday off this week so I can run a couple of errands like FINALLY picking up a bookcase from Officeworks that I bought late last year (they didn’t tell me it had arrived then shipped it back to their warehouse again … bless them!) … which also then means I get to play DIY with my power drill (LOVE that thing!), and I also just might FINALLY finish unpacking those final boxes in my bedroom that are full of embroidery books etc … which will then perhaps FINALLY lead me to putting a bunch of my books I no longer want on Ebay … perhaps 😛
Work has been ‘challenging’ over the last couple of weeks – just for a change LOL. I’ve had it hinted from my boss that there could be a sort of new opportunity on the horizon that I should put my hand up for as it could be good for my career (and builds on the good relationship I already have with this group) … not really any different to what I’m doing now, just more focused on one area … time will tell if it actually pans out and goes ahead, and if so whether I get it or not, as there are obviously no guarantees. I have already stated openly to him, though, that I would be interested if it went ahead.
Anyway, talking of work, I guess I should hurry up and post this and get into beddy-byes … an extra half hour of sleep just could make all the difference for me tomorrow 😉
The next finish you see will hopefully be my Pin Pillow exchange piece, which is hurrying across the oceans as we speak, and hopefully won’t be too far away from its destination … 😀
I heard from Becky today that the Postman worked overtime over the weekend, and my little gifties arrived safe and sound. I’ve had the stitching done on these for 3 whole years (!!!) – the pinkeep has been sitting around finished ever since then, waiting for it’s companion needlebook to be finished. As soon as they became a matching pair officially (finally!!!), they were parcelled up and sent over to the US to their new Mum. Becky has a lovely photo on her blog, but here are a couple more from before they were made up into their finished versions (and these show the colours much more accurately):
As you can see, I had all intentions of getting them both finished the year they were stitched, so they still have 2007 stitched on the ‘backsides’ 😉 I have to agree I really love the little backstitched bees, but for the life of me I can’t remember which design I borrowed them from! And here’s the finished duo together all finished, just before packaging them up:
Feather Stitching 
