Crafts – Needlework – Page 28

Cross Stitch, Home & Family TO BE FIXED, Needlerolls, Works in Progress

Final piccies of Elwood

24 July, 200725 February, 2012 Anne S

When I was cleaning out the last remaining boxes of ‘stuff’ for storage, I came across the following on a CD – which is great ‘cos I had to format my compact flashcard and thought I’d lost them all! These were my final shots of my apartment in Elwood before I moved out … I miss the flat just a tiny bit, but I sure don’t miss those cracks or the window that wouldn’t close! I wonder if they’ve manged to get new tenants into it yet or done the work on the building? Oh well, all power to them … Here goes with the photos:

You probably can’t tell from this photo, but the window sill is actually buckled – the left hand side tilts upwards, and the right hand side tilts down … just goes to show how much the building is moving I guess …

This is what we found behind the bookcase – all of these cracks were much more impressive (and scary) in real life … this one explains the vertical crack all along the wall, we could finally see the source!

Talking of photos, I thought I’d share my storage space with you, so you can see how packed to the gunnels it is … I still have one more box, plus my sewing machine, plus a small suitcase to go in there tomorrow … miracles still DO happen, don’t they? LOL.

On a slightly ‘down’ note, I’ve had the disappointing news a few weeks ago that the housesitting agency I was going to be doing housesitting jobs for has closed their doors for at least the next year … ho-hum. I’ve heard bad things about some other agencies where you just don’t get work, so I’m not entirely sure what I’m going to do now … The guy I was going to housesit for has a daughter who runs an online agency, so I’ll probably sign up for that one – not sure how much business it’ll generate, though. If not, I guess I’ll have to start thinking about moving into a new place again closer to Christmas. At this stage I have jobs pretty much right up until the start of November – after that I’m up in the air quite a bit. I’m going to put an ad up on the noticeboard at work to see if that generates any more business (at this stage all my housesitting jobs have come from my fellow colleagues on the Hotline). I guess my first job now, though, will be to get $3,000 in a kitty behind me just in case I need to move into somewhere new … at least I still have housesitting until my laptop’s paid off phew! 🙂

Rightio, time to get up and start the official house cleaning … and packing my suitcase etc. The food bags are already packed with leftover groceries (I’ve been very lax about cooking while I’ve been here, so there’s plenty of tins etc left) – and my stitching is pretty much packed up … just one more bag of ‘stuff’ to finish sorting out and everything’s ready. It will be nice to have a free night tonight to just kick back and relax knowing all the housework is already done.

I have to admit I had a slight panic yesterday when I came home from the storage unit to find one of the cars missing from the driveway – thankfully I called Sal’s Mum and found out her Dad had come to pick up the car for picking them up from the airport … phew! I’m sure they’ve got the days wrong, though, as I’ve got it in my diary that they’re coming home tomorrow, not today … I guess if they’re not home by lunchtime today I’ll know I’m right. I’ve got the table in the kitchen already laid out ready for them with their piles of mail and the bills I’ve paid for them, plus a vase of flowers, bread and milk, and a bottle of red wine sitting ready with two wine glasses and the corkscrew, plus a welcome home note – hopefully they’ll appreciate it when they arrive … I just hope all my housesitting jobs won’t expect it haha 😛

Anyway, time to start the day … I’m not sure after tomorrow what sort of reception I’ll have for my internet connection – I’m moving to Seaford on the fringe of Melbourne’s outer suburbs, and unsure whether Unwired’s coverage reaches out there or not … if not I’ll be out of action for just under two weeks until I move out to Ringwood (where I’ll be for 4 weeks). Mind you this week the reception here has been appalling, so an improvement would be fantastic! I’ve been trying to post this for well over an hour now, but the stupid reception keeps dropping out hmmm.

In the meantime, have a great week everyone! 😀

I’ll leave you with my latest WIP – the photo is appalling, and half the wording has to be frogged due to stupid mistake, but I’m over halfway with this needleroll …

Cross Stitch, Works in Progress

My body clock needs replacing!

15 July, 200725 February, 2012 Anne S

Geez, I wish there was a shop where you could take your body clock in for fine tining … or a complete overhaul! I dunno what’s wrong with me at the moment, but I just can’t sleep ‘normally’. I haven’t been able to sleep before midnight (and generally 2am) over the last few nights, with plenty of tossing and turning happening. Tonight I was supposed to be going out after work and felt really shattered, so decided to have ‘an hour’ laying down as soon as I got in at 6.30pm before I got up to get ready … only to wake up at 11.30pm! Yikes!! So what does that mean? Yep, you guessed it … it’s now 3.30am and I’m struggling to get back into the swing of sleep mode again … b*gger! I’m also working for 4 hours overtime tomorrow (actually, I guess that’s now “today”) … it’s gonna be a fun shift, I can tell already 😉

As for other things, life has been exceptionally calm and boring, which is a nice change. I have hardly lifted a needle since I finished Bordeaux, and this is the sum total of my stitching efforts over the last few weeks … compared to what I normally achieve, this is quite a pitiful sight! Eventually it will be a finished Mini Garden Mandala freebie by Chatelaine.

Never mind … life goes on – I’ve been having more fun kitting up my stash in recent weeks than actually stitching, so at least I’m still keeping myself busy by immersing myself up to the elbows in threads and fabrics 🙂

Rightio, time to go back and try to sleep again … ho-hum …

Cross Stitch, Finishes, Finishing, Gifts TO BE FIXED

Quick update

10 July, 200725 February, 2012 Anne S

Not much time to blog, as I need to get dinner cracking (aka defrosting and reheating in the microwave LOL) … after having a really horrendous time over the weekend, I’m taking it easy this week. I spent almost the entire day in bed again yesterday, only surfacing at about 7.30pm hmmm. Today, though, I feel quite a bit better – and definitely better tonight than I did this morning!

I received some more yummy mail today, but I haven’t had chance to email a thank you yet, so the piccie will have to wait for that … what I do want to post is that FINALLY my gift for Tessa is ready to go in the mail! Only a couple of months after meeting each other, and I can get it mailed out. You see, my original drama had to do with not being able to find any suitable pins …

First of all, I thought I had some at home already – when I proved myself wrong, I went out and bought some …

These turned out to be waaaaay too small head-wise, although the colour was pretty good (but they’re incredibly sharp and the small container now fits perfectly in my stitching bag as a handy tool).

Back to the drawing board, and I bought 4 wheels of pins so I could pull the red ones out … well, don’t ask me what the heck I did with them, ‘cos they disappeared from sight until I was packing up the flat last month – but the colour turned out to be wrong (ie too pale for the ribbon, and a totally different shade to the stitching) …

Another shopping trip and two more packets later, and the colour STILL isn’t right …

BUT today the mailman brought me some pins I ordered online (thanks Andrea for advertising that shop on Ebay!) … and FINALLY the pins are just perfect!! If anyone local needs any pins at any time, scream out, ‘cos I bought a bucketload of different colours (blue, red, purple, beige, and white, from memory – I haven’t opened the box up properly yet) ;P

Here’s the final version of Tessa’s pinkeep … and believe it or not I finally managed to upload the photos off my phone of our meeting in Acland Street – my old PC would never acknowledge the upload cable, but my new laptop seems to play nicely and they’re finally off the phone and into the computer memory woohoo!! (Thanks to my housesitting job for the lovely interesting backdrop!)

Anyway, my sincere apologies, Tessa for the delay, but it will be winging its way to you some time this week! 😀

Rightio, off to the lounge for dinner and a bit of a tidy-up ‘cos there’s packing stuff all over the place and I need to get everything into storage again this weekend … It’s getting closer to moving day, and I’d like a week of rest beforehand, if I can. Plus I need to do all the housework too, of course, and next week I’m on overnight shifts yucky 😦

Cross Stitch, Works in Progress

Grapes, grapes and more grapes …

29 June, 200725 February, 2012 Anne S

Today I stitched on Bordeaux Sampler all day … I was originally going to just stitch for an hour, then thought to myself ‘sod it’ and had a marathon stitching day with it, so I’m very very close to being finished with it. Seeing as I’m so close, I’m going to keep going to see it through to completion. I’ve been fighting off a cold for the last week and a half, but I woke up this morning really bunged up, so called in sick – I’ve spent the entire day cocooned in my PJ’s, sat in the leather recliner, with my laptop playing DVD’s and stitching my little heart out … it was bliss. Anyway, enough already, here’s the photos …

First up I finished off band 7 of the sampler …

I was going to put it away at that point, but I couldn’t be bothered getting up to find something new to stitch, so I loaded up another needle with burgundy thread, and I started work on those dratted over-one grapes. By the end of tonight, though, I now only have another 6 large bunches left to stitch, plus two small bunches to finish off each side of the lettering. I think by the end of this weekend I’ll have a happy dance coming! 😀

Cross Stitch, Gifts TO BE FIXED, Home & Family TO BE FIXED, Round Robins, Works in Progress

Sing-along … “Vanilla Ice Ice Baby…”

25 June, 200725 February, 2012 Anne S

I don’t know about the Vanilla part, but there was plenty of the “ice ice, baby” this morning when I got up … I woke up totally cocooned in my duvet this morning, and had to get the hosepipe out to blast the ice from my windscreen before I could drive to work … bloomin’ heck it’s freezing!!! Thank goodness I’m outta that flat, or you might have been chipping the ice off my body for a week! 😉

I’ve been a big neglectful of my computer over the last few days, as I’ve been ready to throw it out the window … not so much the laptop itself, but the associated problems of transferring files and doing jobs that are normally plain and simple on my old PC, but for some reason now require the braincells of a rocket scientist 😦 Hence last Wednesday I walked away from it and refused to do any more transferring until I was in a better frame of mind …

Thanks Ally for the link to the Vista tip site – I’m still having problems transferring my emails across, but I haven’t given up hope just yet … I am also having problems, though, with my old version of Outlook running on this machine (basically it won’t work) – and it won’t let me re-download all the security patches etc … I thought I’d be clever and download the 60 day trial of Office 2007, but even that version won’t play ball with Outlook, so for now I’m waving the white flag and conceding defeat until I’m ready to start tackling it again in a week or so’s time.

Now, where’s my draft email that I started drafting up a blog post last week …?? Aha, here we go … off to do a job of cut and paste, and a bit of editing, then I’ll finish up with the latest update of the week’s events (which are pretty few and far between) …

It’s been a while since I blogged (because the Photo Hunt was created an entire month ago now, I can’t claim the fame for blogging about that recently), and it’s been an interesting week overall. I’ve been on some mixed shifts, and it tired me out somewhat last week … I did have a huge highlight of the week when I received some wonderful squishy mail 🙂

Nicki sent me a RAK that totally blew me away! I received one of the charts on my wishlist, “Blessed with Happiness box” by The Cat’s Whiskers … Nicki thought the wording on the box were perfectly suited to my recent life dramas, and I’d have to agree I love the sentiments behind it 🙂 But not only that, Nicki also sent me the fabric, Dinky Dyes silks, Kreinik Blending Filament and Mill Hill beads to kit it up … WOW!!! My jaw was seriously sitting on the floor for quite a while … thank you Nicki from the bottom of my heart 😀 My apologies it’s taken me so long to blog about it (I’ll explain why soon).

In fact it was Nicki’s generosity that finally geared me up me get my A into G and have a ‘stitchy weekend’ … I have to admit no stitches were actually done, but I dragged out the boxes of stitching goodies that I’d brought with me that all needed to be sorted out before going back into storage, and I’ve spent the entire weekend (well, my version of a weekend anyway – it was actually Thu/Fri) cutting up fabrics for dozens and dozens of projects. Each project is in it’s own sealed plastic bag with the chart and fabric, and all I have to do now is to kit up with the threads (which is what I’ve been doing for the last 2 nights). Then they’ll all sit in 2-3 boxes in storage ready for me to dip my hands in when I need something new to stitch.

Unfortunately with housesitting I don’t have the space and flexibility to travel with my full rotation, so I’m going to become a one-at-a-time stitcher. I plan to have one project with me that’s a larger/more complex project (such as Bordeaux Sampler and Winter Queen etc), with a couple of smaller projects such as a needlebook or needleroll to break it up a bit. That way I should only have to travel with one set of scrollbars and one of Q-snaps. I’m lucky at the moment in that I’m only a short drive away from my storage unit (it’s literally within 10 minutes drive from home) … but with future housesitting jobs I won’t have that luxury (for those who know Melbourne well, my upcoming jobs vary from Ringwood, to Airport West, to Seaford, to a ‘mystery location’). If nothing else, it’ll show me different parts of Melbourne I haven’t seen before! 😉

Rightio, back to my scheduled yapping, now I’ve edited that draft …

The only stitching I’ve been doing has been a few stitches into KarenV’s Quaker RR – this is due to be mailed in less than a week’s time so I thought I’d better get cracking on it. I just have one large motif plus one tiny one and my initials, so it shouldn’t take much longer to finish whatsoever 🙂 Unfortunately my very bad photo doesn’t do this beauty justice at all!

Unfortunately my car woes have continued to my new place (mutter mutter mutter) … the dashboard light stopped working the night I drove Mum home after the big ‘move’, but I promptly forgot about it until I had to start driving in the dark again about two weeks ago. I called Ace mobile mechanics (and yes, I’m giving their name for a reason) who did the original job, and asked if I could organise for Nick to come out to fix it during my days off. He ended up cancelling on the scheduled day due to being stuck on a job, but eventually came round on Friday. You may remember I got seriously duped and taken for a ride when I got my clutch replaced, well this time I stuck up for myself big time! When he turned up he said he’d brought the dimmer switch, and it’d be just over $53 to install it. Um, since when did we discuss installing a dimmer switch?? Apparently I was told if the job didn’t work with the normal switch he installed, then I would need to get the dimmer switch … Um, actually Nick no that’s not correct – the conversation we actually had was that you gave me a choice on the night – if I preferred to have the dimmer switch (which the car is usually installed with as factory standard), then he’d have to order it in … but I could use a normal switch which could be installed immediately, the problem being that you couldn’t then dim the light and the dashboard would be brightly lit all the time the lights were on. No problem, I say, as I never use the dimmer switch anyway, so please feel free to use what you have to hand …

On completion of the job he tells me that if I change my mind and would rather have the dimmer switch, all I had to do was to call up and tell them, and they’d come round and install it – the only thing I’d have to pay for would be the parts themselves as the labour would be covered under the current job. Now THAT is not a conversation I had in my mind or with an imaginary party during a dreaming session … admittedly I was under stress at the time, but I remember that conversation very lucidly and clearly, and it certainly isn’t something I could have made up.

So, going back to Friday’s conversation … Nick says I’ll just work out what the final cost will be for you – rightio, that’ll be $120-something. Picture me turning purple, and just managing to mutter “I beg your pardon??” – where the hell does the extra money come from?? Oh, he says, that’s the cost of the labour … Yep, you got it, Mt St Annie erupted in the middle of the driveway – I repeated the conversation we had, but he declared he never would have said that blah blah blah. Let’s just say I politely told him to take his dimmer switch away and remove himself from the property because he wasn’t getting another red cent from me! I said I’d rather pay for someone else to come and do the job properly and he was a disgusting fraud … (phew!!)

Then I took the keys, locked up my car, and walked inside … and phoned Ace up to make a formal complaint about him, and tell them how downright angry and ropeable I was. I’m sorry to say it, but as a female I’m sick to death of being taken for granted by bl**dy mechanics and thieves. I may be female, but I no longer have “stupid” tattooed on my forehead … mutter mutter mutter. Anyway, let’s just say the matter has yet to be resolved, as it turns out Nick hasn’t handed in his invoice for the old job yet, and apparently he would have remarked it with comments (I wish I knew where my copy was, as it’s now buried in storage somewhere hmmm) – hopefully I should hear back tomorrow from the General Manager. Mt St Annie is still simmering under the surface depending on the outcome … I have to admit, though, when Nick was playing around with the wires when he first arrived and was looking at the car, I think it might just have been a loose wire, as it’s been working fine ever since (for the last two nights anyway) – so with any luck it won’t be necessary to see his ugly mug on my doorstep again 😦 Karma is gonna get you one day, you big fraud!!

Wow, that was one HUGE vent off my chest … it’s amazing what a good moan does for you 😉 Now it’s time to settle in for bedtime – my hotwater bottle is sitting at my feet so hopefully that’ll make it easier to doze off to sleep. It’s dreadful that the only place I can find a good connection for the internet modem is here in the bedroom – bless my laptop, it’s wonderful sitting up in bed doing my computing, it’s so much warmer 😉

Actually, the other reason I’ve been lax in posting is that I’ve refused to post until I could post my piccies of both Nicki’s RAK and Karen’s RR, and for some reason every way I’ve tried to download from my CompactFlash card I’ve had to give up. Every time I tried to load up a card reader (I bought a new one 1 1/2 weeks ago as my laptop doesn’t support that card type – the one thing I miss from my PC), and the system froze up and didn’t acknowledge the drive. Then Mum sent my old one from home, and that wasn’t working either … I finally gave up and started up my old PC and tried to download my ‘old way’, but it wouldn’t acknowledge it either. Well, tonight I finally fixed it … I ended up formatting the drive, and wiping everything off my card (losing all the photos in the process, but them’s the breaks), but I can FINALLY upload photos either from my camera directly or from the card reader … it seems the problem all along with the flash card itself 😦 I think it got corrupted during the data transfer cabling, as I’d forgotten and left it sitting in the PC cardreader at the time … but “it’s all good” now yippee!!

Rightio, I really MUST get off to bed, or I’ll be a cranky camper tomorrow 😉 Hope you are all having a good week – I look forward to reading your blogs soon! 😀

Cross Stitch, Home & Family TO BE FIXED, Quilting, Works in Progress

I’m Baaaack … !!!

17 June, 200725 February, 2012 Anne S

[Please note this was actually written up 3 whole days ago, but I’m not going to edit it any further … my connection died after just over an hour or so, and I’ve only just managed to get a connection back again hmmm. With any luck I’ll be able to upload the photos this time round before it dies yet again …]

And I have to say I’m a LOT chirpier than I was the last time I wrote a week ago! 😀 What I didn’t tell you in my last looong post is that I had a small melt-down at work the day after I finished moving. I had to pick up a few extra items that I just couldn’t cram into the car on the last night, and just put them on the back seat for the day, and when I got to work I managed 2 whole hours before my whole body started reacting … the only way I can describe it is that it’s as if it went into shock … I started getting the shakes, and my mind just couldn’t concentrate on anything – I think it was finally reacting to the fact that it was “all over”, and a release from all the immense tension and stress I’d been under. I think it’s amazing how much your body can cope with when it has to, but I guess it all has to give way at some time or another, and that day was mine!

Today, though, I’m much much brighter. I’m settled nicely into housesitting and today is my 3rd day of a 3-day break. The first day was spent doing exciting things like doing the laundry ‘cos I’d run out of clothes already (underclothes anyway), and doing a few chores that I needed to do like getting a few more boxes for parcelling the final bundles of storage stuff into (which is still not sorted out, but I’ve got 5 weeks left to get it done by LOL). I also got my new cordless mouse replaced, and picked up a cheap card reader that fits into the USB port, so hopefully I should be able to get photos uploaded soon (I have a couple to add to this post, so we’ll soon see if it works! …) [edited to add that the card reader just keeps freezing my PC up, so it’s getting returned for a refund – luckily I still have my old PC set up on the table, so I’ve uploaded my photos to disk while I can] … as well as spending more money!

I’ve been struggling with one pair of jeans ever since I’ve had them, as it’s too tight in the waist, and I have to leave the top button open (it’s got a button fly), but I always end up with tummy pains by the end of the day. Anyway, I finally decided ‘enough was enough’ and I splurged on some new jeans from Target, plus two new (blue haha) long-sleeve T-shirts that are more ‘trendy’. Yes, there are a few new changes on the Shacks homefront, all for the better. Next month will see new lingerie being bought as well … crikey, will there be no stopping me now? LOL. I won’t know myself soon!! 😉

Yesterday the entire day (and I mean the ENTIRE day to 2am!!) was spent transferring files from my old PC to my laptop – the contacts folders didn’t copy across at all properly, so I had to update those which took hours, plus for some reason Outlook won’t run at all on this PC, and the Help section doesn’t help much at all, as it says Outlook is now phased out with Windows Mail taking over from Outlook Express hmmm – for love nor money I can’t copy across any of my emails at all from my old PC … not one single one of the 4000+ emails sitting in there (yes, you’re right, that’s ridiculous … and a good chance to “cull”). So, if I’m missing sending anyone an email reply from before I moved I’m really sorry, but it’s likely you might have to re-email me again, as it’s a bit overwhelming ploughing through the files hmmm (especially as I have no way of printing them or re-emailing them to myself as both modem/printer are now in storage).

Last night was the most bitterly freezing night I think I’ve ever endured sleeping in Melbourne … I do have to say I miss my electric blanket dearly, and even with two duvets on the bed last night I still couldn’t get warm – tonight if it’s the same I’m going to be sleeping in my trackpant bottoms with my long-sleeved thermals on … and I really do have to find that hot water bottle I brought with me somewhere! 😉 I did have another rather large splurge, though, which is a winter weight duvet that has half of it made of wool, which is a lot warmer but thinner so it’ll take much less room in the car when travelling … I should be able to find room for the old one by throwing it on top of the storage boxes 😉

Today I’ve finally succumbed to signing up to the Unwired network, so I can access my emails and internet at home. I’ve managed to find a position sat at the breakfast bench in the granny flat that gets an OK reception, so here I am online again 😀 I don’t have an ‘unlimited’ account, so I probably won’t be spending as much time online as I used to, but it’s wonderful to know that I can jump online and do my internet banking etc without having to trek halfway around Melbourne to an internet cafe (although admittedly I think the closest one to here is in Carnegie, about 15 mins drive away). The weather’s been dreadful over the last couple of days, so it’s hasn’t inspired me to leave home at all, never mind to go internet cafe shopping.

As to what else I’ve been up to … not much in the stitching department, that’s for sure! I’ve managed to get a bit of Bordeaux done, and I’m concentrating on that now until it’s finished – after that’s done, I’m not sure which project to work on next. I have to say that Snapperville is screaming quite loudly to me right now as a new start (followed by Winter Snapperland once I work out which fabric to use) – then I should be concentrating on one of my WIP’s again, and that’s likely to be either Stitching Leporello or the Pyramid Etui … but I reserve the right to change my mind on a whim 😉 I’ve been spending my time reading more than stitching this last week, and managed to finally finish reading Warlock by Wilbur Smith … not as good as some of his books, but I really enjoy the historical content of his Egyptian series … and I have Quest, the 4th in the series, on Audible ready to listen to at my leisure (another pain is that I’ve had to save all my Audible books to disk to be able to play them on the new laptop – for some reason the files didn’t copy across too well).

I haven’t unrolled the scrollbars on Bordeaux since I worked on it the other night, so you’ll just have to imagine the previous band – the light in here isn’t fantastically conducive to over-one stitching, so I gave band #6 a rest, and I’ve been working on band #7 instead to have a break. Only a couple more weeks will see this finished, me thinks 🙂

While I was packing up the spare bedroom to go into storage, I have to say I was quite disgusted with myself for the state of the following UFO’s … I started going to quilting classes quite a number of years ago (at least 7 anyway), and did an applique quilt class – I wasn’t thrilled with the project we did, but I figured it would teach me the basics of applique quilting. Anyway, it was all machine appliqued using Vliesofix, and I couldn’t believe how close I’d come to finishing this off before putting it to one side! Needless to say I’ve brought it with me, along with my new sewing machine (that cheapo one that I managed to pick up before we did the big move), so I can finally get it finished – all it has to have done is the binding finished, and even that’s almost 3/4 stitched on!!! {hanging head in shame …}

Next up is the first patchwork project I attempted after trying the applique class – this was from a craft magazine and was supposed to be for a cot quilt … well, I thought it had turned out to be too big, so Mum kindly unpicked the sides for me to make it smaller, then it’s sat there ever since as I thought I might as well just leave it bigger so it will get more use as the child recipient gets older (don’t even go there and ask which child this was for as a baby, and what age he is now!! LOL) … so now I need to unpick the borders again and restitch it all together, then it’s ready for the backing and to be quilted (let’s just say the backing fabric I originally had ordered got stuck with the cancelled freight services after September 11 … yup, you get the idea about how old this is!!).

Lucky last for the quilting UFO’s, here’s a bag I started from yet another class project … I panicked when I saw the diagram of how it’s all got to go together, as I’ve lost my confidence with machine sewing, then I was thrilled and disgusted at the same time when I opened all the pieces out and realised I’d already stitched the pockets etc into the bag pieces, and yet again it just pretty much as to be stitched together and have the seams bound … yep, my head is almost on my knees now from hanging in shame … yikes! 😉 This bag is designed to be a “quilting bag” where you keep your cutting board and rotary cutter etc in … I have to admit I’m quite proud of myself that I managed to get all the little pockets etc on so nicely … but I wonder how on earth I ever managed it! (I’m such a finishing wuss these days, it’s not funny!!) Goodness knows where all the gung-ho confidence has disappeared to where finishing is concerned!! Eventually, though, this bag will be an actual bag, complete with two big outside pockets (not pictured), and it’s supposed to have dowling rods as handles (although I may substitute something else for handles, I’m not too sure yet).

So, my challenge once I’ve sorted out my PC issues (which is now pretty much just the email issue) is to sit down one day on my days off and become friends with my sewing machine and get some of these items actually finished!

I also have something else to share as well, from a recent visit to a beautiful stitching pal’s home … but I’ll do a separate post so it doesn’t get lost in this one (and I’ve been waffling on for ages as it is!! – can’t you tell I’ve been without a chatting outlet for a while? LOL).

In the meantime, I’ll close this post in saying it feels fantastic to be out of my old flat – things are hopefully on the up and up on the homefront … I’ve just heard I’ve got the OK for another 4 weeks housesitting from 4 August, which means I’ll just have a one-week stay out in Seaford between the two housesitting jobs, and I may have another 4 weeks straight after that, which is in Seaford itself … and both these later two jobs have furbabies … I’m going to be in 7th heaven – Daniel has one kitty who is really smoochy apparently, and Ali has two kitties that are admittedly not smoochy, but it’ll still be great to be around kitties again yippee!! 😀 [Plus I also now may have another short stint for a lady at work with a dog … woohoo!!]

Cross Stitch, Home & Family TO BE FIXED, Works in Progress

Sod Murphy and his bl**dy Law!! ;)

29 May, 200725 February, 2012 Anne S

After being so incredibly positive yesterday to Mum, saying we were going to have a marathon packing effort today because it was my last early shift and we could stay up later packing as I could sleep in, my plans were of course foiled. I should’ve known Murphy and his sodding Law would come and interfere with our perfect plans!!

The last couple of days my car has been playing up … yet again … I do have to admit that I even used the dreaded “F” word in front of Mum tonight in my sheer frustration with it – but she was feeling magnanimous and didn’t offer to wash my mouth out with soap for a change LOL. Anyway, those of you who’ve been reading my drivel for a while now may remember I had some ‘electrical’ problems before Christmas, when I had to buy a new battery, continued to have problems, and had a ‘supposed’ auto electrician look at my car, who couldn’t find anything wrong. Since then I’ve been leaving my car alarm off overnight, so just the disabler was operating, and my battery has been OK since then and remaining charged up. Well, a couple of days ago it started playing up again by making ‘chirping’ noises from the alarm when switching the ignition off …

Today it finally fell into a heap when I got home, and the central locking died, with a really sad noise emitting from the alarm. Seeing as my car is pretty critical this week, I had no choice but to call up a mobile auto electrician who came out to look at it within the hour (bless him!) … it turns out I was right the entire time, and the problem was that the alarm was ‘taking over’ my electrical system – so we agreed to just disable the entire thing. Of course, today Melbourne decided to break the huge drought we’ve been having, and we got stuck in such a deluge of rain that my trousers with literally squelching wet – because of the laneway access still closed, we couldn’t put the car under shelter to be fixed … in the end we opted to drive down to St Kilda to the Coles carpark, which is undercover, and the mechanic spent an hour ripping disassembling the wiring of my car alarm – he also fixed another wiring problem with the dashboard light not operating as well. Anyway, $200 later (didn’t really need that this week, but c’est la vie – at least there are no other big bills yet to come this payday), and my car is behaving perfectly for a change. I’m not even going to guess how long it will stay that way, but for now I’m going to enjoy that bit of bliss 😉

I do have to say, though, that if you haven’t heard it before, I soooooooo HATE my car!! Even Mum suggested while I’m off housesitting that I should save up and get a new one … which is something I’ve been considering myself over the last couple of days!

Anyway, the day wasn’t entirely all bad … we got evacuated from our work building today while we had the Police, fire trucks and an ambulance in active attendance – it turned out to be an air conditioning motor burning out and polluting the entire building with fumes, so we had 1 1/2 hours off work … and because it was so cold out there today (we’ve had gale force winds across parts of Victoria) they even let us head off to the shops for a coffee to warm up … we pushed the boundaries and sat and had a cooked breakfast (it was 9am by this time, and time for my lunchtime anyway, so it was perfect for me!).

After we’d eaten, I managed to quickly duck across the road to clear the PO Box before heading back to work, and I had a wonderful parcel of goodies waiting for me (actually there were a couple that arrived today, but I still have two thank you emails to send yet, so I’ll post those tomorrow and keep you in suspense LOL).

I have to share with you today a most wonderful bag that KarenV stitched for me – isn’t this the most gorgeous fabric ever?!! I just ADORE it!! As soon as I opened the envelope, it put a huge grin on my face 😀 I told Mum I’m going to take it with me housesitting to add some cheer to my day every day – it’s just lovely. Thanks so much Karen for a gorgeous gift – it’s absolutely perfect for me! 😀

To finish today’s post/drivel I’ll end with what will be my final progress piccie of Bordeaux for a wee while – I’ve managed to put a few grapes into it, and as you can I’ve finally decided to just stitch the grapes in each ‘gap’ rather than the date. I think, instead, I may add a very small backstitched initials and year in the bottom left and right corners of the sampler at the end. The next time I get access to posting piccies it’s likely this will be finished (at least I hope so!) 🙂

And now it’s time to hit the hay for the night. There’ll be precious little packing happening tomorrow thanks to my shifts, and only two nights left … but I’m trying not to think about it 😉 In the meantime I’m going to enjoy a good night’s sleep, as I’ve had two real shockers the last two nights, and enjoy the last few days of our week 🙂 It will be nice to cuddle under the duvet tonight, as our lounge room is back to being like the Arctic Circle (I have my work clothes on still, complete with dressing gown over the top, it’s so cold!). Mum and I are counting down the sleeps to the official handing back of the keys … poor Mum was quite scared in the flat today, as the wind was quite strong and making the walls creak and groan more than normal … I have to say, too, the cracks are definitely worse in here now as well, if that was possible! Oh well, only 6 more sleeps … 😉

Home & Family TO BE FIXED, Works in Progress

Happy Birthday to the Dragon!!

25 May, 200725 February, 2012 Anne S

Just a quick post to wish Mum (aka the Dragon) a wonderful birthday … not sure yet what we’re going to do to celebrate, but we may go out to dinner somewhere nice over the weekend. It’s a bit boring as I gave her birthday gifts to her when she was here visiting last time, so I picked up a couple of deli treats from the Camberwell markets for her before work yesterday.

As I mentioned earlier, my stitching time has pretty much finished now as the packing is taking shape more and more (this weekend will be the most frantic as we try to get the bulk of it totally finished) … here is what may be the final progress piccie of Bordeaux for a while (depending whether I manage a couple of stitches over the coming week or not, when most of the packing is finished). In the centre row the the middle four blank ‘squares’ are supposed to have the year stitched, with one numeral in each square, but I don’t think I like how large the date will then be. I’m thinking of stitching A on the left, and S on the far right, with 20 and 07 sharing the centre two blocks. I might wait until everything else is finished before I totally decide … the alternative is to ignore the date altogether, and just fill the gaps with yet more over-one grapes as the original chart thumbnail shows (you can just barely see that in my sidebar).

I can’t believe that in exactly one week I lose my computer access – I don’t know how I’m going to survive!! There are no internet cafes near to where I’m moving to for housesitting, so it’ll take a while before I get an internet fix. If nothing else, though, it’ll give me more chance to get some extra stitching time in as I’ll have no other distractions (other than Foxtel yippee!).

A quick reminder about the RAK Registry – I’ve sent my work email to everyone that is a current member of the Registry … if you didn’t receive that email, please let me know and I’ll re-send it to you. Also you can continue to send to my original email address, as it is still active, but there will be a delay in my responding to you depending on how often I can get to an internet cafe.

Fingers crossed I’ll have a laptop sooner than later, especially as I’ll be saving a load of money from house-sitting … the one I’ve pretty much decided on (HP Pavilion dv6304TX) will cost me about $1800-$1900, though, so it will still be a wee while away before I do manage to get it. My 2nd choice is the HP Pavilion dv6302TU … the only difference is the 6304 has 160GB of memory, as opposed to 120GB of the 6302, and the graphics card is better. Not entirely sure whether I really need the higher capacity or not, though … if anyone has any recommendations I’d really love to hear it, as I’ve never owned a laptop before 🙂

I also want to apologise as I’ve been reading blogs only for an hour each day when I first come in from work, but I haven’t been commenting much – I’m trying to read as much as I can before I lose my access, but next week it will be more of a struggle to even keep up with reading. Please don’t be offended if I don’t make a final comment on your blog before I head off into the big blue yonder.

Which brings me to my next point … I want to thank each and every one of you that continues to visit and read my drivel, even when it’s been negative as I’ve been going through an emotional turmoil – an extra special thanks go to those of you who take the time to comment, especially when I’m not commenting much in return. I’ve said it before and I’ll say it again many many times I’m sure, that blogging has sure changed my life – it’s made it a much warmer and friendly place, and I’ve made some incredible friendships over the last 18 months or so … I appreciate each and every one of you very very much, it’s been an honour to get to know you!

Rightio, time to get back into packing mode for a couple more hours before I have to get ready for work. It’s my last 4pm shift start today, and I’m soooooo happy! But I’ll close with piccies of our ‘imaginary’ road works (it’s OK, Mr C, I no longer have desires to boil your bunny, so you’re safe! LOL).

Cross Stitch, Works in Progress

Biscornu design details

18 May, 200725 February, 2012 Anne S

I forgot to include the information about the design I’m using for my biscornu, so I thought I’d better do that for anyone that’s interested …

Part 2 of Mystery Sampler by Debbie Draper
from Gift of Stitching e-magazine, Issue 7 August 2006
Stitched with Carrie’s Threads in Ocean Blue and Lavender

The full design from the Gift of Stitching magazine started with part 1 in Issue 6 July 2006 – this is what the whole thing looks like … but I’ve chosen to use the two ‘square’ parts just for a biscornu, and totally altered the colour scheme to my wacky tastes.

Nothing else to report really – I survived my final night shift, and slept reasonably OK off and on (thanks to construction works of some sort behind us), but feel pretty bleary-eyed today. This weekend and next week is the only time I can do some decent packing, so it’s going to be full-on between now and then – I’m working 4pm-midnight shifts next week, but it means if I can get to bed/asleep relatively quickly when I get home, at least I’ll have a few hours around lunchtime that can be spend packing … the following (and last) week I’m on 11am-7pm shifts, which isn’t really conducive to doing much of anything. Oh well, things will work out, I’m sure, especially with Mum home during the day to help out 🙂

No stitching time today – time to start packing/organising in the spare bedroom (aka the junk room) to give us room to start packing tea chests in there … then we’ll be taking the legs off the dining table to give us stacking space in the dining area as well. Once the actual packing starts earnestly I don’t think it’ll take that long to do, it’s just the ‘sorting out’ and de-cluttering prior to packing that’s taking the time. Talking of which, I’d better go get some brekkie (it’s now 3pm and I’m getting a bit peckish) and make a start on something …

Cross Stitch, Works in Progress

Last night shift with some Bordeaux

17 May, 200725 February, 2012 Anne S

I managed to get 6 solid hours of sleep today, which was just wonderful – I feel so much better, and even picked up my needle for some decent stitching for a few hours while Mum and I caught up on the week’s TV viewing. It’s the last night shift for me tonight, so hopefully my sleep patterns will improve more over the next couple of nights.

I still haven’t thought much about my living situation – I’m just going to wait to see what Sheree comes back with, as I sent her an email last night touching base, and testing the water to see if she’ll actually come out and tell me herself about her plans … I think I’ve reached saturation point right now with everything negative that’s been happening lately, and I’m just feeling ‘numb’ about everything now, for want of a better way of describing it. I guess that’s just my coping mechanism kicking in … and it’s easier to deal with it with Mum being here – I’d probably be in a bigger heap if she wasn’t!

Anyway, on to brighter things – here’s my latest update piccie of the Bordeaux Sampler … which is good timing seeing as it’s actually our SAL night. I think this project is one that’s coming with me when I go housesitting, so it just might be finished by the end of June as my rotation is no longer existent (mainly because I won’t have all my projects with me, a lot will be in storage).

Next up is side one of my biscornu that I’ve been putting a few stitches into at work – I’ve only put about 20 stitches into side two, so there’s no point in a progress piccie just yet. Fingers crossed I’ll manage a few more stitches tonight at work, as this is the only time I’ve been stitching on it.