Category: Works in Progress

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

“It’s good to be back …”

Anne S

A HUGE “g’day” from Elwood!!! Yep, this is actually me sitting in front of my very own PC in my very own little flat – no, Houston, we no longer have a problem – we have a phone line!!! 😀 The phone technician called this morning to see if I was home, and if he could come round … his job today still went ahead, but he finished it sooner than expected, and was able to fit me in woohoo!!! 😀 Unfortunately the phone jack is now right in front of the front window where the Christmas tree usually sits, so I’ve had to spend just under $40 for a 12 metre extension cable and double adaptor, seeing as my computer is miles away, and the double adaptor I had already got was for the geriatric phone connection originally in place – now we have a snazzy new one.

I’ve already made one call home on it, and exercised the phone line for almost 2 hours chatting to Mum … and here are some photos expressly for her – the latest on my wall cracks. The first one also includes a great shot of the newly finished phone connection (I still have to vacuum up the mess and move the furniture back), as well as the lovely new crack I have along the middle of the wall, just nicely in line with the height of the sofa.

Next up is the top corner of the same wall – the window is now so out of plumb I can’t actually close it at all, and the phone technician reckons the floor in the corner is actually on a bit of a slope now hmmm.

Next is the corner behind my bookcase which divides the lounge and dining rooms.

And lucky last is above the balcony door frame. Some of them actually look worse in real life than they do in the photo … yep, definitely a good time to be looking for somewhere new, before I end up making an unexpected visit to the downstairs neighbours by landing on their heads!!

As for stitching, not as much to report as expected … here’s the latest progress photo of Bordeaux Sampler – I stayed up last night to finish of the over-one parts, and it’s been put away again until next week. You can see by the groups of grapes down the left hand side of the border where the halfway mark is, so I’m now very very close to it 🙂 Don’t worry Carol about not being in the same place – I know you’ve been very busy doing gift stitching … it’s still nice knowing you and Leslie are stitching it as well, even though we don’t have a designated night for it 🙂

Lastly I can show the latest UFO I’ve finished – this Cream Button Bag by Shelley Warner was from a Guild weekend Retreat in Auckland … it just has to be made into a bag now, but that will happen on one of my ‘finishing’ slots in my rotation. It’s pitiful how long this has been sitting around, as it only had four leaves left to be completed and the buttons added – it only took about 1-1/2 hours to finish!

This week I also started a SAL with Carina on the Ross Originals Macaw – it’s hardly worth showing a progress piccie, as there’s only a few stitches to show for it … but by next Wednesday there should be something worth showing, as that’s our new SAL night 🙂

Rightio, now it’s time to get the icing ready for a chocolate cake I made this morning … I’m not a baker by any stretch of the imagination, but I figure my skills will never improve if I don’t give it a go, so I’m stretching myself a bit. And the guys from work are going to be my guinea pigs to help save my waistline 🙂

I also made Honey Coconut Biscuits which are quite yummy … and a case of 2nd time lucky! I was making them on Wednesday morning to take into work, but the final ingredient was self raising flour, and when I was sifting it I found a big clump of insect eggs … everything ended up in the bin. Then I finally made them again last night, and managed to have an accident with the oven tray – while taking it out of the oven the heat started coming through my right hand, so I tried to jiggle it a bit in my hand, only to have the whole thing start slipping … I automatically grabbed it with my left hand, only to remember I didn’t have an oven mitt on it – let’s say I remembered bloody quickly!! Luckily I have a heap of ice cubes ready made in the freezer, and I ran a 1/4 sink of cold water and dumped every single cube into it – the throbbing pain was insane, and it’s no wonder people sometimes don’t survive major burns due to the shock from the pain! Anyway, it seems the ice bath really helped, as today it’s only slightly tender and the blistering is thankfully in places that is letting me have full use of my hand … phew!! I even managed a bit more stitching on Bordeaux after the accident, I think more to take my mind off it than anything else 😉

I still can’t switch to (non)Beta Blogger, and I’m getting sick to death of clicking on the “we are ready for you, switch now” blurbs … this kept happening for a while before losing my phone access, and it’s still happening. It’s getting a bit annoying, but perhaps I should just ignore the prompts until it changes into something nasty, like a final demand letter 😉 Either that, or start looking at alternatives, as I understand a few people haven’t been able to comment on my blog for quite some time 😦

Well, no more chatting for me – time to get moving, as I have an early shift at work tomorrow (a mix of 8am and 5am shifts for 7 days), and I still have some housework to finish … as well as organising some rental alerts on a few suburbs, and to get that icing done.

Oh boy, it’s good to have the ‘net at home again!!! 😀 Mind you, with 1160 unread feeds, I’m sorry but I really do have to mark all as read and start from scratch – it’s just too much to handle. I hope I won’t miss too much by doing that 😦 Hope to catch up with you all again soon 😀

Works in Progress

Back at the library again …

Anne S

Sorry about the rushed post last night – I visited Fraze last night and met his girlfriend Megan for the first time … pretty bad considering they’ve been going out together for about a year now! Anyway, it was a lovely time had by all – Megan cooked an awesome lasagne, and we chilled out with a glass of wine and good conversation … so good I didn’t end up leaving until 1am yikes! It was really nice to finally meet Megan after all this time. I’m usually really shy meeting new people, but I felt comfortable right from the start. I also intend catching up with “Bah Humbug” himself this week some time, aka Fraze’s Dad, but that’s another day and I have to psych myself up for it haha.

Still no word from the phone man – the real estate agent has left messages on his phone to call either her or me on my mobile to organise a date to come and fix the phone line. Considering the last time he came he stated if there were more problems they’d have to knock a hole in the wall and rewire the whole thing, it’s going to be a big job, me thinks. I’d actually bought a new cheap phone before Christmas, so that Mum could phone me (when I thought it was the phone that was dead) … and when I read the receipt last week I noticed they have a 14-day ‘cooling off period’ when you can return the goods for a refund … no questions asked, so I rushed in with the phone and I have the money back in my bank account again yippee! The great thing about the phone line issue is that the landlord pays for it, not me woohoo! 😀

Anyway, I popped into the library to check my emails, as I was expecting one, so I thought I’d make better use of the trip and upload some progress piccies as well. I’m not sure how often I’ll be popping to the library to check in, as their hours don’t really match up well with my shifts a lot of the time … by the time I get hooked up again, I may have set a new world record for unread feeds – I’d just started reading blogs again when my phone line crashed, and I’d managed to get it down to 690-ish … I’m aiming for the new record of four figures! LOL. By the time I get connected again I just may have to “mark all as read” and start from scratch, as I think it’s going to be way too much to try to catch up on.

Anyway, here’s the progress to date of my two WIP’s (I copied the piccies to disk) – I managed to finish off 4 hours on Flight of the Bumble Bees, and almost got the darning band completed … but seeing as I wasn’t really enjoying it, I decided to save the last bit until the next time I come to that rotation slot. Here is where I left them … (yet another crappy photo sorry)

Now I just have one hour left on Egyptian Garden, before I get back to work on an old UFO – it’s likely that with one rotation slot I’ll get that finished, but then again I’m not very productive when I’m on 6pm shifts as I’m usually way too tired, so time will tell. Here’s how I left EG at the end of the last 10 hours, and how it looks now … I’ve started the over-one area in the centre – seeing as I’d already unpicked this once on different fabric and started over again, I wasn’t in a hurry to start that part again, but I figure it has to be done at some stage, and if I just do 1-2 hours in every rotation slot, it will eventually all get filled in. My apologies, too – I’d meant to hunt down which fabric I’m using for this, as a couple of you have questioned it … I know it was a Silkweaver opalescent fabric, but I can’t remember which one – when I get up and running again at home, I’ll find out for you 🙂

Before:

After:

And to finish off, here’s another quote for you … I just found this one on the ‘net, as I forgot to bring it with me, but it’s one of my all-time favourites … I chose this to add to my Wessex Sampler, as I had started to embrace learning new things where my embroidery was concerned, and taking risks in the new challenges that brought. I suppose it’s also partly responsible for why I’m here in Aussie now, as I ran with what life had to offer at the time … life is too short … 😀

“Twenty years from now you will be more disappointed by the things you didn’t do than by the ones you did. So throw off the bowlines, Sail away from the safe harbour. Catch the trade winds in your sails. Explore. Dream. – Mark Twain”

Works in Progress

A New Year – A New Start

Anne S

OK, I fibbed … yesterday I decided seeing as it was the first day of a New Year, and I hadn’t finished my canvaswork rotation slot yet (I still had 4 hours of it left), I thought I’d drag out a new start … I’ve had this piece kitted up for many many years, and thought it would be good to finally get it stitched up. This is definitely a challenging piece for me, as it’s using stitches, materials and techniques never tried before. It’s called “Flight of the Bumble Bees” by Ruth Schmuff Designs. This is the finished product:

I’ve already had to frog-stitch part of it last night, and can’t say I’m particularly enjoying the darning of this band of bumble bees in Kreinik #8 braid … you should see the rat’s nest of threads hanging from the bottom of the canvas to be threaded back in afterwards hmmm. Sorry for the bad photo – I’ll take a better one after the next rotation round, as there won’t be much more progress on this one before I really DO get back to Egyptian Garden 🙂 I might just do the last hour on the bees before I switch over, though, as I think I still have an hour of that rotation left to go … I think I could manage another hour before I pull my hair out 😉

I just may be throwing a few quotes into my posts this year as well … I saved a heap of quotes that interested me or touched me in some way, that I thought may be useful one day … and I think I’ll share a few of them every now and then. Here’s the first one – and considering how I’ve been spending my days off so far, I think I can truthfully say I’m living! 😉

“If you can spend a perfectly useless afternoon in a perfectly useless manner, you have learned how to live.” – Lin Yutang

Works in Progress

Bordeaux Sampler

Anne S

Just a really really quick post, as I’m pretty shattered – just wanted to show Carol and Leslie that I haven’t forgotten about this SAL we’re doing … I just haven’t had much progress to show. Anyway, seeing as I’m supposed to post a piccie each Friday, I figure I might as well show where I’m up to so far – I think Carol might be catching me up quickly, and at the rate I’m going will be overtaking me very soon! 😉 I’m really not enjoying this band at all, so it’s slowed my enthusiasm and my stitching speed down – perhaps the sooner I finish it the better, so I can move on to a more fun band. (Sorry for the poor photo quality.)

We had a couple of people off sick at work today, so I ended up with 3 1/2 hours overtime which will be absolutely awesome in the pay packet (Mr Taxman may just see his money at the start of the year!) … but on day 6 of work, doing an 11 1/2 hour shift has wiped me out and I’m pretty exhausted … it’s my last day tomorrow, with another 6am start, so no more stitching for me, I don’t think!

I was also supposed to post a Photo Hunt piccie, but I’m too exhausted to go hunting … I had a quick look through my online piccies, but nothing jumped out at me, so I’m going to flag the exercise this week – instead I’m going to enjoy a bit of peace and quiet in the 1 1/2 hours I have between getting home and having to get to bed again 😉

Works in Progress

Back to a Rotation

Anne S

Well, so much for my plans to grid up the Leporello last night … it was quite late, so I thought I’d just stitch on an ‘existing’ project for the rest of the night, and start the Leporello today … um, well, that was the “plan” …

In reality, I started stitching Chatelaine’s Egyptian Garden, and I couldn’t put it down … so I ended up putting an entire 10 hours into it, and thus starting back into my rotation, which is well overdue 🙂 Here’s my progress to date.

And now I may have a partner in crime stitching with the Leporello – I’d love to do a SAL with you, Jenna … I’ll drop you an email shortly and we can work out how we want to do that.

Which also reminds me, I also have to get my Macaw or Rainbow Lorikeets kitted up for a SAL with Carina … as well as the Bordeaux Sampler with Leslie and Carol, it’s gonna be a busy time coming up 🙂 But what a wonderful group of projects 😀

I’ve actually been getting over a small dose of a virus since Thursday (I had to come home from work early on Friday), so it’s been a perfect weekend just blobbing out and stitching … heavenly 🙂 But tomorrow I’m on 6am shifts, and there’s a loud party going off next door … not quite so heavenly :/ But then I look back at my Egyptian Garden, and that heavenly feeling comes back 😀

I am thankful for stitching – and all the sheer pleasure, peace and joy that comes from it.

SBQ, Works in Progress

SBQ and a bit of Bordeaux

Anne S

Thanks for all your wonderful comments about Su’s scissor fob – I’m still blushing from all the lovely words of praise 🙂

Last night I decided I still wasn’t happy to put the needles down for the night, so did a couple of hours on Bordeaux Sampler – seeing as I didn’t do my stitching on it before Friday, I figured a couple of days late would be OK 😉 For the life of me I can never get a good photo of this one – but I just have the bottom band left and the two sides, all of which are a combination of backstitched leaves/vines and Rhodes stitch grapes, then band number two is completely finished. I’ve been looking ahead to the upcoming bands and my heart is sinking already at the sight of all the over-one grapes coming up {heavy sigh} LOL. I’d really like to get this piece finished by the end of 2007, if possible.

It’s finally time to answer the week’s SBQ before the next one comes out! Today’s SBQ was suggested by Jan and is:

“How many different brands of “complete” embroidery floss sets do you own? How do you keep track of it? (ie, spread sheet program, indexcards, palm pilot, etc)”

That’s very easy to answer – the only “complete” collection I have is of DMC. I’m slowly adding to my over-dyed collections as I come across colours I need for projects, but I’ll never bother getting the entire collections, as I simply won’t use them all. I used to keep an up-to-date inventory on my Cross Magic database of my DMC, but since I gave about 80+ skeins to Mum as a gift to start up her own collection, I haven’t updated things … maybe I’ll get around to that again … one day 😉 Other than that all my other threads are catalogued in Cross Magic – it makes it very very handy when kitting up new projects, as I can see at a glance what I have/don’t have.

On a positive front, today is finally pay-day, and I’m sooooo grateful! I’ve only spent $15 on groceries over the last fortnight (and that was only recently seeing as it was close to payday and no more working days left, so I knew I could go without any further spending), and I’m looking forward to getting my car checked out tomorrow, and my tax bill paid, so I know what money (if any) I have left over for the next fortnight. I’m no longer stressing over it – I figure if the tax bill has to be paid in two hits, so be it … it would be really nice to get some fresh food this week, though 🙂

Finishes, Works in Progress

Small ‘finishing finish’

Anne S

Another quiet day … even though it sounds like I’ve been very busy, I’ve actually been very relaxed and lazy all day – I did a small load of washing, and felted my Kitti Pi bed (thanks to Jo for putting that on her blog) that Mum knit for my four-legged friend that hasn’t arrived yet … it’s currently drying on top of my washing basket, so I’ll show the before and after piccies when it’s finished.

Aside from that I did a very tiny bit of stitching on my Bordeaux Sampler this evening, so here’s this week’s progress piccie … the only difference to last week is a tiny part of the right-hand border, a bit of gold, and two groups of those dratted over-one grapes. I’m soooo tempted to leave all those until the end, but if I did that I know it’d never ever get finished, so I’m forcing myself to stitch them as I go, and complete each band … I still have the four little grapes on the first dividing band to stitch yet, though.

The final thing I did today was to finally finish my Stars are Brightly Shining ‘ornament’ (by SamSarah Designs in the JCS 2005 ornie issue), and make my first ever flat-fold … I don’t have any suitable ribbon, so no embellishments are on it yet – I’ll probably add some red cording and a red ribbon bow on the top, but not entirely 100% sure of that yet. Oh well, that’s one thing crossed off my to-do lists for the year, as a flat-fold was one of my key goals for 2006 (the rest of my list is a bit of a whitewash, though!). Even though the curved needle had a mind of its own for a while, eventually I managed to tame it enough to do a fairly decent job of doing the ladder stitch joining up the sides 🙂 (The first piccie is a better representation of the actual colour – it’s a Country Stitch Kiwi Pearl, so not named, and it’s absolutely divine!) It’s shocking that it’s taken me so long to finish this off … it’s been sitting there just waiting to have its carrot nose stitched on, and that’s it! {shaking head} We didn’t have a button the right size, so Mum and I made one out of Fimo last Christmas (yes, it’s really been sitting here that long! LOL).

Tomorrow will see my final day of being lazy, as it’s back to work on Saturday again … thankfully to decent shifts this week of 8am-4pm for a few days – followed by 5am-1pm shifts … I’ll just have to make doubly sure I get all my sleep regularly for that 🙂 And I’m back to taking the Voltaren again to try and get my back pain under control – I stopped after just 3 days last week, which was a bit dumb … this week I’m determined to get it all fixed up and get my health back under control 🙂

And before I forget … for Nicki – I really loved the World’s Fastest Indian … what a wonderful feel-good movie, I can definitely recommend it! The only thing that took some getting used to was Anthony Hopkins’ weird ‘Southland’ accent … sounded a bit more like something out of Cornwall, rather than Invercargill, but then again it’s been a long time since I’ve been in Dunedin/Invercargill 😉

Stash, Works in Progress

WIP updates

Anne S

I was originally going to post a piccie once I’d got my latest project entirely finished, but it’s been slow going so I thought I’d post a progress piccie instead. This is the first time I’ve ever tried doing nun’s stitch, and I’m amazed at how slooooooowly that wee stitch goes … can’t say I’m a huge fan, although it looks OK. I still have to add the little bead eyes and do a broad chain stitch across the centre fold line – then I have to do the little separate name label before putting it all together … and being ‘finishing challenged’, I’m going goggle-eyed reading the instructions already – hopefully it will all slot into place once I have the actual finished articles and lining etc in front of me! This is “Bumble the Bee’s Wax Pocket” kit by Moss Creek Designs … I just love the little bee 😀 I wasn’t so fond, however, by the over-one stitching hmmm.

In fact, seeing as I’m not a great over-one fan, I’m definitely getting plenty of experience with my current/future projects … this one, plus the Bordeaux Sampler (all the verses plus the next band has oodles of over-one grapes), and the Lavender Rose Sewing Case (next on my list of smalls to stitch, seeing as I missed the SAL) … I’m either going to enjoy over-one more after all that practice, or detest it further … only time will tell …

And seeing as it’s almost Friday, I can finally post a progress piccie of the Bordeaux Sampler with my start of band number 2 … I haven’t touched this since coming home from Hong Kong, so I caught up a bit by putting 4 hours into it earlier in the week – and it’s time to get it back into a regular stitching slot each week. I’m looking forward to seeing Carol’s progress too 😀

Other than that, I have another mail art to be done as the original one went AWOL … have to admit, this is definitely not a stitching highlight for the week 😦

I do have to admit to a slight lapse off the Wagon last week too – just realised I’d forgotten to post a public announcement of my lapse, as well as a piccie of my spoils … Ashleigh was selling off a bundle of her stash on Ebay, and I’ve been dying to try some of the Periwinkle Promises little cushion kits, so I couldn’t resist trying some at a reasonable price to see if I like them … and after receiving them, I think I see more of them arriving on my doorstep in the future … after I’ve been on the Wagon a bit longer 😉

Now it’s off to bed for the night after a very inactive day … mind you, I can see the lounge room floor again, so I obviously got a bit of housework done today ;P