Cross Stitch – Page 21 – Feather Stitching

Today I left a little later than I originally hoped, but I braved the rush and headed out to Ikea on the other side of Sydney … I love wandering around Ikea but absolutely detest the crowds that are inevitably present. I still managed to pick up a few things that I wanted, though, including the main item I went for, a small TV cabinet, and a tall foldable clothes airer. A new table lamp also jumped into the cart when I wasn’t looking! As well as surviving Ikea, I also picked up a couple of items from Howard’s Storage, including a contraption that sits over your doors and allows you to hang coats etc off it … well, I couldn’t resist it, and it’s now proudly holding two scarves that Mum knitted for me, along with my cross stitch WIPs that are no longer gracing my Qsnaps – at least this way they’ll stay nice and flat and won’t require multiple ironing jobs (although the one on the top escaped the iron the first time round!!) … I also picked up a steamed pudding tin and a drinking bottle for when I get my fat carcass back into the gym this week …

After cooking up a big batch of brown rice for dinner and the freezer, I sat down in front of the electric fan and did a bit of stitching on my Day 9 project. I had to laugh at one point, because my stitching reminded me of a stylized gherkin sitting on the fabric …

until I added a few more stitches and turned it into a stylized little hill 😉

It is, of course, the centre panel on the lady’s dress … but alas it will remain looking like a hill for quite some time …

Crazy January 2011 Challenge, Cross Stitch, Works in Progress

January Challenge – Day 8

8 January, 201125 February, 2012 Anne S

I had a really bad night’s sleep with my throbbing leg (compliments of my buggered back), and ended up sleeping in later than I expected to today, which means I didn’t bother braving the traffic to go to Ikea today – I absolutely detest trying to find a carpark at that shopping centre, so I’ll go if I can leave early and arrive around opening time. Seeing as I still felt a bit run over during the day, I spent the entire day sat up in bed in front of the electric fan with needle in hand with project #8 of the January challenge. This is probably the first one I’ve been quite happy to put down after a number of hours working on it – the fabric is a standard Dimensions kit cardboard Aida, and doesn’t make the stitching particularly pleasurable (I should’ve tried washing it first, but didn’t think about that until it was too late!). Anyway, here’s my progress from today:

After putting Tiger Reflections to one side, I started another new start, this one an old Christmas ornament by CCN called Winter’s Eve – hopefully I’ll get chance to finish this one over the next couple of days, as it’s relatively simple and easy stitching 🙂

And that’s it for me for the evening – time to get back into bed, although I can’t guarantee there’ll be much more stitching done this evening!

Crazy January 2011 Challenge, Cross Stitch, Works in Progress

January Challenge – Day 7

8 January, 201125 February, 2012 Anne S

Alas, I didn’t get to sit down properly tonight until 10.30pm, after catching up some FB gameplay and cooking a big pot of “Dragon Curry” (not actually made of Dragons, but my Mum’s curry recipe). The outcome is not much stitching done yet again tonight – and now it’s half past midnight so not much energy to post an update … alas this will therefore be another “fly-by” posting … and here’s tonight’s paltry progress:

I’m now on a 4-day break after requesting 2 RDOs next week, so I should get a bit more substantial stitching done during the next 4 days – although I have some other plans as well, including heading out to battle Ikea crowds on the other side of Sydney, starting going back to the gym on Monday to start some exercise therapy for my buggered back, and taking down the Christmas decorations. All-in-all I’m looking forward to it! 😀

Crazy January 2011 Challenge, Cross Stitch, Works in Progress

Challenge Day 6 update

7 January, 201125 February, 2012 Anne S

Well, I did manage to get a whole 1 1/2 lengths of floss into this one before I fell into a fitful sleep for the night … but at least I met the challenge … and now I’m running late to leave for work, so I’d better just shut up and post the piccie 😉

Cross Stitch

January Challenge – Day 6

6 January, 201125 February, 2012 Anne S

Um, stitching didn’t appear to have been on the cards today thanks to a farewell dinner that I only just got home from (it’s now 11pm) … I guess I can fall into bed and grab my Qsnaps and really quickly put a couple of stitches into JBW Designs Autumn Harvest, and that’ll quality as a start right? Hmmm, my eyeballs are just about falling out of my head, so I can’t guarantee I won’t have to frog-stitch again tomorrow, but here goes nothing …

Tonight we are saying goodbye to one of our favourite Indian colleagues, who has an awesome sense of humour, and has one of the gentlest and respectful personalities you could ever meet. He’s coming up to marrying age in the next couple of years – which lucky girl wins his heart will have a treasure for life … I miss having him around already …

Um, maybe don’t expect a progress piccie on this one tonight 😛 LOL

Crazy January 2011 Challenge, Cross Stitch, Little House Needleworks, Stash, Works in Progress

Crazy January Challenge – Day 4

4 January, 201125 February, 2012 Anne S

You can tell I’m back at work when I don’t get to sit down with my needle and thread until 9pm … on normal days I’d pass on the stitching, but seeing as I’m committed to doing this challenge, I forced myself to pick up LHN’s Ladybug Ladybug and managed to put in 2 3/4 hours into it 😀

I was also thrilled to see a recent purchase arrive in my PO Box this morning – the great thing about ordering locally, even though it’s more expensive, is that it doesn’t cost much more to pay for Express Post and even though last Friday was a Post Office holiday, and I didn’t order the items until last Thursday, even with yesterday being a nationwide public holiday they were still waiting for me! The service from Janine at Colours Down Under really rocks!!! While I still have one pair of Qsnaps and a couple of threads on back order (needed for the border of Winter Snapperland), I’m absolutely thrilled that I now have another couple of Qsnaps to use for my projects and not having to remove every project every night (especially those that won’t take long to finish) – oops a couple of charts jumped into my shopping basket as well … Scatter Christmas by Shepherd’s Bush and Simply Halloween by Waxing Moon Designs … gotta make the most of the postage right? LOL.

Rightio, on that note it’s time to call it a night and hit the hay … a bit later than expected, but that can be blamed on Season 2 of Fringe and the need to start today’s challenge piece (but more so on Fringe, as I wanted to see the last episode on the DVD, which means only one more DVD for Season 2 to go!) 😉

Crazy January 2011 Challenge, Cross Stitch, recipes, Shepherd's Bush, Victoria Sampler, Works in Progress

January Challenge – Day 3

3 January, 201125 February, 2012 Anne S

I couldn’t resist putting a few more stitches into Shepherd’s Bush’s Baby Bug Ball this morning – I can’t believe how much I am in love with that design! It is soooo not my normal choice of stitching project, but I absolutely and totally adore it! I didn’t stitch the next few alphabet letters as it’s supposed to use a thread colour that is way too pale on the fabric – I thought I’d wait to see what colours were left over at the end, and I would replace that colour with one of the darker greens (but I don’t want to use it yet in case I run out!). After the 15 days are up, this is is going to be one of the first getting revisited, I think! 😀

I was good, however, and didn’t continue stitching on BBB, and continued to meet the challenge goals by putting a few stitches into Victoria Sampler’s Crimson Fire Sampler. This one is a major challenge for me, as it’s been forever since I stitched any hardanger or pulled/withdrawn thread stitches, so it will give the grey matter a run for its money this year! I wanted to get this stitched up, though, so I can pass the chart on to an online pal who showed interest in it a couple of years ago (assuming she still wants it, of course!).

Seeing as I’ve handled pretty much all I can cope with today with these specialty stitches (probably thanks to the 3am finish this morning), I thought I’d put it to one side and pick up something simple, and I’m hoping to get a few more stitches put into the Autumn freebie by the Stitcherhood that I started late last year 🙂

Over the last few days I’ve also been working on a couple of my listed items on my 1001 things in 101 days – including putting together a custom recipe book. I went with something simple, and just put together a ringbinder with plastic sleeves and subject dividers – that way when I find a scrummy recipe in one of my books I’ll re-type it up into a one-page format and will add it to my favourite recipes folder. Seeing as I’m also trying to cook something out of every cookbook I own, hopefully I’ll also find some new favourites to help fill out the sections. The great thing about this format is that I can take pages out individually to cook from, and the sleeves protect the recipe and can either be wiped down in case of spillage or just replaced with the recipe left intact 🙂

I think I may also try to make a quilted book-cover for this at some stage, but that may not be this year … the goal of putting the book together in the first place is good enough for me to tick this challenge off the list as “achieved”.

One of the latest recipes I added was some simple finger food sandwiches from the Aussie Women’s Weekly book “Finger Food” – these were wolfed down recently at our work’s shared morning tea … I thought I’d share the goodness with you here (AWW books are some of my absolute favourites on my bookshelf):

SMOKED SALMON, CAPER AND DILL TRIANGLES

Triangles can be made 2 hours ahead. Storage: Covered in refrigerator.

200g packaged cream cheese
2 t lemon juice
1 T fresh dill sprigs
¼ t drained capers
12 slices white bread
180g sliced smoked salmon

Blend or process cheese, juice, dill and capers until well combined. Spread 1 slice of bread with cheese mixture, top with a layer of salmon.

Spread a second slice of bread with cheese mixture, place cheese side down on salmon. Spread top with cheese mixture, top with a layer of salmon.

Spread a third slice of bread with cheese mixture, place cheese side down on salmon. Trim crusts from sandwich, cut into 8 triangles. Repeat with remaining bread, cheese mixture and salmon.

Makes 32

Cross Stitch, Finishes, Shepherd's Bush, Works in Progress

January Challenge – Day 2

3 January, 20116 April, 2014 Anne S

It took me longer than I expected to finish my little Baby Lorikeets, but I just couldn’t continue to start a new project until I had finished them off – and here they are in their finished form:

“Baby Lorikeets” by DMC
stitched on 32ct cream Belfast linen
(I replaced the revolting Aida that was in the kit!)
with kit threads (DMC)

I didn’t start today’s ‘real’ project until 8pm … and didn’t put the needle down until just before 3am – I’m LOVING stitching this one! I’ve never been a huge Shepherd’s Bush fan apart from their needlerolls and Halloween designs, but this one really called out my name and I’m glad I listened – the pastels of this one are really very pretty (unfortunately washed out in the photo thanks to the bright daylight bulb). I can’t wait for the 15 days to be up so I can c0me back and finish this one off, although I might just have to finish off this middle bug tomorrow, as I only have a couple of letters and the big central flower to complete before moving on to a different bug 😀

And on that note, I’d better get some sleep, so I’m fit to do a bit more stitching tomorrow (although I really do have to throw in some housework tomorrow, so not as much progress will be to show at the end of it all tomorrow!).

Crazy January 2011 Challenge, Cross Stitch, Works in Progress

Challenge Day 1

2 January, 201125 February, 2012 Anne S

Before I started my Crazy January Challenge yesterday morning, I decided to locate some missing threads from previously kitted up projects, and making an inventory so I knew where they were when if I needed them again – this was in part due to the fact that I knew I had two skeins of NPI silk that were needed for The Goode Huswife chart in my challenge, and sure enough I found them hiding in the kit for Drawn Threads’ Three Friends design. I now have a lovely Excel spreadsheet showing where each thread is located. This has partly come about from when I was housesitting 3 years ago and had all my stash put into storage for 9 months – I kitted up many, many projects with the fabric already cut out and ready to go, and as many of the threads as possible, and they were placed in individual sealable plastic bags and then in boxes within easy reach of my storage unit … the idea was that all I had to do was put my hand into the box when I needed something to stitch, and just had to pull something out and start stitching!

Well, I’m ashamed to say that there are STILL 3 drawers full of those projects (plus the equivalent of another drawer that is out and about in my room awaiting stitching), not to mention all the new ones I’ve since kitted up since moving to Sydney (ahem) … I’m slowly starting to work my way through them, though, and intend to make a decent dent into the Christmas ornies that were kitted up ready with their working copies from previous JCS ornie magazines. (Previously there were 4 big file boxes so it has been condensed somewhat.) I was surprised how many needlerolls were in there ready for stitching, though – this stemmed from a SAL that Katrina was doing a while ago stitching a needleroll every month … maybe that will become my challenge for 2012 … 😛

Anyway, back to my 2011 challenge … I eventually picked up my first project for the challenge, DMC’s Rainbow Lorikeets. I decided that I refused to do housework all day, and intended staying in my jim-jams all day watching TV and stitching … which I did {{insert happy sigh here}}. Alas, I was so engrossed in watching TV it took me a while to realise that I had made a big blue with the kit threads – what I thought was Yellow Green Lt thread was in fact the Moss Green (although why the hell you would call something moss green that actually IS yellow-green is beyond me) … I didn’t realise until I had stitched a huge amount of the adjoining green, and then looked and thought “what the…?” – sure enough, a quick review of the chart piccie confirmed my worst suspicions …

Now I do hope the old wive’s tale isn’t true, that whatever you do on 1 January you will continue to do all year (which is partly why I chose to stitch all day in the first place) … ‘cos I really don’t fancy frog-stitching every single project I start this year! Oh well, I persevered and unpicked and restitched straight away while watching Dirty Dancing (sad I can even remember which movie sparked the frogging), and by the time I switched off at 1am this morning I’d made pretty good headway! Thankfully the thread I had misjudged and had to be frogged is a DMC thread, so I can replace from my stash, as I had used every strand up in the original stitching … phew! Ah, the joys of stitching from kits 😉

Of course now I’m champing at the bit to get it finished, because it’s so close to being finished I can taste it … so I think I’ll do that this morning, then I’ll start my next project immediately afterwards, which will probably be another small one – and tomorrow I’ll start one of the bigger designs.

Cross Stitch, Goals, Home & Family TO BE FIXED

January 1 and feeling good!

1 January, 201125 February, 2012 Anne S

I feel really good that I stuck to my guns and didn’t go out last night among the thousands of people celebrating New Year’s in Sydney – I woke up this morning at 6am and feel fantastic! Those who know me well know that that’s a minor miracle in itself, as I don’t “do” 6am’s or any early mornings particularly well … but today I just feel, well, kinda “good” about the world and everything in it 🙂

My only resolution this year is to get my health on track – I signed up for Weight Watchers (again) a couple of weeks ago just so I would have the tools to start properly again, and have been improving my diet since my return to work last Wednesday. I’m constantly amazed at how quickly you can put a healthy meal together during the week with the help of quickly steamed veges done in the microwave with a piece of fish, chicken or steak. My dinner last night, for example, was just a bed of mixed lettuce leaves, sliced capsicum and mini roma tomatoes, with some steamed snow peas, fresh asparagus and lightly sautéed mushrooms, topped with half a dozen sautéed scallops and a balsamic dressing … perfect and light and beautifully healthy. I felt very virtuous just tucking my fork into it’s richly nutrient and healthy goodness! 🙂

The other good thing is that I finally have a diagnosis I can work with that is causing my leg and back pains – I am showing some degeneration and arthrosis in my lower back (I’m obviously going to look forward to some decent arthritis there in my upcoming years darn it) … that’s causing inflammation, which is causing swelling to constrict the nerves, and causing my problems elsewhere. And because of the pains I haven’t been walking regularly etc, which means the muscle has weakened badly, so it’s a catch 22. It means that I now need to build up the strength in my lower back and get more exercise to loosen up the discs – I have some physio sessions to book in for to help with the loosening up, then I need to get back into the gym for some gentle sessions on the bike for a while (and my return was always in the cards for early this year). With any luck getting rid of the constant pain and stiffness will really help with my overall demeanour – but at the moment it just feels good knowing what I’m dealing with 🙂

Which brings me on to the fun part of the year … on 1-1-11 (love that date!) I guess I should be setting stitching/crafty goals for the year, so here goes … I hereby declare I will complete the following by the end of the year … hopefully … 😉

Complete the Crazy January 2011 Challenge (15 new starts and finishes) – the list is up in my sidebar, along with progress bars
Complete at least 24 Christmas ornaments (this might be a challenge, seeing as I didn’t even get 12 finished last year LOL)
Complete another 5 projects over and above those completed in the Crazy January Challenge (can be WIPs from 2010 or new starts)
Make a full-sized quilt for my bed (yikes, that will be a challenge in itself!!)
Complete at least one of my UFOs
Complete a non-cross stitch project (eg stumpwork, hardanger, schwalmwork)
Finish-finish a minimum of 12 items (including framing, but excluding Christmas ornaments)

And that’s pretty much it for the year – it’ll be interesting to see how much got completed when I look back on 31 Dec 2011! 😀

And on that note, I think it’s time to crack open the Crazy January project bag, and pull the first project out for stitching. I’m thinking of starting one of the smaller ones first, so that I can have an early finish … also the great thing about starting the challenge on a long weekend means I have 3 days of perfect stitching time to make a decent dent into 3 of the projects … all I have to do is work out which ones to start first!

Actually, I forgot I do have one other thing to share, which is for my Mum … here’s a comparison of my frangipani plants sitting on the balcony – please excuse the dead plants and empty pots in the bottom photo! haha. Believe it or not these were bought at about the same time, from the same shop, and both get fed and watered at the same time … what a huge difference between the two! I think the larger plant is getting more sun hours during the late afternoon, and seems to be thriving on it! I do absolutely ADORE frangipani flowers, and have my fingers crossed the bigger plant will provide a few more this year (I got one whole flower last year) – I also really adore my geranium there, that was a recent addition to my plant family 🙂