Here is my choice for this week’s “ABC Wednesday” – brought to you a teeny bit late by the Letter “L” … Lake Barrine in Queensland:
And this week’s “one I prepared earlier, stitchy/crafty content” is “Life’s a Stitch” by Lizzie*Kate:
Category: Lizzie Kate
More pumpkins … but no chatting time
Sorry for the drive-by post, but here are my latest pumpkin finishes for the Great Pumpkin Challenge 2010 while spending a week away from the computer away from home … I’ll update the blog more later when I have time to sit down properly, in the meantime here are the latest round of teeny finishes:
“Boo Squared” by Lizzie*Kate
stitched on 32ct Flax Belfast linen
with recommended Weeks Dye Works thread (except for Lucky,
which was substituted with recommended DMC)
“Jinx ~ Moon Riders” by Just Nan
stitched on 32ct Silver Birch hand-dyed Belfast linen by Countrystitch
with recommended DMC threads
“Jack ~ Moon Riders” by Just Nan
stitched on 32ct Silver Birch hand-dyed Belfast linen by Countrystitch
with recommended DMC threads
“Jasper ~ Moon Riders” by Just Nan
stitched on 32ct Silver Birch hand-dyed Belfast linen by Countrystitch
with recommended DMC threads
“Pumpkins” by Little House Needleworks
stitched on 32ct Merino hand-dyed Belfast linen by Countrystitch
with recommended Crescent Colours threads
Still in New Zealand
I wish I could say I was here doing lots of stitching, but I can’t truthfully tell you what I’ve been doing other than sitting in front of the gogglebox and computer and just letting the hours of the day disappear before my very eyes. I’ve got the car boot filled with boxes of junk to take to the Salvation Army over the next few days, and some not-so-junk to be picked over by family friends – then the leftovers will also get taken to the Salvo’s.
The only stitching I’ve managed has taken place over the last 24 hours or so, and are as follows:
“Chatrouille” freebie by Nathalie
(the freebie is still available here)
Stitched on 32ct Merino hand-dyed Belfast linen by Countrystitch
with DMC threads (except I messed up and used 310 instead of 3799
for the cat and lettering … oops)
“Welcome Baby” by Lizzie*Kate
Stitched on 28ct pink/white checked Graziano linen
with DMC threads
(have to say I MUCH prefer the boy’s version of this one!)
I still have to add the little rose button when I get home before framing
Here are a few piccies of Auckland from our first day of driving around after a visit to The Embroiderer … where we were VERY restrained and only bought two copies of this year’s JCS ornie magazine (Mum kindly treated me to my copy, as I’ve bought one for her the last few years). Rightio, here are some snippets from Auckland:
Auckland skyline from the harbour bridge (north side)
Kiwi (New Zealand) flag at Ponsonby
Art sculpture at a city park in Auckland – these ‘buried’ buildings have always intrigued me
Sidewalk mosaic with Polynesian style
Rangitoto Island – an Auckland icon that will always make me think of home
Auckland skyline from Doug Myer Robinson Park
And a couple of Kiwi foods that we don’t often see in Australia …
first Kumara (Kiwi sweet potato), and then Tamarillos (known as the Kiwi tree tomato)
Great Pumpkin Challenge 2010
BeckySC has offered a challenge to post as many Pumpkin finishes as we can until 25 November as part of her Great Pumpkin Challenge 2010. While I may not be able to contribute too many by the cut-off date, I’ve already kitted up a dozen or so potential designs to take with me on holidays, so I should hopefully get at least another couple of small ones completed by then. And it’s a great motivation to get some Autumn and Halloween stitching done (Halloween stitching would seriously have to be my all-time favourite theme to stitch, if I had to choose one). I have loads and loads of designs that include pumpkins, so this is a really fun challenge to participate in 🙂
While I’m not stitching pumpkins yet, though, I did find a Halloween stitch from earlier in the year that contains a wee pumpkin, so I decided to sit and finish it into a pinkeep today so I add another “finish” into the challenge. Don’t you just love the “Boo!” ribbon? We found this at a local craft show last year 😀 Unfortunately, I only own one Halloween fabric which is really crappy, so I haven’t shared the backing fabric with you … I really, REALLY need to order some Halloween fabrics from the USA, so I can do some more finishing! Plus I really need to turn some pinheads lime green! 😉
And now it’s time to get back to catching up on TV viewing while I potter around and do housework … and start packing for my upcoming holiday 😀
A little touch of Love
I didn’t end up getting much stitching done yesterday, and still haven’t finished my little snowflake ornie … I forgot I still had my Love freebie sitting on my bedroom lapframe, so rather than removing it, I decided to put the final stitches into that one instead … and now the snowflake ornie is in its place ready for finishing off this week (in fact I may try and put a few stitches into it tonight). Apologies for the poor piccie, but I threw it on the scanner instead of trying to take a photo in grim evening light.
“Love” freebie by Plum Pudding NeedleArt
Stitched on 32ct cream Belfast linen (I think) with DMC
Yesterday I tried to take some photos of Lizzie*Kate’s Boo Club all finished and in one piece … unfortunately I now notice that my “in one piece” photo is a bit blurry, so I’ve done a bit of a cut-and-paste job in three sections instead. I didn’t have many of the recommended threads, as I don’t have a great stock of WDW or GAST threads to work from, and I wanted to stitch from my stash as much as possible, so I substituted quite a large number of threads in this piece. The details are at the bottom of the photos.
“Boo Club” by Lizzie*Kate
Stitched on 32ct Pipi hand-dyed linen by Countrystitch
Using a mix of recommended and substitute threads as follows:
Recommended ~ My Choice
WDW Mascara ~ WDW Mascara (but DMC 310 in the border)
WDW Whitewash ~ WDW Whitewash (but DMC white in the border)
WDW Taffeta ~ DMC 3740
WDW Guacamole ~ Crescent Colours Eve’s Leaves
WDW Purple Majesty ~ Needle Necessities 195 Coronation
WDW Carrot ~ DMC 3853
WDW Havana ~ WDW Havana
WDW Ocean ~ DMC 3809
GAST Tomato ~ GAST Burnt Orange
GAST Butternut Squash ~ Crescent Colours Finley’s Gold
GAST Ohio Lemon Pie ~ GAST Ohio Lemon Pie
GAST Forest Glade ~ GAST Forest Glade
The rest of the weekend has been spent helping Katie to set up our new flat electronics, and putting a Beef and Red Wine casserole into the slow cooker – I love winter for ‘slow cooker season’ 😀
And now I think I’ll sign off, and jump into my PJs ready for an early night – time to catch up on a few taped Cold Case shows, and perhaps a few more stitches into that little snowflake ornie (although it’s very hard to see the holes in the fabric this time of night).
Where did the weekend go?
Well, I guess I know where … I spent the entire day in my PJ’s on Saturday ‘cos I was just too tired to do anything else – I sat up in bed most of the day and watched DVDs while doing a teeny bit of stitching. After playing in my stash for a little while (dragging out all the kitted up projects in my drawers) I managed to start and finish this little project (but couldn’t face leaving the American spelling of “favorite” so I added a little “U” to Aussie-fy it):
“My Favorite Time” by Lizzie*Kate
stitched on 28ct mystery Cashel linen (probably Clay or something similar)
with recommended GAST threads except Oatmeal where I subbed with DMC B5200
Then I started on a freebie by Plum Pudding Needleart – which will only take one more bedroom stitching session to totally complete it. In fact, I reckon about 2 hours of stitching will likely see it completed … but seeing as it’s now my ‘bedroom project’, and I don’t often stitch in my room, this may not see the finishing pile until next weekend again.
This morning Katie and I wandered over to the restaurant on ‘our’ beach where we had a leisurely brunch – I had the Eggs Benedict with a side of mushrooms, pineapple juice, and two skim cappuccinos … we were in heaven for a wee while. On the way home we picked up a couple of bags each of groceries from the local supermarket, then came in to vege out in front of the gogglebox for a few hours watching Flash Forward and The Amazing Race while I did a bit of stitching. After that Katie deserted me to go to her bedroom to read a book, while I cleaned up another episode of Good News Week, Fringe and Medium.
Thanks to our TV viewing session, the result is that Ghastly Ghostly Ghouls now looks like this:
I have to say I think the colour choices in particular for the two small pumpkins seem rather “odd” … but they’ll be staying as they are …
And now I’m going to open up Audible Manager and pop on an audiobook for an hour or two while I do some tidying up in my room, which is currently like a pigsty! 🙂
The end of the week…
“TGIF” BIG time this week – Friday hasn’t come around quick enough, even though I’ve got massive amounts of work I haven’t managed to get through yet, I’m still grateful the weekend is looming closely ahead!
After my outburst on Monday things at work have felt a lot calmer, I guess. The air has been cleared between “the guy” and myself, and even though I felt really cautious on Tuesday morning, by mid afternoon Tuesday I felt a lot perkier and even managed a joke with the man. So all-in-all I guess it’s all good as far as we’re concerned … I’m sure we’ll never see eye to eye, but we’ll be more conscious of how the other is reacting I guess. The frustrating thing on my behalf is that 9 out of 10 times I’ve been proven right in my viewpoint, but he still loves to argue for the sake of it. Oh well, time to be more tolerant and not take things personally anymore 🙂
Unfortunately our team is made up of some VERY strong personalities and large egos – and there seem to be more clashes than enough … we’ve just had a new member join the team, and she’s already put people’s backs up in the sites and within our own team … oh joy of joys. I’m regularly getting phone calls from people in the sites asking for advice on my interpretation of issues because they’ve found offence in the way a colleague has spoken to them – some days I feel like Dear Abby. I guess I should see it as a real compliment that people feel comfortable and trust me enough to open enough, but truth is it can be really draining … give me a quiet job somewhere without any internal bickering and I’ll be blissfully happy!!!
Anyway, enough of this whining about my job … this is mainly a stitching blog not a moaning blog, and I finally have a Happy Dance to share! Tonight, while watching a mini NCIS marathon, I managed to put the absolute final stitches into Lizzie*Kate’s Boo Club … woohoo!!! 😀 Here are the final couple of bands on show … I’ll wait until decent daylight to take a photo of the entire finished piece, then I’ll share my fabric and thread details at that time.
Then I picked up Just Nan’s Ghastly Ghostly Ghouls and started the tree branches over on the left of the chart … I think I’ll keep going with this one now until it’s finished … although I do still have to finish Laura J Perin’s Sapphire Star yet … hmmm … 🙂
Sick flatmate
Alas, since lunchtime I’d ‘had’ to keep my flatmate and best pal Katie company in the lounge while she’s been suffering from a dodgy tummy from Vanuatu – it was a major hardship having to sit in my stitching chair for 8 or so hours while we watched all the TV shows that have been taping in her absence … which means there’s finally a stitchy progress photo! Only one more week and this little puppy will be finito! As you can see from the bottom piccie, I’ve now turned the corner for the bottom band of the border 😀
On Saturday morning I managed to get a couple of items into the post – my first PIF on it’s way finally … and this little gift to someone else – fingers crossed the recipients like their gifts 🙂
Tomorrow I’ll find out whether I have got the new 12 month secondment position or not … after I drop off my 90+ year old neighbour off at the airport for her next Queensland holiday … that’ll keep me in the good books for a while longer LOL. And seeing as I need to leave home an hour earlier than normal to do that, I’d better get my A into G and get into bed!!! 😀
30th birthday gift
Obviously the 30th birthday gift isn’t one I’ve received, as I’m an old coot now … but tonight I managed to put the final stitches into one of the gifts I’m giving Katie for her 30th birthday on Wednesday. I still have to get it framed while she’s away, or turn it into a flatfold, but she’ll hopefully come home to it in some sort of finished version anyway!
“Cinderella is Proof” by Lizzie*Kate
stitched on 32ct Limestone hand-dyed Lugana by Countrystitch
with DMC threads
I hope she likes it … she’s crazy about shoes, so as soon as I saw this one I knew I had to stitch it at some stage for her. Anyway, even if it’s not her ‘cup of tea’, she also has a $30 voucher for JB Hi-Fi and a lovely green glass pendant that I bought at the recent craft show with Alison and Amanda, so I’m sure she’ll be happy 😀
Theme Thursday – and a WIP
I haven’t been following the Theme Thursday meme very long, but I decided to finally do one of them – as the theme doesn’t get published until the Sunday beforehand, by the time we get it ‘down under’ it’s already Monday – then I’m at work and leaving when it’s dark … it basically means I have to have a photo to do with the theme in my files already, which isn’t always the case … but this time I do, so I thought I would … join in, that is! 😀
This week’s “Theme Thursday” theme is “Bicycle”. Here’s an old penny farthing bike at Timbertown.
In other news, I picked up my needle as planned last night, while Katie and I caught up on a few of our favourite shows – I got burnt out early at work and decided to skive off 1/2 hour earlier than normal and managed to leave just as the sun was going down (geez it felt good leaving in semi-daylight!). Anyway the night was spent with Supernatural, Flash Forward, Bones, Castle, Greys Anatomy … phew! What a difference it makes to the length of a program when taking all the adverts out – love love LOVE my TiVo! 😀
I opted to pick up Boo Club again, and put the wee buttons on the first 6 blocks – managed to do a bit more of the border on each side, so it won’t be long now before I’m officially at the halfway mark (after the Creepy block) – I think I’ll keep doing this one now over the next few nights to try to get it finished (assuming I don’t get too bored and need a break from the border – although I agree that it does go pretty quickly in the scheme of things, and it’s pretty mindless to do in front of the gogglebox with no ‘real’ counting as such). Alas my WIP photos will be boring for a while though 😛
Feather Stitching 