Category: New South Wales

Berrima, EGA, Home & Family TO BE FIXED, Photo Hunt, PhotoHunt, Stumpwork, Works in Progress

Photo Hunt & a new start

Anne S

Yesterday I felt as though a weight had been lifted from my shoulders – my feral and miserable mood finally disappeared, plus I had reconnected with my one and only “regret” in life overnight. 

I had lost contact with a dear friend (who was, in all honesty, the one true love in my life from those early days – and most definitely the one that got away, or at least that I pushed away – he was the only guys I’ve ever thought I could have married … oh how I wish I had the strength of character and wise mind back then that I do now!) – anyhoo, I got a Facebook request from an old school chum from when I was about 11/12 years old, along with links to some old school class photos, and it brought all those childhood memories flooding back, and that old regret came bubbling back up to the surface … as well as the romantic regret, more so the regret that I had lost a rare and special friendship all those years ago. 

Well, I did a quick Google search and found Glen surprisingly easily.  He has his own animal dermatology business in Florida, where he lives with his wife and two kids.  I received an email back from him on Saturday morning touching base and telling me a little about his life since leaving home.  So perhaps that has been the biggest contributor to the weight being lifted from my shoulders, or perhaps it was just coincidence … but I do know it was lovely to share a couple of childhood stories and touch base once again.  Mum always thought of him as the son she never had – I’m really glad to hear he’s OK and happy, and knowing that he’s happy may just let me move on too 🙂

Anyway, for the first time in ages my mood gave me a jolt of mental energy – I had an urge to stitch something ‘new’, and put my hand into the kitted up drawers to find something … that “something” ended up being a stumpwork correspondence course from the Embroiderers’ Guild of America.  I’d forgotten just how long it takes to stitch one little item in stumpwork (at least it does for me!!) – even with chunky Brazilian embroidery threads being used, it took me the entire afternoon just to stitch 1 1/2 leaves!  But I have to say I really enjoyed it, and am about to go and finish off that 2nd leaf.

Here you can see the entire design – called “Gracie”, it’s a big chunky goldfish when it’s finished.  The colours are eye-popping vibrant oranges/reds.  The leaves are outlined with stem stitch (there is LOTS of stem stitch in this project), padded with chain stitch, then covered with sloping satin stitches.  It was quite hard to stitch last night in the poor lighting, so hopefully it will be easier this morning with the natural daylight coming in as well … fingers crossed I’ll get that 2nd leaf finished by lunchtime, to give me time to do some baking (see, I told you I had energy all of a sudden! haha).

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Gracie leaves in progress

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This week’s theme is ”Numerical” – here are some numerical signs outside a shop in Berrima.

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And in trying to tie-in some stitching into my photo meme themes, here are a few stitched numbers:

Drawn Thread-Sunflower Sampler 4

Cross Stitch, Home & Family TO BE FIXED, Stash, Sydney, The Drawn Thread, Works in Progress

Boo!

Anne S

Boo! Scissors Purse and Fob by The Drawn Thread is my current Work In Progress – so far I’ve managed to get almost halfway down the scissors purse, and about 1/4 of the scissor fob stitched.  I’m still really tired in the evenings, so my stitching is going r…e…a…l…l…y s…l…o…w…l…y.  Here’s my progress to date – once again, very washed out under the daylight bulb and even Photoshop Elements is struggling to get the colours right with a ton of manipulation!  I started this one in about the middle of last year, but hated the feel of one strand of silk, and just never found a rhythm … I stopped halfway through completing the little pumpkin on the ‘flap’, and it’s only this last week that I’ve pulled it from the depths of my WIP basket and decided to give it a little bit of love again.  And before you ask, yes, the “Boo” part at the top is supposed to be upside down … you see, it’ll fold over and then be the right way up again 😀

On Sunday I had a really lovely day out with my favourite Sydney ladies – Alison and Amanda … as always it was a riot, and much laughing and chattering was to be had.  We went to the new craft show that was held out at Homebush at Sydney Olympic Park.  I was on a stricter budget than normal, and there wasn’t too much to tempt me this time, but I still managed to come home with some great wee treasures … more in the shape of BIG floss rings for my threads (which are like hens teeth to find here!) and some more scissors (hey, a girl can NEVER have too many!!).  I also bought a strand of beads that I think will be awesome as a scissor fob for the Gingher Roberta scissors … plus some necklace ‘thongs’ to put together some chunky style necklaces for myself and Katie.  Hmmm, sorry about the green shopping bag that was used for the photography … not the best choice as a background to show off stitching scrummies! LOL.

And just LOOK at my favourite splurge of the day … I’ve been drooling over these Eiffel Tower scissors for the looooongest time, and that was my parting gesture to the show … and without doubt my very FAVOURITE purchase – I love, love, LOVE them, and don’t begrudge the AUD25.00 it took to procure them! 😀

Saturday was spent doing a bunch of tidying up in my pigsty of a bedroom, and tidying up my threads and stitching things – I finally grabbed a few of my kitted up projects that actually have DMC in the bags and entered all those threads into an Excel spreadsheet.  It seems that these days I’m constantly putting projects on hold part-way through stitching ‘cos I’m one or two threads short, so hopefully this will help me know where to start rummaging when I’m hunting for an elusive thread!  One other GREAT thing about tidying up my thread inventory is that I found the teeny tiny bag of embellishment beads for my January Accent Sampler by Periwinkle Promises … which also means I now have no excuse not to get it finished.  All I need to do is to add the little beads, and my initials/year, and stitch the back-stitch border on the backing linen, and I’m all set to do the finishing … not much, right? … well, let’s just say it’ll get done some time soon either before or after I finish Boo! 😛

I’m hoping to take Friday off this week so I can run a couple of errands like FINALLY picking up a bookcase from Officeworks that I bought late last year (they didn’t tell me it had arrived then shipped it back to their warehouse again … bless them!) … which also then means I get to play DIY with my power drill (LOVE that thing!), and I also just might FINALLY finish unpacking those final boxes in my bedroom that are full of embroidery books etc … which will then perhaps FINALLY lead me to putting a bunch of my books I no longer want on Ebay … perhaps 😛

Work has been ‘challenging’ over the last couple of weeks – just for a change LOL.  I’ve had it hinted from my boss that there could be a sort of new opportunity on the horizon that I should put my hand up for as it could be good for my career (and builds on the good relationship I already have with this group) … not really any different to what I’m doing now, just more focused on one area … time will tell if it actually pans out and goes ahead, and if so whether I get it or not, as there are obviously no guarantees.  I have already stated openly to him, though, that I would be interested if it went ahead.

Anyway, talking of work, I guess I should hurry up and post this and get into beddy-byes … an extra half hour of sleep just could make all the difference for me tomorrow 😉

The next finish you see will hopefully be my Pin Pillow exchange piece, which is hurrying across the oceans as we speak, and hopefully won’t be too far away from its destination … 😀

Home & Family TO BE FIXED, Sydney

Happy New Year!!!

Anne S

I hope you all had a great time seeing in the New Year (for those of us who have already “been there, done that”) – or have some great plans to do so.  We were invited by friends to join them at their home in Kirribilli, where we saw in the New Year nicely nestled in the garden with a full uninterrupted view of the Sydney Harbour Bridge, where the fireworks were wonderful as always.  This is the view from our garden – we were standing/sitting just behind the hydrangea bush you can see in the foreground 😀 

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Unfortunately because we were so close, the cameras didn’t seem to appreciate the fireworks as much as we did, but here are a handful of shots from the night that worked out OK.  I didn’t even attempt to capture the finale on the bridge – I just looked up and enjoyed the spectacle and made myself hoarse from whooping and hollering along with the rest of the crowd 😀

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The night itself wasn’t perfect as we waited for an hour for buses to arrive at home before we gave up and tried to hail a cab – after 1 1/2 hours a different bus turned up (the Bus Info line was no help at all, and they didn’t know why the buses weren’t arriving as detours were in place due to a local fireworks party on the beach but our stop was still on the designated route), so we hopped on that bus to Hurstville instead and joined the millions of revellers pounding the streets of Sydney.  Alas, even by 10pm when we were on the North Sydney train, they had already had to hose down the carriage due to some ‘over-ripe revellers’ – thank goodness we only had to put up with the underlying whiff of vomit for the short trip across the harbour bridge 😦

Then the real fun began as we tried to make our way to Joanne and Nick’s place, as all the roads had been cordoned off at different parts and we literally had to zigzag our way under the bridge from one road (and one security gate) to the other before we finally found a nice security man who let us go through the gate to where we needed to be.  Our biggest scare was when we came to a park where marquees had been set up to frisk people for carrying alcohol, and we had to choice but to walk through the park … after a momentary panic, I just bowled up to one of the attendants and asked what we should do as we were heading to a private party and were carrying pretty much nothing BUT booze – he was incredibly kind (I must look so old and trusworthy that I wouldn’t cause trouble!), and escorted us through the throngs so we could continue on our merry (or not-so-merry for some of our party) way to Joanne and Nick’s.  We couldn’t believe it when we finally arrived there only to be escorted down to the strip of garden at the back of the property in secluded view of the bridge itself.  Unfortunately our Prime Minister couldn’t join us for drinkies, as apparently he was entertaining foreign officials a few houses away 😉

The not-so-merry half of our party managed to stay as long as the fireworks finished then within seconds asked if they could have a key so they could come home.  Before we left we’d already said that we weren’t comfortable having them on their own in the flat without Katie or I there, but they’d been so po-faced and whining on the adventure over to the party that it was easier to give them Katie’s keys and relax and enjoy ourselves without having to worry about them.  They were a last-minute addition to the celebrations, as apparently they hadn’t been able to find a hotel room in Sydney for New Year’s Eve (well, duh!!!), and the girl was returning to South Africa this morning, so they needed a place to stay …  So nice to be used for a doss-house – “used” being the operative word.  Oh well, they didn’t spoil the night for us, as Katie and I were determined to have a good time and relax and chill out … and we enjoyed playing charades with a pack of drunken brits (with a token Irish couple, and a Kiwi and Aussie of course) under the backdrop of the harbour bridge until about 4.30am – I’m pretty sure the neighbours didn’t enjoy it half as much as we did!!!

So, here I am sitting blogging, after getting into bed at 5.48am this morning and waking up at 9.45am … and demolishing a plate of Vegemite and potato chip sandwiches (such heaven after a heavy night out on the booze, and so much cheaper than McD’s) … the New Year has most definitely been started off with a bang! 😀

Now it’s time to work out the New Year’s resolutions – aside from the usual “I resolve to swear less and lose weight”, I do resolve to enjoy what life has to offer me this year, and ignore those that don’t have the same attitude.  I resolve to see more of what Sydney has to offer, and resolve to keep in touch with old friends much more than I have.  Bring it on, 2010!!! 😀

And on that note it’s time to take my run-down tired bag of bones over to my stitching chair to settle myself in for a while – the next few hours will see me cuddled up with a bucket of water to slurp down, TiVo on to catch up on last week’s viewing, and a needle in hand … with any luck the needle might even have thread in it, and it may even just get pushed through some fabric, at least until my body caves in and I have to succumb to an inevitable “nana nap” this afternoon 🙂

HAPPY NEW YEAR EVERYONE!!!!!!!!!