Category: Travel – Australia

Beaches, Cross Stitch, ocean, Port Douglas, Queensland, Theme Thursday, Travel - Fiji

Theme Thursday – Palm

Anne S

Here are my choices for this week’s Theme Thursday, where the theme is “Palm”. First up is Four Mile Beach, Port Douglas, Queensland.

Four Mile Beach 2

In order to keep with the ‘normal’ theme of this blog, I’ll attempt to do some photo memes with a link to stitching where I can …

Therefore this week my next choice is my first designing attempt in cross stitch – this is the song of farewell in Fijian (Isa Lei).  I remember it always used to amaze the Fijian locals at the resorts that I could sing the whole song along with them in their native tongue … it was always my favourite song when I was visiting, even though it was always sad to actually say goodbye to our Fijian friends each time.

I took the top section out of a XS magazine, then designed my own borders that are Fijian in origin (the side ones are stitched over-one yikes) – I charted out the words myself (all in Fijian), then stitched the little shell on the bottom right using a commercial chart but stitched over-one, then designed my very own little kava bowl and coconut shell cups on the bottom left (also stitched over one). I was incredibly proud of this little attempt, and it was given as a gift to the resort owners of the resort we used to go to in Fiji … shame about the quality, but I’m unable to go back and take another photo as it is now missing in action (and this photo was taken way back when digital cameras weren’t ‘the norm’) 😦

Isa Lei (Fijian)

 

Cross Stitch, Quaker, Queensland, Scenic Sunday, Travel - Australia, Works in Progress

Quaker Update & Scenic Sunday

Anne S

Just a quick drive-by with a Quaker Huswif update – Katie has her Mum and sister staying with us this weekend, so I joined them in the lounge last night for a pizza and DVD night … which meant a couple of hours of stitching time for me 🙂

Quaker Huswif 31Jul10

Oh so close now to finishing off this section – just that tiny bit of border left to go, then I can roll it up to start stitching on the final two quaker sections – over the halfway mark now, with 60% completed woohoo!  Have to admit I’m really LOVING stitching on this one – I’m not normally a huge fan of Vikki Clayton silks, but this Premium floss is really great to stitch with one strand on 40ct fabric … an absolute dream!  So much so that I’m considering getting some more for future projects … once I’ve stitched some more of my existing stash first LOL 😀

Now I’m about to wander across the road for a decent bucket of cappuccino and maybe some lunch ‘cos my tummy’s rumbling and I don’t have much food in the house!  Then when I get back home again I need to get my head back into work mode and pick up my project work documentation again for work – if all goes well, and I can get everything pretty much finished today, then tomorrow I may just have to go into the office to finish off a couple of screen shots that I didn’t bring home with me from the reservations system, and email the document off to all the key stakeholders so they have time to review and finalise by the end of next week.  While normally I’d be brassed off having to work during the long weekend, I have to admit I’ve really enjoyed working on it – and it’s been so much easier to concentrate at home!

And just because I haven’t done one for a while, here’s a Scenic Sunday post to finish off the day … from the coastal drive between Cairns and Port Douglas, Queensland.

2009 08 26_3817

Scenic Sunday

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 … 😀