Gifts TO BE FIXED

Gifts in the mail

I can finally show you a piccie of the wonderful gifts I received in the mail yesterday.  Aside from my big selection of pins that arrived, there was also a bag full of threads that are to be RAK’s in the coming months to those in the RAK Registry (it’s the first time I’ve been able to splurge on the non-essential items for quite some time, and I couldn’t help but splurge somewhat on my stitching pals – even if it’s just a small token) … I didn’t bother taking a photo though sorry.

Anyway, enough rambling … on to the awesome mail … Mel kindly sent me a scissor fob she made, along with some of her famous threads that she dyes herself – isn’t this the most divine fob?  I just adore the design and finishing of this – I haven’t seen anything finished in this style before, and I really love it!  And how scrummy are those threads?  Those of you that know me well enough by now know I don’t “do” pink … except I really love cerise pinks, it’s so luscious.  Thank you again Mel for your generous gifts … I adore everything 😀  Unfortunately the photo doesn’t do the fob or the threads justice – they’re much more scrummy in real life!!

gift from mel jul07

I have to say thanks again to all of you who continue to visit regularly – and especially those who have sent gifts over recent times.  Before I started blogging I never ever received anything hand-made, and that’s the sort of gift I treasure the most, those that are homemade in whatever shape or form – everything I’ve received over the last couple of years I will seriously treasure always … I love everything, and all the love, care and warm thoughts that are conveyed in their giving – every time I think of the wonderful gifts of friendship (not just the physical gifts), it gives me the warm fuzzies inside!  You all make the world a warmer place to live in! {{hugs}}

Now, time to head off to bed … I was awake half the night last night (from 2.30am anyway) as I just couldn’t get warm in bed … tonight I’m fore-armed with a hotwater bottle warming up the bottom of the bed … I’m looking forward to stretching out and planting my fat feet smack down on top of it! 😉

Cross Stitch, Finishes, Finishing, Gifts TO BE FIXED

Quick update

Not much time to blog, as I need to get dinner cracking (aka defrosting and reheating in the microwave LOL) … after having a really horrendous time over the weekend, I’m taking it easy this week.  I spent almost the entire day in bed again yesterday, only surfacing at about 7.30pm hmmm.  Today, though, I feel quite a bit better – and definitely better tonight than I did this morning!

I received some more yummy mail today, but I haven’t had chance to email a thank you yet, so the piccie will have to wait for that … what I do want to post is that FINALLY my gift for Tessa is ready to go in the mail!  Only a couple of months after meeting each other, and I can get it mailed out.  You see, my original drama had to do with not being able to find any suitable pins …

First of all, I thought I had some at home already – when I proved myself wrong, I went out and bought some …

These turned out to be waaaaay too small head-wise, although the colour was pretty good (but they’re incredibly sharp and the small container now fits perfectly in my stitching bag as a handy tool).

red pins 1

Back to the drawing board, and I bought 4 wheels of pins so I could pull the red ones out … well, don’t ask me what the heck I did with them, ‘cos they disappeared from sight until I was packing up the flat last month – but the colour turned out to be wrong (ie too pale for the ribbon, and a totally different shade to the stitching) …

Another shopping trip and two more packets later, and the colour STILL isn’t right …

red pins 2

BUT today the mailman brought me some pins I ordered online (thanks Andrea for advertising that shop on Ebay!) … and FINALLY the pins are just perfect!!  If anyone local needs any pins at any time, scream out, ‘cos I bought a bucketload of different colours (blue, red, purple, beige, and white, from memory – I haven’t opened the box up properly yet) ;P

red pins 3

Here’s the final version of Tessa’s pinkeep … and believe it or not I finally managed to upload the photos off my phone of our meeting in Acland Street – my old PC would never acknowledge the upload cable, but my new laptop seems to play nicely and they’re finally off the phone and into the computer memory woohoo!!  (Thanks to my housesitting job for the lovely interesting backdrop!)

pinkeep for tessa 1

pinkeep for tessa 2

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Anyway, my sincere apologies, Tessa for the delay, but it will be winging its way to you some time this week! 😀

Rightio, off to the lounge for dinner and a bit of a tidy-up ‘cos there’s packing stuff all over the place and I need to get everything into storage again this weekend …  It’s getting closer to moving day, and I’d like a week of rest beforehand, if I can.  Plus I need to do all the housework too, of course, and next week I’m on overnight shifts yucky 😦

Food, Home & Family TO BE FIXED

Where did the weekend go??

I actually started posting yesterday, and managed to write the following, before falling asleep at the computer:

“I didn’t think this day would ever arrive … boy oh boy it’s been an interesting week.  Work has really kept me on my toes this week, and I’ve hardly had time to breathe inbetween  shifts 😦

Karma jumped up and bit me last night … I was joking that I would have a migraine starting at 9pm (it was 6.30pm when I was joking), as the one person I detest working with started at 9pm – he drives everyone on the Hotline crazy, and having to work with him up until 2am is seriously insane 😦  Anyway, it was a pretty stressful night with yet more dramas with people stuck at overseas airports … and by the time 9pm came I did indeed have a splitting headache – yep, karma’s a bitch! 😉

Today I’ve felt so grotty I didn’t get out of bed until 6.30pm (I actually woke up at 2pm yikes) – I just lay in bed with the laptop and fixing up my Outlook contacts and RAK Registry information.  I finally surfaced to reheat some of the Thai Green Curry I made yesterday, ‘cos my headache was returning … and I still feel like death warmed up.  I think it’ll be an early night for me – especially as I have 4 hours overtime at 5pm tomorrow as well (sucker for punishment, I know).

I’ve just managed to take some piccies on the camera of the goodies I received this week – unfortunately it’s night-time so the piccies didn’t come out too great, but they’ll have to do for now.”

So much for seeing much of the day yesterday!  While I was in the middle of typing up my post, I fell asleep!  Today was as bad, because I woke up again at midnight last night, and couldn’t get back to sleep until almost 5am again hmmm.  I surfaced from sleep at noon today, only to doze off again until 2pm, and have the most dreadful headache that just won’t shift 😦  It means I’ve called in to cancel my overtime, which I’m very unhappy about 😦

I also had big plans to join in with the Xmas ornie FAL this weekend, and had my ornies out ready to go … only to realise my batting is in storage, and it’s now too late to pop up the road to buy some more.  Oh well, I may sit and cut up the matboard instead in readiness for finishing them off.  Mind you, it probably doesn’t make that much sense finishing them yet, while I’m housesitting, as they’ll take up more room in storage in their finished state than if they’re nice and flat and unfinished … hmmm, that’s food for thought!

Anyway, without further ado, as I don’t want to spend much time on the PC as it’s not helping my headache at all, I want to show you the well overdue piccies from my mailbox during the last week.

First up is the most amazing parcel of goodies from my northern twin, Jenna – she really outdid herself this time!  Not only did she send my first ever LHN/CC thread pack (which I’ve been dying to try – and the thread colours really don’t show up well in their online advertising – they’re scrummy in real life) … this one is the Blueberries one … but Jenna also sent a hardanger suncatcher she made herself.  Isn’t it the most gorgeous, exquisite thing? – and so perfectly stitched.  Unfortunately I couldn’t get a really good photo of it in the dark surroundings.  Not only that, though, but she also sent a wooden needlecase – how awesome is that too?  And it fits perfectly on a keyring, so it will be a case of “have needles, will travel”.  Thanks so much again Jenna for your wonderful, perfect gifts – I adore everything, my friend {{hugs}}.

rak from jenna jul07

rak from jenna jul07 suncatcher

rak from jenna jul07 needlecase

Next up I need to thank Karen for sending along her Moon Watchers chart that she recently stitched.  I loved watching this one being stitched, and now it will be getting kitted up ready for a future stitching session of my own.  Thanks again Karen for sharing this chart – you’re a real sweetie!  How could I resist stitching blue birds?? 😀

gift from karen connor jul07

Last, but not least, here is a piccie of something I gifted myself compliments of the Bay of Evil … I’ve been avoiding Ebay like the plague since my financial downturn prior to Christmas, but I let myself loose on it again a couple of weeks ago when I needed to buy some Christmas fabric for a prize pool we’re offering over on the Focus on Finishing blog this weekend (Spotlight and other stores here don’t have any in stock until later in the year boohoo).  Anyway, these are the pieces I managed to pick up …

christmas fabrics from ebay

For Mum:  Llet me know if you want 1/2 of the Snowman one (that’s the one I was telling you about) – and I also bought you one of the green one with stockings etc on the bottom left, and the middle one at the bottom with the wee cardinals on it. 

The fabric on the far left is to finally do the backing of Vicki’s cot quilt I found as a UFO recently – I thought the bright colours would make a nice backing, as the colours match the main part of the quilt.  Unfortunately there wasn’t enough fabric for sale to fit the entire back, so I might have to find some plain blue to do a border around the edges.  I’ll have to wait and see once I’ve put the quilt back together again to see how it all measures up.  Although now I’ve gone back to look at the quilt photo, I’m having second thoughts … and think maybe I should buy some plain homespun cotton instead for the backing … oh b*gger …

Rightio, time to put the PC away for the night I think – Mum’s about to phone for a catch-up, so I’ll go and put the heating on and settle down for the night.  Not sure if my head will manage a bit of stitching tonight … I always know it’s a bad headache when it stops me from stitching! 😉

Ooh, before I forget, though, this photo is for Mum as well … this is the poster they’ve got of me in the main office – see what I mean when I say it’s almost life size??  I’ve finally got used to seeing it now … only 6 more months left and it’ll hopefully be taken down … phew! If I had $1 for every time I’ve heard “gee, Anne, you’re a STAR!”, I could retire early!! 😉

excel-photo-1

PhotoHunt

PhotoHunt – Fake


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This week’s theme is “Fake” – and my choice is a photo of my Fake sunflowers sitting in their beautiful blue vase … they’re looking a bit worse for wear after being packed and unpacked a few times now – perhaps by the time I move to another permanent home they’ll need to finally be replaced. Their lovely bright faces always put a smile on my own face when I see them, though – I adore the blue and yellow together! 😀

Home & Family TO BE FIXED

RAK Registry and technology

Just a really quick post to say I think I’ve finally fixed the display issues on the blog.  I finally reached the WP support guys again, and I’ve had to change the template to allow all the pages to display on the screen (this was only a recent problem I noticed) – I’ve also had to combine pairs of letters so I can allow the I and M pages to display.  Anyway, hopefully everything is now ticking along nicely again, and I can get back to keeping it updated more regularly.  I almost thought I was going to have to revert to Blogger again yikes …

Technology at home is slooooowly getting sorted.  I’ve had email woes ever since I’ve bought the new laptop (still haven’t managed to copy over my old emails yet, but I haven’t quite given up hope … I’m making one more attempt this weekend before I throw in the towel).  Yesterday I went out and bought a Microsoft Office 2007 package … and bless their hearts at Dick Smith Electronics, I was able to buy the Academic upgrade version – a saving of almost $400 woohoo!! 😀

Anyway, at 3am I got home from work and loaded everything up, but Outlook still wouldn’t load up (my trial version I got with the laptop wouldn’t either, but I thought the full bought version would fix all my ills) … well finally I’ve just sat for almost 2 hours fixing up the settings, and I’ve managed to get to get it up and running and the accounts set up etc … that’s a HUGE achievement and cause for celebration, ‘cos I have to admit I’ve been giving the PC a wide berth overall as I’ve been sick of it not working.  The Windows Calendar would never work for me either (none of the reminders ever worked, and I got an error message every time I opened up the program) … but today I worked out how to import my calendar over into Outlook, so fingers crossed that will resolve itself shortly as well 😀

The one thing that didn’t copy across as well was all my contacts – after taking all the time to set them all up again into Windows Mail, it hasn’t quite come through with all the info intact, so that’s another day in the future re-setting up the missing ‘bits’ (thankfully it’s not too much that’s missing), and I can set up my email group again for the RAK Registry (that way I can send any admin emails to everyone in one hit without having to select every single member from my contacts list … soooo much easier, and oh boy did I miss that in Windows Mail).

Work has been really really busy – thanks to security threats at Heathrow, I got in 4 hours overtime from 11pm-3am on Tuesday, and I’ve been thriving on the curly issues that have been thrown at me in the wee small hours of my shift.  I’ve been enjoying chatting to Moscow and Frankfurt airport managers trying to resolve an issue (geez, I wish I could tell you all THAT story, it’s a doozie … and it kept us highly entertained for the last two nights haha).  The flow-on effects of Heathrow are still keeping us on our toes days later … it’s making the shift going very very fast, although it’s meant not a single stitch has been put into my stitching.  Fingers crossed tonight is a bit quieter, and I get chance to put a few stitches in – that’s the only benefit in my eyes of the 6pm or 9pm shifts, they’re the only ones I can pull my stitching out occasionally.

I’ll leave you with a teaser … I received some incredible mail today but I’ve been laying in bed all morning trying to fix my technical problems, and I’ve just remembered it (that’s what happens when you get in at 3am!) … I don’t have time to take a photo, as I need to get cracking for work (I think I may be running a bit late now too, oops) – and I didn’t get chance to email the senders last night at work, so once I’ve done that, I’ll try to remember to post a piccie tomorrow some time.  But I have to say “it’s awesome!!” 😀

(Also, sorry if there are any spelling/grammatical errors, as I don’t have time to check it … gotta run sorry!)

Cross Stitch

Gotta stop looking …

I was just sat waiting for PayPal etc to load up to make a payment online, and thought I’d kill some time looking at the Hoffman site … originally I was going to search for an idea for an upcoming gift, but then thought I’d check out the July new releases … which means the wishlist is growing yet again – oh boy, I’ve gotta get that 50 project challenge done soon (as if I really need anything new LOL).  Anyway, I thought I’d share some new designs that I’ve been seeing recently (some from the Hoffman site, and some elsewhere), seeing as I have nothing else to share …

lhn-necessities sampler
Necessities Sampler by Little House Needleworks

my precious treasures-blue ribbon designs
My Precious Treasures by Blue Ribbon Designs (I ADORE this one!)

greek%20village%201%206775
Greek Village 1 by Michael Powell

And this is not a new chart by any means, but I thought I’d still share it …

needle's content-autumn sewing roll
Autumn Sewing Roll by Needle’s Content

I also read in the latest Gift of Stitching magazine that Crescent Colours/LHN will be bringing out a coffee and tea set in September … now that is something I definitely want sight unseen!  I’m really keen to make a cartonnage box for all my different tea bags, and I’ve been searching online for something that would be suitable for the box top … I think that may be perfect (I’d really love to have 3 separate lids on the caddy.  Can’t wait to see what they come up with 😀 

Rightio, now I’m off to put a couple of stitches into a Chatelaine freebie and watch the start of the Da Vinci Code on DVD before I have to get dressed for work (3pm shifts today, which is one of my favourites yippee) … but then I move to 6pm shifts on Wednesday, which is one of my least favourite 😉  One of the fantastic things about being back in Bentleigh again is the local Blockbuster store – only $2 for ‘recent’ releases and $3.95 for new releases … it used to be $6.95 in Elwood … luv ya Bentleigh! 😀

PhotoHunt

PhotoHunt – Sweet


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This week’s theme is “Sweet” – this forced me to wander down to the Acland Street bakeries with camera in hand … a good reason to be leaving Elwood, is to be outside walking distance of these delicacies – I was amazed to get a decent shot of the window displays, as there are always loads of people in the street drooling over the contents (and yes, I’m usually one of them! – although it’s pretty rare for me to actually buy any) 😉

Cross Stitch, Finishes, Stitch-alongs

Bless being bunged-up with a head cold!

‘Cos it meant taking an extra day off work today so I put the final stitches into Bordeaux.  Thanks to my SAL buddy Carol for getting me started on this journey … it’s been a fun ride, and it looks great all finished (photos in no way do it justice at all).  It’s quite a long piece, with the stitching measuring 19cm wide by 49cm long.

bordeaux sampler

Bordeaux Sampler by Sampler Cove
Stitched on 36ct white Edinborough linen
with recommended threads (Vikki Clayton silks)

Cross Stitch, Works in Progress

Grapes, grapes and more grapes …

Today I stitched on Bordeaux Sampler all day … I was originally going to just stitch for an hour, then thought to myself ‘sod it’ and had a marathon stitching day with it, so I’m very very close to being finished with it.  Seeing as I’m so close, I’m going to keep going to see it through to completion.  I’ve been fighting off a cold for the last week and a half, but I woke up this morning really bunged up, so called in sick – I’ve spent the entire day cocooned in my PJ’s, sat in the leather recliner, with my laptop playing DVD’s and stitching my little heart out … it was bliss.  Anyway, enough already, here’s the photos …

First up I finished off band 7 of the sampler …

bordeaux-28jun07-band-7

I was going to put it away at that point, but I couldn’t be bothered getting up to find something new to stitch, so I loaded up another needle with burgundy thread, and I started work on those dratted over-one grapes.  By the end of tonight, though, I now only have another 6 large bunches left to stitch, plus two small bunches to finish off each side of the lettering.  I think by the end of this weekend I’ll have a happy dance coming! 😀

bordeaux-28jun07-band-6

Cross Stitch, Round Robins

Halfway there …

What’s halfway there??  Why, the Friendship Quaker Round Robin, that’s what! 😀

I put the final stitches into KarenV’s RR piece tonight, and I have to say it looks just gorgeous in real life!  Stitched on 40ct linen, it’s given the old eyes a run for their money, but it looks exquisite and dainty (mine looks really chunky and clumsy in comparison).  I just love how each of our pieces looks so different, and I’ve enjoyed stitching on each and every one 😀 

The parts I’ve stitched this time round are the three larger motifs in the top right-hand corner, plus the tiny wee crown and of course my initials.  I think the next round will see the bottom right-hand corner being stitched.

quaker-rr-karenv's

Nothing else to report tonight – I’m not really in a chatty mood, as it’s been a pretty tiring few days at work, and it’s almost midnight now, so I really need to get some shut-eye.  Only two more days, though, and I will have survived my 7-day working week and I have the weekend off yippee … nearly there now 😉