Feather Stitching

Hope you all have a wonderful time over Christmas and New Year, even if you don’t celebrate it as a religion 🙂 May 2006 find you all having lots of happy dances, with no frogs a-visiting, and UFO’s disappearing … many best wishes to yourselves and your families – have a safe and joyous time!!

Lots of love,
AnnePhoto taken at work today – at least this year I wasn’t the only idiot dressing up 😉

Nope, it’s not another episode of Poltergeist … but yup, those Dratted Dolphins are back again – managed to get 5 hours stitched into them so far, with beautiful turquoise yay 🙂 The only improvement you’ll see is the big turquoise blob on the bottom right of the picture 😉 At the end of this rotation (5 hours left to go) I should be able to roll up the scroll bars and work on the bottom half … I can’t wait!! Lana, there is my answer for you … nope, they’re still not finished – but one heck of a lot closer than they were a few months ago when I first started blogging! Boy, oh boy, a rotation really works!!!

Thanks everyone for your kind comments about my Christmas tree outfit – it was originally made for a Christmas party at work in Auckland for my old job … a group of us ladies dressed up in Christmas outfits, and that was mine. Then I wore it for a Christmas walk for charity – and managed to win a watch for my troubles! Ever since then I’ve worn it for a laugh every now and then at work … as you say, it really does do wonders for morale. Last year, though, because I had a carpark loaned to me for the day in our office building, I forgot to take a change of clothes (don’t ask how I got into the car!!) … and also forgot to take any lunch, plus needed to buy some flowers for someone – I had to stroll out in the middle of the day down the middle of Camberwell to the markets, much to the delight of kids in the street as well as a few adults … I didn’t know where to look! haha. This year I’ll wear it on my final working day before Christmas, this Friday (23rd).

Anyway, I’d better sign off, as it’s time for my hot chocolate (Milo) before bedtime … yup, it’s 7.10pm LOL. Fraze was wanting to come and stay tomorrow night, but we decided it wasn’t a great idea as he finishes work at 6.30pm, and I need to be getting into bed at 7.30pm – doesn’t give us much time to catch up … it’s been nice seeing him again more regularly after not seeing him for months – his company has been missed 🙂

I’m almost caught on everyones blogs now too – just a few more to go. It’s been nice catching up on what you’ve all been doing while my back was turned :)) And thanks to the ‘new’ guys commenting on my blog … I’ll be popping over shortly to check out your blogs too :))

Haven’t been posting due to spending time with the Dragon (aka Mum) – she arrived bright and early on Thursday morning, and I ended up with both Fraze and Mum as visitors that night … Mum crashed out early on the sofa, while Fraze and I howled out loud watching Chris Rock’s HBO special on DVD, and having a few bevvies. Friday morning I woke up with a painful headache, mainly because Fraze and I woke up with the teeming rain at about 4.30am – and got up to chat for a while with Mum. At about 5.30am I hit the hay for another hour, then Fraze had to go to work while Mum and I spent the day out shopping at Queen Victoria markets until about 3pm … after a sushi ‘lunch’ I crashed out badly until 7pm, managed to stay awake for another 2 hours, then hit the hay yet again until 4am before work! So, all-in-all, no great stitching progress made …

The good news, though, is that I finally finished my gift piece … not quite how I intended it to look – I was whip-stitching the edges with beads, but the shade of the beads didn’t really suit it, so a-frogging I went … I ended up just leaving the whip-stitching plain, and got it finished and stuffed tonight. That means I can finally get it in the post tomorrow – yippee!!!

That now means that I can resume scheduled programming, aka my rotation … so the Dratteds are back on the floorstand, and ready for their 10 hours worth. I’m on 5am’s all week, so that’s a good one to get stitching done. It also means I should be able to get back to blogging again – can’t wait to see what everyone’s been up to 🙂

No stitching done tonight (or last night) – zip, zilch, nada … not one single stitch! So much for getting my gift piece finished … I have to admit, I was so over-tired last night, that I just vegetated for the night, went to bed early, and slept through the entire hour of my alarm this morning! Yikes!! So I was late for work, which very very rarely happens – in fact I think that’s happened twice in the 2 1/2 years since I moved here … must have been my body’s way of saying it needed more rest! Have to admit the early morning shifts, as much as I love them for whatever insane reason, I struggle after a few days of them – but tomorrow is the last one, then I have two days off yippee … but then I have 7 days of 5am shifts {heavy sigh} LOL.

I opted not to stitch on my gift piece last night/tonight mainly ‘cos of its history – it would be just my luck that I’d stitch something wrong and have to frog-stitch for yet another night … I wasn’t taking any chances! haha. I also spent a while chatting on the phone last night to a friend in NZ who gave me the news that she’s expecting another baby – it was lovely to catch up after such a long time.

Next week I dust off the Christmas tree ‘dress’ to wear into work … next year I think I’ll have to put some money aside and buy some portable lights for it – I think that’d be a hoot! I wore this to work here last year, after one of the Supervisors found out I had this wee outfit back home in NZ, and I had to order Mum to bring it over with her on one of her trips … I have to admit, it’s a real morale booster – I usually go out and buy big bags of lollies and hand them out round the office. So, that’s the piccie I’ll leave you with – a Merry Christmas photo from me to you (taken in the office last Christmas). I won’t have any stitching progress to post over the next couple of days – my mate Fraze just surprised me with a phone call tonight to say he’s decided he’s going to come round and stay with me tomorrow night (I suppose I should be glad for 24 hours notice LOL) – then Mum arrives early Thursday morning … I still hope to get my gift in the mail by Monday though 🙂 Enjoy the rest of your week, if I don’t get chance to catch up before then … Thanks for the visits and lovely comments – you guys all rock!!

A quick post before I head off to bed ready for my 4.50am wake-up call … I’m breathing a heavy sigh of relief and contentment tonight for a couple of different reasons:

1. Mum will be here after only 5 more sleeps
2. I only have one more week of phones before I’m back on the Supervisor Hotline for 6 whole weeks (until the end of January)
3. I received some lovely mail today (more later)
4. I don’t have to wear business clothes for a whole month – as we now have casual dress right up until the middle of January … welcome to 5 weeks of trackies and jeans yippee! (especially good for those late/early shifts)
5. For the last 2 nights I have been overjoyed to witness flocks (?) of rainbow lorikeets – my favourite Aussie birds – flying over my little flat on their way to roost at the end of the day … it takes my breath away, and is such a joy to witness (I’m a big softie at heart)

and, last but by no means least …

6. I got all the stitching done on the front of my little gift piece tonight!!!!!

Yep, it’s true – it’s all ‘finished’ … I just have to do the actual finishing, and it’s ready to go in the post. I’ve scanned a photo of it, but I can’t unveil it until it reaches its recipient – as usual, though, the scan doesn’t do the piece justice with those lovely sparkles … but I can give you a little sneak preview of how blending filament should actually look … ie shiny!! 😉 I have to admit, I’m glad I persevered with it – it does look pretty cool once it’s finished … can’t wait to show you!

As for my mail, today I received some trade fabric from Karen – and it’s the most gorgeous hand-dyed Belfast by Silkweaver called “Fern” … totally scrummy – thanks so much for that, Karen … hopefully you’ll find your return trade OK once I get it in the mail:)

I also received my FOTM from Country Stitch, which was a bit more disappointing (just normal linens, not hand-dyeds), and something I’m probably going to cancel from next month. Unfortunately my recent stash splurges were a bit of a stuff-up, in that I worked out the conversion all wrong, so ended up spending a LOT more than I should have … so now I’m having to make a few budget cuts to offset it. Oh well, such is life … At least I have plenty of stash to keep me going in my days of poverty LOL – and I can always live on tuna for a couple of weeks hahaha.

Which reminds me – my last stash haul from SB&B has finally been shipped … it left on the 5th, so with any luck it will be here within the next week … woohoo!!! Then I can enjoy drooling over it, and get the guilt over and done with before Christmas LOL 😉

So, tonight I’m heading to bed with a smile on my face – all-in-all it’s been a good day. Hope your weekend is going well too 🙂

Well, the heading is aimed towards my lovely gift piece … I managed to frog stitch all that blending filament and the backstitching – but it took me all night! BF is a pain in the butt to remove anyway, without it being nice and crinkly 😉 Then to top it all off, I managed to stitch my first big replacement piece of stitching … and found I was one row out in counting – I think I’m doomed with this piece! The air round here last night matched my decor beautifully … it was very very blue! LOL. Never mind, I’m on 6am shifts this week, so hopefully I can get a few stitches in each afternoon in daylight. I have to admit, I’m usually really careful when I’m ironing, and usually do have a towel underneath it, and a cloth over the top … I was just feeling so under the weather I just wasn’t thinking. Never mind, by hook or by crook I’ll master the damned thing before the week is out! haha.

Thanks everyone as always for your comments – they’re always so welcome 🙂 And an especially big howdy to my cousin Anita, a new reader all the way from Canada – it’s so nice to see you! {{waving}} You’re right, Anita, I’m usually appalling at keeping in touch, so popping in here is a nice way to see what I’m up to … especially as you’re a stitcher too, ‘cos that’s usually all I talk about 🙂 I’m teaching Mum a bit more about emailing and the internet when she comes over to visit next week … so there may be blood on the carpet – either hers or mine hahahaha – no, she’s actually pretty good ‘cos she writes everything down 🙂

I’ve also decided I need to brush up my minimal French (by minimal, I mean I know about 4 whole sentences … “Comment ca va?”, “Je m’appelle Anne”, “je ne comprends pas”, and “je parle le francais petit peu seulement” haha – but there are some wonderful blogs out there written entirely in French … and Google translater really isn’t earning it’s salary at all – I can barely understand the english versions, never mind the french ones! So, perhaps I have a new task for 2006/2007 … improve my language skills LOL.

Rightio, enough dawdling on the computer – off to the “infamous project” … let’s see if I can actually do some stitching that will remain in the linen for more than 60 minutes haha.