Enjoying a sense of peace one stitch at a time
At least they do in this colour … and this one’s on its way to Mama Annie (moi) care of Ebay {insert happy sigh of contentment here} 😀
It matches the fountain pen that I already have (loaded up with scrummy turquoise Waterman ink!) … can’t wait for it to arrive – this feels almost as good as stitching stash being on its way 😉
A HUGE vote of thanks goes to my darling friend Carl who managed to fix up my sidebar issues for me – after not being able to work it out months ago I’d given up on finding a fix (and the support forums were of no help whatsoever) … within minutes of jumping into my template code it was all sorted … Carl ROCKS!!! 😀 Of course that also means now that I want to play again some more and twiddle with a couple more settings, but that’ll have to wait until another day …
Since I last posted I have managed to do absolutely NO stitching once again … my Sunday afternoon housework session got seriously sidetracked when I was putting my newly bought stash purchases (from the recent craft show) away. As I mentioned earlier, I didn’t do too much damage to my credit card or wallet (but thanks anyway to my employer for a whole 12 months worth of back-pay, you rock!), but I did buy a few little lovelies to bring home with me.
First of all I did go a little bit nuts over some different ribbons/embellishments:
Then of course there were the few pieces of 36/40ct fabric, some ground walnut shells, bead embellishments, a small jelly roll in scrummy blues and some hand-dyed pearl cotton that was on sale – plus another pair of scissors, because a girl just can never have enough scissors! (and yes, Margaret, they’re green too haha!! – I think green, red and purple have always been my secondary fave colours behind blue, and often have a green jacket or top somewhere in my wardrobe):
And lucky last the charts and quilting book I just couldn’t live without (and which hopefully will not sit in the depths of my stash closet before seeing the light of day again!):
In particular my latest ribbon/embellishment purchases started an organising frenzy for the evening when I opened the wee storage drawers to find the following mess looking at me:
After considering briefly whether to continue my normal housework plans or sitting curled up on my bed to watch Spartacus and ‘play’ … my non-sensible side opted for a few hours of fondling and organising those piles of ribbons and mess into little bundles. With the help of some cut up strips of photocopy paper and double-sided sellotape, I ended up with a pile looking something like this:
Doesn’t that burst of colour just fill you with joy – I know it certainly did that to me! Even more so that seeing Spartacus half naked on the TV screen LOL 😀
It now means that all these little bundles fit into one of those plastic drawers, and my pinkeep pins and ribbon reels are back to having drawer space to themselves and no longer have piles of ribbon and embellishments hiding them from view and easy access … I may not have achieved much else this weekend, but it sure feels damn good to get those tidied up once and for all! Plus stash fondling is almost as good as stitching … in fact, sometimes even more therapeutic than the act of stitching itself 😀
1 cup of friendly words
2 heaped cups of understanding
2 cups of human kindness
4 heaped teaspoons of time and patience
Pinch of warm personality
A dash of dry humour
The spice of life
Add the words and understanding to human kindness.
Sift together three times before using.
Use generous amounts of time and patience and cook slowly.
Keep temperature low.
Do not boil.
Add a dash of dry humour, a pinch of warm personality and season to taste with the spice of life.
I’ts been a very long time since I’ve completed a Photo Hunt post, so I’ll be aiming to catch up with some previous photo hunts that I previously missed, as well as trying to keep up with the latest ones once more … not sure how long it’ll last, but here goes …
This week’s theme is ”Busy” and here is a very Busy photo of colourful balloons at the Auckland annual concert, Coca-Cola’s Christmas in the Park.
Back on 12 March the theme was ”Machine(s)” – here is a gentleman in the Port Douglas outdoor markets cranking out sugar cane juice on his industrial strength juicing Machine … seriously delishimo (in my eyes) with a squeeze of lime added to offset the high sugar content!!! I’m salivating just thinking of that icy sweet nectar!
I heard from Marie that my snowman ornie arrived safe and sound and didn’t melt on the way to it’s new home. Here is the ornie I sent to my partner Marie – I really really love this one, and definitely need to re-stitch it for myself, I just adore the colours used!:
“All Dolled Up!” by Little House Needleworks
stitched on 32ct hand-dyed Lugana by Countrystitch ~ colour Pipi or Haystack (can’t remember!!)
with recommended threads
Last weekend I managed a quick finish before succumbing to a shocking tummy virus that was followed by a serious throwing-up migraine … but a bucket-load of Hydralite (yuk) later, and I was back at work with my nose to the grindstone again on Tuesday. Alas the tail end of my bug is still hanging on, but that just means I’m feeling tired and headachey, and nothing like the doom and gloom of last weekend! It has meant, however, that I haven’t put a single stitch into anything since last weekend because I’ve been too tired … not sure if I’ll remedy that this weekend or not, but the day is young … um, kinda … who stole those last 3 hours of today and snuck them past me??? 😛
Anyway, here is my other teeny finish from last weekend:
“Fall” by Lizzie*Kate
stitched on a mystery 28ct Cashel linen – looks like a lambswool kinda colour in real life
with recommended WDW threads
The rest of my non-stitching time has been spent doing some serious spending! Over the last fortnight I’ve managed to join the iPhone revolution (still learning how to use it, although I did manage to create my own ringtone on the first night, which only took me almost 2 hours!) and replace my PC monitor with a beautiful new Samsung one – my old monitor is still technically working and while it’s not suiting my own needs anymore it’s much better than Mum’s existing one so it will be heading over the ocean with whoever travels first. It was starting to drive me crazy when editing photos etc, so it was time to update. My final splurge was to pick up a duvet cover in the half-price sales – I’ve been looking for a new one in darker colours for a while now (even dragged Mum through a few shops on the lookout during her recent visit), and popped over to the sales tables in Harvey Norman not expecting to see anything worthwhile … it’s now about to jump into the washing machine so I can get it ironed and on my bed for the rest of winter 😀
And on that note I suppose I should drag myself away from the PC seeing as I’ve already wasted the entire morning playing with my blog template, and start getting that laundry done … then I think I may just have time to pull out some finishing fabrics for a teeny spot of finishing tomorrow … maybe … if nothing sidetracks me in the meantime … 😉
My blog is currently looking like it’s totally screwed … hopefully by this time tomorrow it’ll be in a readable format once more!!! 😦
Just in case you want to update your bookmarks (if you have one), I’ve updated my blog URL to more accurately reflect the blog name – I think there’s a redirect in place already and should be in place for a while yet, but just in case this blog ever drops off the face of the earth, you can find it at:
And that’s all from me for now … getting over a bout of gastric bugs and a throw-up migraine, so not feeling too chatty … can’t even say I’ve been stitching since Sunday either – never mind, I’m sure those needles will be flying once again soon enough 🙂
And the only other news to share is that I went to the Sydney craft show on Friday with my best stitching pals Amanda and Alison, and had a BLAST!! I think it was the best day out at the shows we’ve had yet … always a laugh and a giggle, and for once no budget for moi, although even so I didn’t do too much damage to the wallet. Once I’ve charged up my camera battery I’ll take a photo of my craft show spoils 🙂
And the last bit of news is that I have applied for a new job at work – highly unlikely that I’ll get it, but I figure it will be good experience for the whole interview experience … if I don’t get it, it’s fine, ‘cos I enjoy my current job on the whole really, but if I do get it it will be a big challenge work-wise and might limit stitching time even more – either way I’ll be happy 🙂
So much for not being chatty, huh? 😛
As I mentioned previously, we started off our day 3 quite leisurely sitting for a while at the edge of a beautiful misty and chilly beach, and feeling at one with the world – afterwards we opted to stop off at Ulladulla and filled up with petrol, where I spied a notice for a car mechanics … my right indicator light had started flickering at the speed of light, so I opted to play safe and get it checked out – within half an hour I was back on the road with a new indicator bulb installed, and a paid-up mechanics bill of an entire $5.00 – yep, “we’re not in Sydney any more, Toto”!! Bless the NRMA mechanics, is all I can say! The last time I had to have a headlight bulb replaced, and my engine VIN number sanded back slightly, it cost me $120+ … I think the next time I need mechanical work done, I’m going to drive down to Ulladulla!!! 😀
The majority of our day today was spent driving south of Bateman’s Bay to Mogo Zoo – it’s only a small private zoo, but what a wonderful time of it we had!! We ended up being there for about 3-4 hours, and loved every minute of it! There weren’t a huge number of animals to see, but what there was to see was really good quality, and you could get quite close up to most of the exhibits. The autumn colours were also very much present within the Zoo grounds, adding to the wonderful atmosphere (for us anyway).
I personally have an exceptional fondness for tigers, so I went a bit snap happy at the tiger enclosure, where there are more tigers in one place that I’ve ever seen in one zoo (mainly adolescents). We also had the opportunity to see white lions and could pat a dingo as they took them for a walk around the park, not forgetting the deer that we drove crazy with deer food! I also spent a considerable amount of time with a beautiful female chimp who was chattering away to us at the window of the enclosure, while hugging a plastic Shrek doll in her hand (apparently her birthday gift) – it was quite amazing being up so close and personal to a chimp and actually having interaction … I didn’t want to leave!
Seeing as we had spent more time than expected at Mogo Zoo, we opted not to go shopping at the beautiful and quaint Mogo village where a number of artisans had shops – instead, we retraced our steps back to Bateman’s Bay to follow the coast road down south for a while. Eventually we ended up at Narooma, where we spent the night at an even nicer motel room, and a so-so dinner at the Narooma Golf Club.
I forgot to include in our previous day’s write-up that we drove through Gerringong and Geroa on the way to Berry – this was one area that was recommended to me for a short break away, and I have to say that I agree with their recommendation. This is definitely one area I’d really love to return to … sitting on Seven Mile Beach for a few days would be such hardship 😉
Day 2 of our trip was probably the worst we had weather-wise, it bucketed down with rain all day. We decided to retrace our steps marginally to visit a Haven & Space warehouse that had been recommended by Amanda – where we saw large cushions that would be great on my sofa. Unfortunately they didn’t have the size we wanted, but I remembered there were more cushions at the Berry store we had previously been in … for some reason we hadn’t taken much notice of those the previous day, so we figured we might as well take the short track back to Berry once more, which also gave us more time to wander around the shops properly this time. We started off by buying a few little gourmet deli goodies from The Emporium (yum!), as well as finding the perfect cushion from Haven & Space (I’m now kicking myself that I didn’t buy two though!). We were also highly amused by a little booze shop window display, which had tasting notes on various items … including the following one that tickled my fancy!
Before we left Berry we managed to find respite from the rain for a few minutes in Berry Patchwork … where I managed to fall in love with the following BOM quilt – alas my credit card will shortly to winging its way down the phone lines to them, and I’m going to start receiving the blocks from the beginning of July. I think it’s all the beautiful blues and creams that made me fall in love with this one (called “Piece & Plenty”) – and the photo certainly doesn’t do this piece justice (this was taken from their website, not taken by me). Looking at the various blocks, I think the large variety of techniques will make this a really good learning project 🙂
The rest of the day was spent in a small shopping centre in Nowra, trying to find the local NRMA which was no longer there … but it also gave us chance to pick up some cheap polar fleece jackets and trackpants to fight the drop in weather temperature. We did finally find the NRMA and had a lovely chat with the lady behind the counter about our hideous accommodation, and she kindly gave us a free map of southern NSW which turned out to be absolutely fantastic value and we used it every day when planning our driving.
After we finished our shopping at the NRMA we hit the road once again, although we didn’t get too far on the road before nightfall – we ended up finding a lovely motel at a place called Mollymook. We were nervous about the accommodation room when we were told it would be $95 for the night (our decrepit fleapit the previous night was $90), and it was a total palace in comparison. Mollymook is yet another place I’d be more than happy to return for a long weekend away, it’s just lovely 🙂
Before we started driving on Day 3, we picked up a big cappuccino for me, and sat on a park bench on the beachfront watching the waves roll in and a solitary surfer heading out for a morning surf. It was a beautifully peaceful way to start the day 🙂
Our entire plan for our road trip was to just keep driving until we felt like stopping, figuring it was the middle of winter and most motels would have vacancy signs up – I had a list of places that I really wanted to visit, but all the bits inbetween were totally open to suggestion.
The first leg of our journey was to drive down the scenic coast highway to Kiama – with a couple of detours along the way. The first detour was that I wanted to drive through the Royal National Park and see Wattamolla, as it had been recommended to me. It was a lovely drive on an early wintry morning. It was deserted at Wattamolla, so I opted not to take the bushwalk over to the beach, and instead just explored the area around the carpark – I think I’ll definitely have to return again in better weather and explore further afield.
After Wattamolla we headed over to the coast, and had a pit stop at Bald Hill Lookout where we were greeted with a treat of seeing some tandem hang-gliders … watching them getting ready for launch really brought back memories of when I did this myself in Queenstown, NZ. It was a real treat, although the wind chill up at the top of that hill was really bitterly cold. Mum was very wise choosing to stay in the car while I popped out for 1/2 and hour and took photos … then came back and attacked her with my cold hands to share the love LOL. My Mum would never fail to do that to me growing up, the evil sod she is, so it was time for some payback haha.
We eventually followed the coast past Woollongong and on to Kiama, where we were really fortunate that the wintry weather and high winds meant that the blowhole was performing quite well – it’s really difficult to get good photos of the immense spray of water that plumes high in the air, but we were intrigued by it and stood there for quite some time watching the spectacle and taking in all that lovely sea air.
After Kiama we continued to follow the coast road and had lunch at Shellharbour beach – we were well prepared with some sandwiches and snacks readily made up with a lovely thermos of coffee … there are definitely some benefits of taking your own car from home! I really loved the mosaics on the walls of the local public toilets (of all places), and we enjoyed watching the local surfers attacking the surf before we headed off on the road once again.
Our final sightseeing stop for the day was to make a quick visit to Berry, a picturesque village that has a relatively good needlework store (our key reason to visit Berry). While we were browsing in Sew and Tell, we ran into our good friend Amanda so we had extra time to catch up while we continued to wander through the various stitching stock. We bought a couple of things, mainly some JABC buttons for Christmas ornaments, plus a couple of Mill Hill ornie kits, some replacement Qsnap snaps and Mum bought a wee Lizzie*Kate chart. We didn’t find a great deal of items that we really wanted buy (perhaps a sad realisation that your stash is already out of control?!), but at least we can say that we’ve finally been! We also wandered around a couple more shops while we were there, then decided it was time to hit the road again as it was starting to get late.
By the time we reached Nowra, it was getting quite dark, and we figured it was a good place to stop … unfortunately we had trouble here finding a motel on the main road, finally resorting to one we found in a little side street … O.M.G. is all I can say here!!! The damned motel should be condemned! I have now learnt to ask to see a room if you’re unsure of the room quality before they swipe your credit card!! You couldn’t sit on the sofa because it was falling apart (literally!), the toilet didn’t flush properly, and there was no hot water running through any of the taps (guess who just had a strip wash the next morning … neither of us were brave enough to attempt a cold shower). The only good thing about it is that the beds themselves seemed OK and clean … and it turned out to be the only motel that actually had internet access the entire week we were away! While I had internet access, though, we tracked down the address of the local NRMA office so we could go and pick up an accommodation guide … worth every cent of the $20 book cost!!
I’ll continue on with Days 2 and 3 together shortly …
PhotoHunt
Feather Stitching 