Home & Family TO BE FIXED, Works in Progress

Things I have learned this week & Thanks

Anne S

First of all, thanks so much for all your feedback on my canvaswork piece.  I have to agree with you on the frogging part, and I will be unpicking the blue centrepiece and moving it further down.  Which is one of life’s lessons I have learned this week:

  • When a chart’s instructions says count twice, stitch once, it really MEANS count twice, stitch once!  Dyslexia in this case is not a good idea, or frogs will appear in multitude!
  • Telling whining co-workers to stop grumbling about every piece of work that touches their desk works miracles – when a co-worker begins to ignore you at work, it will feel like all your blessings have come at once, and leads to a much more harmonious, peaceful, and enjoyable workplace!  Admittedly, those headaches I’ve been having the last couple of days are probably due to her sticking pins into her voodoo doll of me, and not due to work stress, so that’s all good 😛
  • When you’re tossing and turning at 1.30am with a million work issues running through your mind, putting the light on and writing them all down in your diary will actually free your mind … however, what it then does do is allow more thoughts of PERSONAL to-do lists to run through your mind instead – but then you realise it’s Friday and you only have one working day left to go before the weekend, so can manage on 2 1/2 hours sleep … which finally frees your mind to get another 3-4 hours sleep – and your diary is already partially planned for the day so, heh, it’s a win-win all round 😛
  • Avoiding social events where it is very easy to get suckered into having ‘bad’ foods may be anti-social short-term, but the feeling of getting on the scales and seeing a loss of 2.5kg over 1 1/2 weeks offsets it (I really do need the discipline at the moment, and would rather forego dinners and lunches and outings etc short-term to get my mind in a stronger place before adding that extra challenge).  So far, so good, and still feeling very very virtuous 😀

I still haven’t frogged my needlework yet, but instead over the last two nights I’ve spent a short time cutting out mattboard and attaching batting, and matching backing fabrics, to start finishing off Christmas ornies – these are mainly ones stitched by my Mum, which haven’t been finish-finished yet (it’s OK Mum, I’m not nagging you again haha).  I figure it’ll be a nice change to sit and lace a few ornies on an evening instead of stitching in front of the gogglebox – here’s what our lounge looks like right now 😛

And on that note, I’m about to leave the lounge room in its untidy state, and carry my Sapphire Star into the lounge to do the frog-stitch … rippit, rippit, rippit … so some time next week I’ll be ready to start getting ‘back in the saddle’ again 😀

And on another note, we’ve just decided to head over and see Sherlock Holmes this weekend … it doesn’t get much better than this 😛

Canvaswork, Laura J Perin, Sapphire Star, Works in Progress

Insert expletive here!

Anne S

‘Cos it’s not appropriate that I print what I just uttered when I found out I’d miscounted in yesterday’s stitching session on Sapphire Star … and of course I had to find out after I’d almost filled in the top sections – only to find that I started the blocks about 7-8 rows too low.  Here’s how it looks right at the point that I found the mistake:

So that means I either have to fudge it by missing out the dark diamond above the main blue one (in the centre – not stitched yet), or I have to unpick the bottom block lines, along with the entire big centre blue block and move it down those 7-8 lines … oh crap 😦

Funnily enough my stitching urge just went out the window … I think I might read a book tomorrow instead 😛

Angels, Cross Stitch, Finishing, Lavender & Lace, pinkeeps

A spot of finishing

Anne S

This has been sitting in my finishing for a couple of years – awaiting the back to be personalised … I managed to finally do the personalisation before Christmas when I was housesitting across the other side of Sydney, but I then misplaced the backing board which was already cut out with batting attached.  Finally today all the pieces came together … literally … and I put the finishing touches to my pinkeep for a stitching pal that I haven’t seen for quite some time.  The name has been removed to keep the surprise, but hopefully it will be in the mail some time soon 🙂

This is a freebie angel by Lavender and Lace, stitched on 32ct Waterlily linen by Wichelt.

Australia Day, poetry, Uncategorized

My Country … for Australia Day

Anne S

Thanks to Annette, for reminding me of my favourite Australian poem, in honour of Australia Day:

My Country

by Dorothea Mackellar

The love of field and coppice
Of green and shaded lanes,
Of ordered woods and gardens
Is running in your veins.
Strong love of grey-blue distance,
Brown streams and soft, dim skies
I know, but cannot share it,
My love is otherwise.
I love a sunburnt country,
A land of sweeping plains,
Of ragged mountain ranges,
Of drought and flooding rains.
I love her far horizons,
I love her jewel-sea,
Her beauty and her terror
The wide brown land for me!
The stark white ring-barked forests,
All tragic to the moon,
The sapphire-misted mountains,
The hot gold hush of noon,
Green tangle of the brushes
Where lithe lianas coil,
And orchids deck the tree-tops,
And ferns the warm dark soil.
Core of my heart, my country!
Her pitiless blue sky,
When, sick at heart, around us
We see the cattle die
But then the grey clouds gather,
And we can bless again
The drumming of an army,
The steady soaking rain.
Core of my heart, my country!
Land of the rainbow gold,
For flood and fire and famine
She pays us back threefold.
Over the thirsty paddocks,
Watch, after many days,
The filmy veil of greenness
That thickens as we gaze…
An opal-hearted country,
A wilful, lavish land
All you who have not loved her,
You will not understand
though Earth holds many splendours,
Wherever I may die,
I know to what brown country
My homing thoughts will fly.

Canvaswork, Cross Stitch, Laura J Perin, Sapphire Star, Works in Progress

Update to Sapphire Star

Anne S

I have to admit to growing a little tired of Dawson’s tonight – the endless squabbles and melodramas of a group of teenagers is finally wearing on my nerves … BUT I swore I’d sit and watch the entire collection of DVD’s and I will continue to do so even if it kills me or drives me to the booze cabinet!  The GREAT thing, though, is that it’s good to stitch by, ‘cos you don’t really have to look up all that often and can just listen to them all drivel on amongst themselves on the TV screen 😀

Which means, therefore, there’s some reasonable stitching progress from tonight … the close-up shows the colours relatively well, considering it was taken in a darkened room, directly under my Ott-Lite … unfortunately the ‘whole’ photo looks exceptionally washed out thanks to the Ott-Lite 😦

Tomorrow is a public holiday for Australia Day (well, I guess technically that is now “today”, so happy Australia Day to all my Aussie friends!!) … I said I would join the throng of hooligans at The Rocks for a free music concert, but truth is I really just want to sit around all afternoon in front of the goggle box with my honking great tapestry needle in hand, working away on getting some more colour into my Sapphire Star … sounds like a blissful plan … all I need now is some really bad weather to force me indoors 😛

Canvaswork, Laura J Perin, Sapphire Star, supernatural, Works in Progress

Shhh, don’t tell anyone … New start

Anne S

I don’t usually take part in “guilt-free January”, but this weekend I just couldn’t resist starting something new – I’ve had a hankering to start a canvaswork piece for weeks now, and I finally succumbed to the temptation late yesterday.  The photo is dreadful and blurred, but you can at least guess from the colour of the stitches of this one that I’m in love already!!! 😛

This is Laura J Perin’s Sapphire Star (or at least it will be once I get cracking a bit more on it – I’ll take a better photo, ie non-blurry, when I’ve stitched a bit more on it) … I’m about to head off into the lounge to watch Dawson’s Creek (yet again) with Katie … I’m starting to think it’s the TV show that never ends, but we’re over halfway through the seasons now, and once we finish it means we can move on to something else – namely Season 1 of Fringe.  I’ve seen most of the first season before it got pulled from TV, but Katie hasn’t seen any.  (Of course, now thanks to Channel 9, it is finally back on TV again – thanks Go! channel.)

Talking of TV shows being pulled, I’m seriously p*ssed at Channel Ten if the information has Katie has just told me is correct – that they won’t be renewing the Supernatural series.  As per normal they think it’s just fine and dandy to show about 1/3 of the ‘final’ season of a show only to axe it … and they wonder why people resort to downloading TV shows.  Of course ratings are going to be low when you move to late night slots, and of course ratings will be super low when you play in during Christmas week – where did you get your business degrees from???  My thoughts about Channel Ten management are seriously not printable … there are plenty of words rattling around in my head that would make my mother’s hair stand on end!  Bah humbug you Channel Ten morons!!!  And talking of which, where’s the final bloody episodes of ER????  mutter mutter mutter bloody mutter … 😦

OK, time to head back into the lounge for some calming TV … on DVD, Channel Ten, so you can’t stuff that up!!! 😛