Enjoying a sense of peace one stitch at a time
A quick drive-by to show my latest finish – I put the final stitches into Ladybug, Ladybug while watching TV last night:
“Ladybug, Ladybug” by Little House Needleworks
stitched on 32ct natural Belfast linen
with recommended DMC threads
Back to commitment stitching again now …
I’ll start the post off by showing off some exquisite knitting that I received from my beautiful and talented friend Nicki as my birthday gift – and I totally adore it!! How could I not? The knitting is perfection itself, and the colour is so very “me” – it’ll be perfect for our Sydney winter for that extra bit of neck warmth. Thanks again Nicki 😀
Also, I just realised that I haven’t posted my earlier birthday gifts yet – they arrived while I was flat out at work in February, and didn’t realise I hadn’t uploaded the piccie yet! That doesn’t mean I love the gifts any less, ‘cos I absolutely adore everything … they’re all duckies!!! I can’t believe Tessa found all these little lovelies on her travels – they’re fantastic additions to my duck collection, and they really put a smile on my face. Thanks once again Tessa, for your beautiful and thoughtful gifts – I especially adore the framed duckie button, that’s an awesome idea, it’s just wonderful 😀
Both Nicki and Tessa were initially online friends, but then became real-life friends after meeting face-to-face (Nicki in Auckland, and Tessa in Melbourne) … life is a much brighter place with friends such as these lovely ladies 😀
Now, before I get on to today’s achievements, here’s the latest stitching update of Merry Xmas by Prairie Moon – not sure if they look more like aliens rather than skeletons with those big eye sockets haha … alas I need a skein of Old Crow before I can fill those eyes in, so I’ll have to continue sticking with the white, cream, pink and red for a while longer 🙂
After spending the day yesterday blobbing out playing computer games, watching TV and doing a little bit of stitching, today was a different story … partly helped by the extra hour in bed thanks to the clocks going back last night. Today there has been no stitching to be had, but instead plenty of time spent in the kitchen … baking of all things! Trying to use up some cupboard stocks (why on earth I have two big bags of coconut, etc I do not know!), I opted to bake items where I had to buy next-to-nothing and came up with the following (I know, Mum, this is ME … baking … whatever next?!!!):
Cinnamon Ginger Cake ready to go into the oven
Cinnamon Ginger Cake keeping company with Caramel Walnut Slice
The ultimate sin … cutting the cake before it’s 100% cold … but oh so scrummy!!! 😀
Another 1/4 of the cake went to my elderly downstairs neighbour as a treat
Then another quick trip over to the supermarket for some ‘odd’ items I didn’t have in stock, I sliced up some rump steak and whipped up some Asian-style marinade so it can stew in the fridge overnight … which means I’m having stir-fry tomorrow night – yum (admittedly the pre-mixed beef doesn’t quite look so yummy in the photo thanks to lumps of lemon grass and garlic LOL) 🙂
I can’t wait to cook this up tomorrow night!!! 😀
And to top the kitchen chores off, I pulled my finger out and prepared a couple of salad lunches for work Mon/Tue this week, and also chopped up some honeydew melon and rockmelon … hmmm, me thinks that a good start to eating more healthily this week! 😀
As normal, I’m running late this morning, so this is just a really quick posting with my latest WIP piccies – one a commitment piece for Katie’s Christmas gift (2010!), and another of my Crazy January Challenge pieces (LHN’s Ladybug Ladybug) – alas the LHN piece needs one of the small leaves to be frogged due to my own stupidity and stitching when I’m too tired … but that won’t take long. Mum’s been asking after my stitching, so I’ve made an effort to take a couple of quick piccies 🙂
I have more commitment stitching to do this weekend for gifts/exchanges, so alas I may not have much stitching to show for a while … and on that note, really gotta run … 🙂
Here is my choice for this week’s “ABC Wednesday” – brought to you by the Letter “I” … I is for Iguana:
And this week’s “one I prepared earlier, stitchy/crafty content” is “It’s Halloween” by The Drawn Thread (stitched back in 2007 when I was housesitting in Melbourne):
I’ve managed a tiny bit of stitching over the last few nights, including finishing all the actual stitching on Bittersweet Seasons – all I need now is to buy some little gold embellishments for it (a tiny gold star and bell) then it’s totally finished. It’s hard to pick up the little details such as the beads and metallics, but I’ve tried to capture it as well as I can in the below photos (although when I do compilations there is a lot of quality lost in the conversion).
Then, after a trip to Spotlight yesterday afternoon to pick up the DMC thread I have mislaid (so, what’s new??), I put the finishing stitches into the Autumn freebie that I started last year.
“Autumn” freebie by The Stitcherhood LLC
Stitched on 32ct hand-dyed Belfast linen by Countrystitch ~ colour Merino
with recommended DMC threads
(the chart is still available here)
I’m not sure what happened to the photo of this one – the fabric is a beautiful mottled creamy fabric, not the putty-like colour that is showing in the above photo!! I hope to turn this into a little pillow soon, which is timely considering we are now officially in the first week of Autumn here “down under” and it’ll be nice to have it on display (gee I’m so sorry to say farewell to Sydney’s summer … not …).
Now I guess it’s back to the Drawn Thread Joyeux Noel, although I have to admit I’m really not enjoying stitching that one in the slightest – which is disappointing, as I’ve had the urge to stitch this one for the longest time … I’m tempted, instead, to do an hour or so of one of my Crazy January Challenge projects, as unfortunately they’ve been taking a back seat just lately while I’ve been finishing up some older WIPs … I’m starting to think I have bitten off more than I can chew this year what with both the CJC and my personal challenge of two ornies per month ho-hum (not to mention some other commitment pieces that aren’t able to form part of my CJC!) 😦
Talking of which, I also need to kit up my two March Christmas ornies, and make a start on Katie’s Christmas gift from last year plus get cracking on my outstanding PIFs from last year.
In the meantime, though, it feels really good to finally get a couple of WIPs from last year into the finishing pile (even if one does still need its embellishments).
The last few weeks have been absolutely mental at work – another project that hasn’t gone as well as planned thanks to an unstable testing platform, code not delivered as planned, and another department totally not delivering their side of the requirements. Testing is supposed to take 2 weeks, this time it took the entire month of February … and I’m sure I don’t need to say how much I was “over it” by the end!! But thankfully March is now here, and testing is mostly behind me … except now I have to do more to help out the other department now they’re implementing their side of it … pfffft.
Alas that means there hasn’t been much motivation to do anything other than sleep in my spare time, and not much stitching. Then when I did do some stitching both my camera batteries died … and I lost my Lumix charger. The charger turned up a few days ago, then I lost my memory card … I decided to just buy a cheap replacement online (and found a store by doing so that offers really healthy discounts on top brand cards!!), then of course found the original one stuck in the front of the computer this morning … after I had checked there the other night! Oh well, I needed a spare anyway, and now I have loads and loads of memory on the cards for my next holidays 😀
That also means I’ve managed to take a couple of quick snaps this morning – even if they’re not great quality in the overcast morning light, here is my current stitching update … one finish and one work in progress:
“He’s a Flake” by Little House Needleworks
stitched on 32ct hand-dyed Belfast linen by Countrystitch ~ colour Kina
with recommended threads (Crescent Colours and DMC)
WIP – “Joyeux Noel” by The Drawn Thread
(I’m using DMC 3865 instead of 739 for the snow etc for more contrast on the fabric)
I would have done more stitching on Wednesday night, but at 7pm I remembered I was supposed to bake for morning tea the next day, so chose something I’d never done before that was a bit of a challenge (including making my own pastry, which I haven’t done for years!). Alas it took me all night (literally) and 1 1/2 hours the next morning to get everything finished, but I was just ‘in the mood’ for kitchen time, and I enjoyed every minute of it. If I get chance, I’ll post the recipes later – the Orange Liqueur Chocolate Tartlets went down an absolute treat! Anyway, here are the results:
Cheese Crisps (with Havarti & Basil filling)
(these are only about 1.5cm in diameter … like little cheesy burgers
for Ken and Barbie! LOL – and for me very more-ish!!)
Orange Liqueur Chocolate Tartlets (simply divine!)
On a health side, I’ve been going to Physio twice a week since last week, and had my first hydrotherapy session on Wednesday – hopefully it will help to loosen up my lower back and stop the knee pains … when it gets really bad, unfortunately the pain keeps me awake at night – and it’s been the worst lately when spending long hours in the office 😦
And on that note I really should get my A into G and get my carcass into that office – today I have a meeting with our Occupational Health & Safety assessor to find out if my employer will cough up for a new chair for me … otherwise I’m going shopping to buy myself one. Not quite the most exciting of shopping, but a very worthwhile investment if I do have to do it myself! 🙂
Alas, it’s been a very loooong week workwise, so not much stitching at all has been done, and not much of anything else. I had a couple of 9pm finishes at work, then got sick on Thursday and haven’t been firing on all cylinders since. My leg has been giving me a lot of pain lately, but after 2 months being on a waiting list for physio, I FINALLY have an appointment tomorrow morning so I can start discussing some appropriate exercises for my back (I have some degeneration in the discs of my lower back which is causing swelling and therefore compression of the nerves … which is leading to me walking like an old lady when I get up and horrendous pains in my left knee). Mind you, with the current heatwave back in Sydney, going to bed with an ice compress on my knee has been blissful 😉
What I did do yesterday, though, was to dust off the grime from the top of the breadmaker and threw in some flour and rolled oats into it … 4 hours later and I was able to sample the results – a very slight sweetness to it, which I’m not a huge fan of, it’s still quite a nice loaf, and it’s given me the urge to get some milk powder and other ingredients in to start sampling a few more recipes (and also therefore cleaning up another one of my 101 things in 1001 days items). Anyway, here is the result of my Oatmeal Walnut Bread, which is one more recipe book that I can tick off the list of my 101 things (“The Bread Machine Book” by Marjie Lambert):
The only stitching I managed to do during the week was to put a few touches to Bittersweet Season – it’s really hard to pick up the metallics and beads, as my macro camera battery has died and I can’t find the charger so I’ve had to use my Nikon SLR whose Macro setting is crap … oh well, I’m halfway through adding the embellishments, which means I just have the remaining half of the pumpkin’s beads and metallics to stitch, then stitching the metallic half-moon at the top and the pumpkin stalk.
Last night I sat in the lounge and caught up on some taped TV and put a couple of stitches into this month’s ornament – this will eventually be “He’s a Flake” by LHN … sorry for the blurry picture, but there isnt’ too much to see really anway so I guess it doesn’t matter 😉
And on that note, I’m going to take a break from the PC and grab another slice of that bread to make a sandwich …
Here is my choice for this week’s “ABC Wednesday” – brought to you by the Letter “E” … Enchanted Maze Garden, Melbourne:
And this week’s “one I prepared earlier, stitchy/crafty content” is a wee ornie by Elizabeth’s Designs:
I’ve been out of town for the last week with work, spending my time in our call centre in Brisbane (Queensland). It was grueling work, with some days being 14 hour working days, but it was really invigorating and rewarding for me personally, and the feedback I received from the staff I worked with was inspiring. Not to mention how wonderful it was to sleep in air-conditioned comfort for 4 nights. This was home for 5 days – and the great thing is there was a full laundry and kitchen, so aside from self-catering to keep the bills down (and healthy food to keep the weight down) I was able to do my laundry on Thursday night so I didn’t have to do it this weekend 😉
Alas the testing didn’t quite get completed which means I have to do a bucket load more myself this week – I’d booked an RDO for this week from weeks and weeks ago stating there was no way I was going to be doing project testing on my birthday … but alas it looks like that will have to be cancelled and I will indeed be doing testing on that day (unless I put in the hard yards Mon/Tue and keep my fingers crossed both days).
Oh well, I guess it doesn’t matter really, it’s just a day, and I didn’t have anything special planned for the day anyway … the night’s different, though, Katie is treating me out for dinner on Wednesday night to a local French restaurant that I’ve been wanting to go to ever since I moved to this part of Sydney. They have cheap mid-week set menus, and while the food certainly isn’t Weight Watchers friendly, it looks yummy and I can’t wait!! We’re also getting a bus up as well, which means I can have a drink or three for a change 😀
I didn’t stitch at all when I was away in Brisvegas, as I was generally found glued to massive Excel spreadsheets on the laptop every night, so yesterday I refused to move from my stitching chair, and cleaned out all the TV recordings from last week (and believe me, there was a LOT) – I may have had numb-butt syndrome, but I did manage to put the finishing touches into this (just don’t ask me when the actual needleroll finishing will be taking place, ‘cos I think that’ll be some time away yet!).
“Happy Pumpkin Needle Roll” by Shepherd’s Bush
stitched on 32ct Parkside (I think) hand-dyed linen by Silkweaver
with recommended threads
(I subbed my own button and beads as this was a 2nd-hand used chart)
Today I’m driving to the other side of Sydney to Concord for my first visit to a stitching group at the NSW Embroiderers Guild. I signed up when Mum was over here when I was feeling really motivated about my stitching, but of course they closed over the summer holiday period and this month it is finally reopened again properly so this is the first opportunity I’ve had to pop on over. I’ve found two groups that are mainly XSers that meet on the 2nd and 3rd Sundays of each month, so I phoned up and found out they both had spaces available … and today is my first visit to the first group. I’m feeling extremely nervous, as I’m very shy meeting new people, but this is something I just need to push through and get over! Hopefully it will turn out that I really enjoy it, and it gets me out of the house every once in a while 🙂
Here is my choice for this week’s “ABC Wednesday” – brought to you by the Letter “D” … starting with a Dublin door-knocker:
And this week’s “one I prepared earlier, stitchy/crafty content” is Dolphins Domain (also at the time known as “the Dratteds” because I wasn’t particularly enjoying stitching the seemingly endless shades of grey!):
Feather Stitching 