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The title refers to my new lounge suite etc … My old lounge suite was picked up yesterday morning, and it’s amazing how different this little place looks – Von and Jenna, you were absolutely right, I do love it now … as soon as the place became uncluttered again, it made me feel so much better, and I have to admit it looks really nice! Funnily enough, the new lounge suite colour matches my voile curtains I have hanging in the lounge perfectly, and the new Ikea coffee table just sets things off beautifully. I’ll try and take a piccie tomorrow soon when I have more time. Unfortunately I had to give the guy a hand yesterday moving the old lounge suite, and I have body aches and a couple of bruises to show for it (but thankfully it didn’t aggrevate my already wrenched neck!) … moving a sofabed down 4 flights of stairs isn’t my idea of fun before work, but I’m so happy it’s gone now! 😀

Funnily enough, Von, it was Melbourne’s Freecycle group I signed up with, and that’s where I got rid of the lounge suite – what a wonderful idea that is! 🙂 In a fit of desperation I typed “get rid of furniture melbourne” in Google … and that’s what it came up with 😉

Now all the lounge and dining room is free again, I feel as though as I have more head space again for stitching, and life in general – I know that sounds crazy, but I was feeling very cluttered and overwhelmed in every sense of the word … I feel ready to get moving again, and back into the swing of things 🙂 Just a shame I have to work again now as well 😉

Fraze also just paid me the balance of money he still owed me, and that was a huge relief too (for both of us) … and this Saturday I’m having my first ‘public unveiling’ of my flat to some fellow bloggers and friends – Gina and Sharon are coming round for a get-together with Mum and I to drool over stash and have a chat, and I’m really looking forward to it 😀 So, yeah, life is definitely good 😀

Now I’d better get motoring as I’ve got to get ready for work (it took me 4 hours just to read new emails at work yesterday yikes).

Before I do that, though … a message to anyone who’s reading that’s a member of the SBEBB – I’ve pulled out of the group to give someone else a chance to participate. I was going to stay in until the Redwork Exchange was completed, but due to an admin error it’s already been cancelled, and it seems daft to reapply just for the one exchange. I’ll keep an eye on everyone’s blogs to see the exchanges rolling in … but I just wanted to say “it’s been fun, and I’ve really enjoyed the exchanges I’ve been involved in”, but seeing as I’d only be doing an exchange once every 3-6 months now, it was best that I stepped down. I probably keep more up-to-date with everyone’s blog than on the BB, so at least I can still keep in touch with everything that’s happening 🙂 And I’ll look at joining in with some of the exchanges on the Robin’s Nest BB to keep my hand in 🙂

Also, to those of you from the Friends Gather BB … I was very saddened to hear of the closing of the BB without being able to say “farewell” (I couldn’t get in when I got back from Hong Kong, so I presume it’s all closed up already) … again, I just want to say to any members who are reading, that I loved being part of that community, and there were some wonderful ideas and groups for broadening my stitching horizons, as well as some wonderful people there – I will most definitely miss that BB most of all.

The one thing I especially loved was the monthly Christmas Ornament SAL – and this is something I’d like to continue myself in the future. I loved KarenV’s idea to choose a designer each month, then choose an ornament by that designer – it opened my eyes to designers I hadn’t considered before, and I loved some of the stitched choices once I’d completed them. I think I’ll continue to do this over the coming year and beyond … I’ll continue with the list of designers we’d had on the BB, then I guess it’ll be time to sit down and look at my wishlist of ornies and make my own list up 🙂

Rightio, I definitely have to run now … have a great week everyone – hopefully I’ll be catching up on blog reading again soon (I’m behind again since Hong Kong oops).

No stitching to report this morning, as it’s all been shown already … later today I’ll be working on Vash’s RR piece, which will be a challenge as it’s all stitched the opposite way to me – I’ve never had to change the direction of my XS’es so that’ll be a first for me. It’s mounted on the scroll bars, with the threads all in floss bags, so I’m ready to get going as soon as I’m home. I’ve also been reading through the chart for the Lavender Rose Sewing Case so I can get started with this SAL, then I need to get my 3 hours of Bordeaux Sampler done for the week … not to mention my exchanges … crikey!

Today I’m off to pick up two weeks worth of mail from the PO Box and to get two parcels in the mail. Also tossing up whether to take a side trip out to the Cat Protection Society, seeing as my tummy has now eased up – I managed to eat a big meal two nights ago, and retained everything in my body like it’s supposed to, and didn’t have to rush off to the loo whatsoever yesterday … I think I’m cured!! 😉

Anyway, I realised I’m outstanding with a couple of queries that were in comments recently, so here we go …

For Anita – regarding the pansy scissor fob … unfortunately it was from a class I took at La Chatelaine in Auckland, New Zealand, and isn’t available as a chart. It should be relatively easy to copy, though, if you enlarge the photo. It used Brazilian cast-on stitch for the petals, close fly stitch for the leaves, feather stitch for the ‘stems’, and a french or colonial knot in the centre of the pansy with a few straight stitches. The sides were done with palestrina knots. Sorry I can’t help more with that one.

For Heather – on the Teddy Santa Stocking, the beard is just done with straight stitches … very very simple, but very very effective. I just made sure I railroaded the stitches to get them to lay flat and even.

For Jenna/Erin – thanks heaps for the offer to pick up scissors for me 🙂 I’ll definitely stick my hand up if I need to, thanks ladies 😀

Could I also take this opportunity to thank everyone who reads and comments – it means a great deal to me … plus I’d like to welcome my newer readers – I’ll be popping over to return the favour very soon (I have 600+ unread feeds in my inbox, though, since I was away on holidays hmmm).

And I’ll finish off with a photo of a couple of HKG souvenirs I bought … just for a change, I found duckies!!! ROTFLMAO!!! Even though I have quite a few already, I can remember where I bought each and every one, and this little Nici duck will always remind me of my time in HKG … then I was walking out of the store and spied the mug with ducks on it, and just had to take that home too! My final purchase from the airport was this little Chinese tea set. I’d been eyeing a set up in a local store, but decided not to get it … then succumbed in the last few minutes before boarding our flight home – it’ll be nice to drink my green teas in. And as Mum said, it’s got dragons on it, so it’ll bring back memories of my holiday with her LOL.

I’ve been sat up since early this morning stitching the rest of my rotation slot for this piece – I was up early to drive out to the airport, but Mum’s flight has been delayed due to the late arrival into Auckland from Los Angeles, so she’s now approx 6 hours late leaving, and consquently arriving. Seeing as my plans have been upset for the day, I just decided to keep on stitching on Pacific Pohutukawa until my slot finished, or until I got fed up … which just so happens to be right at the same time! The main reason I’m feeling fed up is that the thumb on my right hand is quite red and sore from pulling that damned rayon through the threads on the back to hold it secure – so now it feels a bit uncomfortable to stitch with. Oh well, at least I got my rotation commitments finished for this piece, and now I can move on with the next thing on my agenda … Bordeaux Sampler, followed by my next (and final one with a deadline) charity block, which is due to be received 15 August. After that I have my redwork exchange, needleroll exchange, and round robin to complete … me thinks my rotation won’t be looked at for a while again now hmmm … 😉

Time to go check the arrivals info again, and see if it’s time to start driving to the airport 🙂

Yup, my canvaswork stitching has just got even more psychedelic – oh boy, those colours are bright!! The photo is very poor again, as it’s taken without the flash, just under my ott-lite … I’ll wait until it’s finished, then I’ll try taking a daylight shot to get the colours and stitches nice and crisp. I’ve managed to get a wee bit done tonight, to keep my awake after my 6am start this morning … Mum arrives tomorrow, but I’m hoping I’ll get more chance to finish my rotation slot for this piece before we go to ‘Honkers’ 🙂

This piece is definitely interesting with the threads used – there is Colour Streams silk (the variegated thread), pearl cotton #5, DMC metallics, rayons and cotton floss (all with 6 strands used of each) … the rayon is a challenge, that’s for sure!! There is a wonderful sheen that isn’t evident in the photo 🙂

… Well, to be honest, I’m not “really” glad on the whole, but my liver certainly is! haha. We had a reasonable ‘session’ last night (and an inhouse session the previous night at home) and went into the city to the Transport bar and had drinks and dinner with another couple that used to work in Auckland with Jenny (and now in Melbourne with me) – had a great night out, with much laughter, then we got home at about 11.45pm, and had a ‘nightcap’ of Glayva for me and whisky for Jen that turned into a couple and we didn’t get to bed until 1.30am oops … we’re up early this morning for Jenny’s cab arriving to take her to the airport, and I’m trying hard to stay awake for another hour before I head off to work … perhaps I’ll go in early and get a very large cappuccino before I start haha. It’s been lovely having Jenny here for this short visit – and it was a great opportunity for her to spend the day in the office seeing our procedures etc, and catching up with news from people I used to work with and have high regard for.

The nice thing is that Jenny really likes my little flat … I don’t know why, but I do feel a bit self conscious about it, and it’s taking me some time to invite people back here from work – it’s not that it’s not ‘nice’, but it is very old, and certainly not ‘flash’ compared to where a lot of other people I know live, so I guess I’m a bit self-conscious about it … mind you, I have made an effort to make it a home, and the more people that have been coming and saying how lovely it is, is making me more comfortable about having other people here from work … and I’m even in the middle of organising a dinner and cocktail party for half a dozen of my absolutely favourite people from work over in September … a big step 🙂

As for stitching news, I only managed to get 2 hours done into my current rotation slot of canvaswork and specialty stitches on Monday night – I’m working on the Pacific Pohutukawa piece by Jen’s Jems (a NZ designer), and it looks like a relatively quick stitch overall. In fact, I think only two rotation slots will see it all finished woohoo! Then it’s a toss up between the Golden Garden Sweet Bag by FMNIS, Walk the Gentle Path by Cross ‘n Patch, and Onyx by Paw Printings to jump into that rotation slot … ooh, decisions decisions … Anyway, here’s my progress to date (excuse the threads showing through that are carried over on the back – they’re covered by other stitches that I haven’t put in yet!). The colours are extremely bright, and I just love them – unfortunately not a great photo due to the flash, but once it’s finished I’ll try to get a photo in daylight. Probably no stitching now until Friday afternoon, when it will be time to pick up Bordeaux Sampler for the week – then Mum arrives on Saturday, and we’re off to Hong Kong for a few days … we’ve agreed that even if we have to live on plain boiled rice every day due to no money, we’re still going! haha.

I’ve just returned home from the most wonderful day out with a lady from work (Wendy) – we left my place just before 9am, and set off for Sale in the Gippsland area of Victoria. It was a gloriously sunny day, only marred by some heavy fog about an hour away from Sale. We met a close friend of Wendy’s called Deb there, with her 7 year old son Andrew, who’d driven down from Paynesville to join us. We had a toasted sandwich and coffee in a small coffee shop in town, before heading over to the Gippsland Art Gallery for “Annemieke Mein – Wildlife in Textiles Retrospective Exhibition” … oh boy, I can’t tell you how amazing it was to see almost an entire gallery filled with Annemieke Mein pieces!! Unfortunately photography wasn’t allowed, but I ended up buying her book from the Gallery before leaving … the book has a number of pieces in it that were on exhibit, so it will be a wonderful souvenir for years to come, and it will always make me relive my happy memories of the exhibit today. Here are a couple more of her pieces from a Gippsland tourism website that were on display:


My jaw was permanently dragging along the floor from one piece to the next – it’s a shame Mum couldn’t be here for it … just mind-blowing! Annemieke includes machine embroidery with textile painting, and her pieces are three-dimensional and exceptionally life-like. Some pieces on the walls are over 6ft tall, and it just blew me away … There were also some ‘samplers’ on display which showed step-by-step the designing process Annemieke follows, and it’s awesome to see the original black and white pencil drawings gradually coming to life as the “real thing”. Wendy doesn’t do embroidery at all, but was extremely enthusiastic about it all, and it was a joy to spend the day with her today – all in all, it was a wonderful day out, and I’m so glad I made an effort to go out of my way to get there. Admittedly, now I’m home again, I’m quite weary, as it’s about 3 hours each way driving, but I’ll be smiling sweetly in my sleep tonight 😀

I even managed to get one of my bedroom curtains fixed last night … I’m doing you out of a job, Mum haha. I’m too tired to do the second curtain tonight, so that’ll be a job for me tomorrow – tonight I might just kick back with a glass of port and ‘veg out’ for a bit 😉

Today is day 4 of my working week – and with any luck I’ll be allowed to take Friday off as an optional RDO (rostered day off) … if that’s the case, then I’m officially sitting on the 2/3 mark of my week … if not, I still have 3 days left. Saturday I’m heading off with a lady from work to Gippsland Art Gallery in Sale (about 3 hours drive away from Melbourne) to visit the Annemieke Mien Exhibition. This is exciting for two reasons – 1) I’ve never been to Gippsland before, and 2) Annemieke Mein’s work is absolutely stunning, and it will be fantastic to see it first-hand. I’ll take my camera with me just in case we’re allowed to take photos 🙂 Here are some links to her works: here and here (this is the exhibit I’m going to) 😀

Another quiet night tonight, but I feel really relaxed – on the 9am-5pm shifts the traffic to and from work is horrific … with no traffic it’s a 20 minute drive, but on this shift it can be 1 whole hour – I got so fed up and uptight in the traffic yesterday that I decided to leave the car at home today, and walked to the train station to take the train to work … how wonderful, I arrived at work totally unstressed, and feel the same way after coming home – I think it’s going to be a permanent arrangement on this shift yippee! (It also means I have to get my fat bottom in motion and get a bit of walking in to and from the station, so yet another positive! haha)

Today more stash arrived in my mailbox – my subscription to the Australian Inspirations magazine from Country Bumpkin (actually, my subscription must be due to expire soon hmmm) … this month has a lovely surface stitchery bag on the cover – I probably wouldn’t have the patience to stitch it myself, but it’s absolutely gorgeous! 😀 And not just that today, but my magazine arrived complements of KarenV from the UK, with the Margaret Sherry booklet I wanted – including the 12 days of Christmas charts. But there was an added treat, with some gorgeous Egyptian designs in the magazine as well – a definite added bonus! Thanks again Karen, for helping me out – your blood is worth bottling!! {{huge hugs}}

Now I’m off to do a spot of stitching for an hour before I hit the hay for the night – seeing as I didn’t get chance to get any of the Bordeaux Sampler done last week, I want to get an hour each night for the next 3 nights so I can post a progress piccie on Friday for my SAL with Carol 🙂

BUT it’s not stitching related … it IS related to my OTHER passion, though … welcome to the Annie household three more little treasures – compliments of the Big Brother TV show … from left to right “Outback Duck”, “Darling Duck” and “King Duck” – woohoo!!! haha 😀

It’s only a quick post, as I have a few things to do at home tonight – I am celebrating, though, as today is the first day since Friday (ie 4 days ago) that I haven’t been chewing Nurofen all day – I’ve had a splitting headache since stitching those racing cars, so no blog reading etc being done. I’ve also just received the news today that my favourite person at my old place of work in Auckland is coming here next week for two nights on business (same company), and she’s staying at my place … the spare room looks like a tornado zone, as it’s got my boxes unpacked all over the place – um, time to get it all squared up a bit sooner than I expected … hmmm. It will be wonderful to see her again – and it will be awesome to be able to show her ‘my office’ 🙂

Rightio, off to do a few chores – time to put the laundry etc away before bedtime …

Did I do any stitching yesterday? Nope … nil … nada … zip … zilch! I kept active as long as I could – and as soon as I sat down my eyes drooped big time, so I just kept doing a few things around the place like putting my last load of washing away etc and general tidying around my computer area – I fell into bed early at 7pm, but had a really rough night’s sleep compliments of shocking high winds making a racket … I think tonight is the first night where I’m going to succumb to taking 1/2 a sleeping tablet, as I feel almost dizzy from the lack of sleep (aside from looking like Frankenstein’s bride!). I’m taking the risk tonight in taking a tablet, as I don’t start work until 9am, so it’s OK if I sleep in a bit. Then it’s my two days off (Thu/Fri), before working 7 days straight.

Anyway, I have to put the record straight with my latest spoils … the only things I went ‘off the wagon’ for was my Ebay win from Ashleigh – everything else was from previously … which is what prompted me to get back on the wagon haha. Admittedly, that money could have gone towards a new lounge suite, or my holiday, or a new feline companion, but I really enjoyed spending it that way, and have no guilty feelings this time whatsoever 😀

Talking of which, I think I’ve made a decision to go ahead with the feline companion … I just need to get a few items that are essential first, ie scratching post, litter tray, kitty litter, ping pong balls etc. I’ve also been checking out the RSPCA adoption website, and I absolutely adore these three critters … especially the black and white one, as he’s the spitting image of our last cat Rio 🙂 Second runner-up is the grey tabby, but I really love the look of all three of these … I can’t do anything about it until after we come back from Hong Kong, but I have to admit it would be perfect timing to get one then, as I’ll be at home for about another 1-2 weeks on holiday, so it would be a great chance to get a cat settled in and house trained etc then … I’ll take a trip out to Burwood when we get back, and have a look, I think … mind you, it depends if I still have any money left over, as the cat itself is $110 plus all of the essentials I’ll need. I really need to buy some glasses, which is probably more essential at the moment for me, so we’ll see … but the seed has definitely been set … 🙂
Age: 7 months; Sex: Male (N); Colour: Black Tabby & White
Name: “Molly”; Age: 4 years; Sex: Female (S); Colour: Grey Torti
Age: 4 years; Sex: Female; Colour: Tabby

I may regret it tomorrow, but last night I stayed up to watch the first game of the All Blacks vs Wallabies (ie New Zealand vs Australia in Rugby Union for those of you not in the know) … and I’m pleased to say the ALL BLACKS WON!!! I have to admit to not being a sports fan, but the All Blacks are the only team I follow … I get a ribbing at work for being a Kiwi all the time, and today I intend wearing my All Black scarf and T-shirt just to wind one of the guys up 😉

I have to admit, I love living in Aussie, and the majority of the people I’ve met and dealt with are wonderful people, and I feel at home here … but sometimes the sports commentating here is very one-eyed and rude. I was really shocked to hear a commentator last night, while the camera was on a toddler being held up by its parents covered in All Blacks face paint – the commentator said “look at that poor kid – it’s amazing what parents will do to you these days … it’s unfortunate enough that it’s a New Zealander without doing that to it as well” – now is that really necessary??? I can take a joke as much as the next person, but that’s really inappropriate, and it really got my ire up last night for a short time hmmm. There is a friendly rivalry between the two nations, and a zillion of Kiwi vs Aussie jokes etc, and I can handle that easily … but that public comment made me angry 😦

So partly because of that attitude last night, I was SUPER happy that we trounced the Aussies 32-12 (sorry Aussie pals), and my neighbours got a taste of their own medicine after midnight as I was cheering my team on loudly (they did the same last week or so watching the soccer until the early hours haha). Of course, the game is still not over as such – there are still two games to be played for the Bledisloe Cup … go Kiwis!!! 😉