Seasons Greetings

Even though it has been such a long time since my last post, I just wanted to pop in briefly to wish everyone a Very Merry Christmas, and a Happy, Healthy and Prosperous 2012.

I WON!!!! And resistance is futile.

A little while ago Dani reached the amazing milestone of reaching 1500 posts to her blog.  To celebrate she offered a couple of giveaways and I was fortunate enough to be one of the lucky winners.

I was totally amazed at all of the lovely goodies that Dani included in my parcel.  First of all there was a cute card with a cat that has the same colouring as Puddles, and a gorgeous zip-up pouch.

 

In the pouch were the following;

An ort box (Dani has posted a tutorial here), some finishing fabric, some 28 size needles, a gorgeous scissor fob with an Angel charm on it and a beautifully stitched and finished biscornu. The biscornu is pink on one side and green on the other and trimmed with pink and green beads.

Here is the green side.

And here is a close up of the stitching and the fob.

My photos do no justice whatsoever to these beautiful pieces.  Thank you so much Dani for gifting me with all of these wonderful goodies and thanks also for sharing bits of your life with all of us through your wonderful blog.

Onto the second part of my post.

I am hopeless!!!!

I must be certifiably crazy!!!!

  Most of you have probably seen the HAED designs depicting the 7 Deadly Sins.  Somewhere on  the (evil) internet I read a suggestion from someone who said that a good plan for these design would be to stitch them at the same time by doing a page of each, therefore not getting sick of doing the one lot of colours until one was finished.  So what did I do?  I ordered them all and thought that the suggestion was a good one, although I have tweaked it somewhat.  I had enough fabric in my stash of 28ct white linen and as per the title, resistance was futile.

As for the tweaking I decided to do the partial bottom pages first.  As I complete a page of the first design, Avarice, I then do a row (27x10) of the next design Envy. Then another page, another row of Envy and a row (27x10) of Gluttony. Then another page of Avarice, another row of Envy and Gluttony and a row (27x10) of Lust and so on.  So at the moment I am on the third partial bottom page of Avarice and have completed two rows on Envy and one on Gluttony.

Do you remember the rotation that I posted about on my last?  HAH!!! What rotation!!!!

Whenever I come up with a brilliant rotation to tackle my never-ending, and growing, list of wips I last a rotation or two and then PPPFFFTTT!!!! Rotation is GONE!!!  I think I am forever doomed to be a serial starter and a not so very often finisher. Maybe I will be satisfied when I have started everything in my stash.  No, I will just probably buy more. 

Please help me, I am drowning in wips.

Now that I have confessed my hopelessness I am going to go and do some housework.

Take care everyone and thanks for all of your wonderful comments.

Finally an update.

So, you may ask what has finally prompted me to post?  Well did you see the ‘little’ previous post on MY blog?  Well that was my DH!!!  He has discovered my password.  I am not overly happy about that, (directed to DH who I am sure will read this at some stage) however, I am grateful that it was a nice message and not something horrible.  I think he owes me a stash order for this. LOL

Message to DH.

Please DH, leave my blog alone, if you want to make your own posts I would be more that happy to help you set up a blog all of your own!!!    

End of message to DH.

Even though posts have been scarce I have been stitching and reading your blogs.  I am using Windows Live Writer for the first time with this post, and it seems much easier that posting through Blogger, so you might even see more regular posts from me.  Well here is hoping anyway.

My work situation has improved, even for the short term.  I actually managed to get my sales quota for the quarter ending in March.  I wish that I could say the same for this quarter as I am behind again.  I had some time off over Easter, about three weeks, and unfortunately the organisation that I work for don’t adjust targets unless you have four or more weeks off from work, this totally sucks.  If I happen to be placed on performance review again I know that I will not be alone as there others who are in the same position as me.  I have still been looking for another job.  There are always full-time positions advertised but Joel and Caitlyn are too young yet IMO for me to not be around for them after school.  They are nine and seven.  At the moment they go to an after school care program on the days that I work but it is nice for them, and for me, that I am at home for them on the other days. 

Now for the good stuff.  Stitching of course.  I have been feeling somewhat overwhelmed by the number of WIPS, and the amount of stash, that I have on the go and have tried to come up with a way to not feel so overwhelmed.  I came up with the idea of selecting a few designs to concentrate on so I went to the random number generator and it selected five designs; two HAED Bubble and Gypsy Rose, Drawn Threads Sampler Game Board, Spanish Geometric Sampler by The Needles Content and Village of Hawk Run Hollow by Carriage House Samplings.  I am really loving another HAED at the moment, Impatient Ballerina, and really wanted to keep on stitching on it so it was incorporated into mix as well.  So for six nights I stitched on one of the selected designs and stitched on Impatient Ballerina for the seventh night.  This worked really well and it was wonderful to see some long term wips get some attention.

I have never been very successful sticking to a rotation in the past but I will attempt to try hard to stick with this one. 

I did have another new start as well.  Another HAED.  It is called The General. It may not appeal to everyone but it means a lot to me.  My Dad worked on the railways and sometimes he got to work on the old steam trains.  In  October of 1988 there was a Steam Train festival to celebrate Australia’s bicentennial.  To help commemorate this occasion the Flying Scotsman was shipped to Australia and my Dad actually drove it. One of the highlights was when the Scotsman and two other steam locomotives ran from Melbourne to Seymour.  Dad was the fireman (shoveler of coal) on the engine on the right hand side in this you tube clip.  I remember standing just off from the rails taking photos in a little place called Donnybrook, I don’t have any photos here sadly as they are all with Dad.  So, a rather long story as to why I had to get that chart and start it.   

The Flying Scotsman.

In my last post (not the one by DH) I said that I would share with you my new starts, well here they are;

First off is Little Snap Dragon by Kustom Crafts.  I am stitching this on a 28ct linen which is a creamy yellow colour with DMC threads 2 over 2.

 

And next is my meagre start on And They Sinned.  Every one of these that I have seen in progress have been started at the top, but I started mine from the bottom which is where I nearly always start my projects from.  This is being stitched on 40ct Navy Bean linen, using the recommended GAST threads 1 over 2.

And last but certainly not least is my major happy dance.  This is by Fouroaks Designs and is called A Love Song.  I stitched this on 32ct antique white linen using Vicky Claytons premium silk in the colour of Garnet.

See that date, yes I did finish it in 2010 and yes it has taken this long for me to share this with you.

Well I must go now and do some more cleaning, the bathroom is now done.

Take care everyone.

Hello possum

Just a quick note to let you know that I am still here.  Todays effort has been to clean the bathroom.  Yes real housework.  Hope all is well.

LUV

Aussiesticher

OH MY!!!!!

Sorry for disappearing for so long.  I have been reading and commenting on blogs but not just writing on my own.
I have a MAJOR Happy Dance to share, but alas no photos yet.  I finished A Love Song (cough, cough) before Christmas. It turned out great if I may say so myself.  I am hoping that by mentioning it in a post that it may motivate me to take some pictures and post them on here.
I have had two new starts, so much for sticking to wips.  They are And They Sinned, started last night, there is a picture on my previous post but I think this one needs little to no introduction, and Little Snap Dragon by Kustom Crafts.
I am having some issues at work at the moment. They have taken on a sales culture which is just not what I signed up for. I love serving and interacting with the customers and hopefully injecting some fun in their day, but with the added pressure of sales being introduced into my role, and being placed on performance review, I have been seriously re-thinking my work options.  I have had one job interview, in a customer service role, and came third out of seven. They needed to two. They really wanted to employ a gap student, and a male, as there are currently all females in the customer service area. They had a male applicant so they snatched him up, and of course they got their gap student applicant.  The interviewers had only positive things to say about me and they said that positions become available all the time and that they would let me know of any other opportunities if and when they become available.
Well I had better go, washing needs to be bought inside and tea needs to be cooked.
Hopefully (fingers crossed) I will be back soon with some stitchy photos.
Stay safe everyone and keep on crossing those X's.