Let it Snow

Last post, I had mentioned that winter had arrived and that hibernation was beginning. I was wrong. Winter arrived last night. With vengeance. Snow and hail and sleet and lightning and gales..... today has been miserable.

So I read.

Read this to be exact

This book reminded me why I love Dean Koontz. Sucking me in from the very first page and keeping the suspense at such high levels that I didn't even notice the Man coming home from work and puttering around the room (think it scares him a little that I can be so oblivious). If, like me, you are terrified of moths, this has the potential to turn into a horror pretty quickly. But luckily I love horror. Beyond that, I'm not going to say anything else about it - would hate to tread unintentionally into the spoiler zone.

Upside, after the annual 24 hour book sale at the local theatre, I'm good for reading material for a while.

All this for only $18 - you gotta love a good bargain. Yes, one of the books it turned out we already had (or at least the Man did), tucked in the back of the temporary bookshelf - but given that most of my things are in storage while we do renovations, I think that's an acceptable mistake to make. Besides, whats a couple of dollars in a fundraiser really.

But on that note, I'm outta here. My stitchy bug has come back tonight, so lets see where that will take me.

Till next time.

Winter is Coming

Technically, I know that the month of May is actually autumn, but this year it seems as if we have gone straight from summer into winter, only with slightly warmer temperatures. Or at least so far we have - no snow or ice....yet.

But it very defiantly feels like winter. Its dark when I go to work (unsurprisingly since I star work before 630) and its getting dark when I get home. The longest day is still a month away, but the days are very noticeably short now. The joys of living so far south I suppose, we get the extremities of the seasons. And unlike when I lived further north, the days are not only short, but gray and gloomy. It wasn't until I came to Dunedin that I truly understood the concept of seasonal depression.

I'm not saying that I suffer from it, because I don't, not really. I do find now though that I hibernate far deeper than I ever did before. 

And the hibernation has hit hard and fast this year.

Curling up with a book in front of the fire has been on the cards this week, rather than a couple hours of stitching.My hands not preventing it now, thankfully. The cold still eats at it so gloves are a permanent feature now (thank you Ali Express for allowing the hand wear collection to grow fast), but it doesn't slow me down any more. 

I have nearly finished Garden Verses. Hopefully this weekend I can get it done. Its a busy weekend this week - the annul 24 hour book sale, the Capping Show and a Pink Ribbon breakfast - but I have hopes of getting it done in between. I'll wait until after the weekend now to take a photo of it though, it was raining and dark and gloomy when I got home from work every day so far this week so the light hasn't been particularly helpful, even with the flash on.

Probably why I have been reading so much really.

It makes a nice change. I had been beginning to think that by reading bug had abandoned me.Only something like eight books have been moved out of my 'to be read' pile this year - most unusual for me. But yay its come back - even if that return does signal the start of winter.

Since my laptop battery is about to die, I'll leave it there for today, but I will be back over the weekend. Tomorrow I have promised myself a shopping trip after work, plus its the book sale, so I will share any interesting goodies I find, plus I will post a review of the book I am reading once I finish it and process it, since I did say that I was going to combine my failed book blog with this one.... at least I think that's what I said.

Anyways

Until next time.

The Nature of a Mule

I am a stubborn person - stubborn and incredibly independent. Any one who has ever met me will attest to this little fact. I rarely take sick leave, I don't do sickness or injury well. I have to be able to carry on with what I want to be doing at any given time. So needless to say, after a week of not being able to use my hand properly and not being able to stitch, I was nearly climbing the walls in frustration. I had internet shopped (but refrained for the most part from buying - I'll get to that later), I had read, I had gamed, I had annoyed the stuffing out of both the goldfish and the man..... Fractured hand or no fractured hand, come the end of work on Saturday, I was going to cross stitch. 

So I did.

And surprisingly go more done that I could have hoped, given how many breaks I had to take to ease the aches. I have been known to sit for 8 or more hours on a day off and stitch - while I'm stubborn, I'm not completely unrealistic. That's probably not going to be happening for a while yet.

But progress is progress.

The garden in my Garden Verses is now done, and the plinth is started, its getting closer and

 closer to being finished. Its at the stage where I just want to push through the rest of it. So I think that I might have to ignore all my other WIPs and focus on this one. Its on a 28 count cream linen if anyone was wondering.

I'm fairly boring with my fabric choices. I'm not a huge fan of the hand dyed. While it is very pretty, it just seems like it will take away from the artwork. Not to mention the price is a little prohibitive for me. There is not really any needle work stores in this city. There is one, but the selection is average and the service is horrible. There is also two big multi craft stores - a Lincraft and a Spotlight, but they seem to be more geared towards knitting and sewing and papercrafts so I have to do most of my stashing on line. By the time currency conversion and international freight are taken into consideration, spending money on fancy fabrics doesn't seem worth it. I'd rather spend my money on the pattern. That said, I do want to have a go at dying fabric in the near future - but as flat colours rather than mottled.

Because of "restrictions" on my purchasing, I am also using DMC metallics in Garden Verses. I don't think I am alone when I say that its not my favourite. Its not the experience of stitching with it so much, but it never sits properly - at least not for me

I always end up with these little bumps, and it stitches different sizes. Not ideal in the slightest.

I had actually thought to just use up the last of what I had in my stash - unfortunately it wasn't enough, and I had to go buy some more. That little action furthered my resolve to shop online rather than in person. 

Now, don't get me wrong here. I would much rather go into a store and buy things in person. I work in retail, I know the value of brick and mortar stores. But when said stores raise the prices to ridiculous levels? I can live with paying $1.60 for a skien of the DMC stranded cotton. I can even deal with it when it goes up to $1.80. But paying $6 for the metallics? No. Just no. And the same amount for three of those little silver needle threaders that break as soon as you look at them?

I just cant anymore.

So its going to have to be a matter of being organised and planning more thoroughly and ordering from the big old global market place that is the internet... I started with China. That I only bought two kits while in my wrist splint is something that I am a little bit proud of. Both of them were from Ali Express - only one has arrived yet however, and I must say,I am pleasantly surprised by it.

I managed to find one that was a counted cross stitch. I don't like the idea of the stamped kits. Wall to wall stitches frustrate me and I get bored with them. Not to mention none of the designs really called to me. But for $5 this one seems like value. The 11 count fabric does feel relatively stiff, but I can wash that out (hopefully), and the two needles that came with it are perhaps a little small for the size of the fabric. But the floss does truly feel like DMC.

The other kit that I am waiting on I am a little excited about. Its one of the diamond embroidery kits. But I will write about that when I finally get it.

Till then though, I shall press on with Garden Verses. Hopefully my hand continues to feel better. I miss stitching when I can do.

Till next time.

Change is in the Air

Okay, so up until this point, activity on this blog type object of mine has been haphazard and narcissistic at best. I think at the time I only really intended it for my self. But a nearly broken right hand has left me a lot of time to think and not much ability to do the things I actually enjoy. Using the computer and tablet are about all that are left to me for now, and since my reading bug has left me high and dry (thus why the previous attempt at a book review blog failed rather abruptly) I have been reading through and discovering other blogs. 

You see, I am a cross-stitcher. I learned as a kid from my mum. I must have been 9 or 10 when she went through her needlework phase of crafting (paper craft and scrap booking were the only ones that really stuck for her, but that's a whole different story) and I wanted to learn to. It fell out of favour for me while I was at high school, and though I picked it up now and then while I was studying at university, I never really had the time to dedicate to it. Until a couple of years ago. 

Then it became a hard and fast addiction.

So you can see the problem I have with not being able to use my dominant hand properly. But I thought trying to sate my stitchy bug by reading about other peoples adventures might do the trick. I started on YouTube naturally. I have been an avid watcher of FlossTube for well over a year now, however, while I love the community spirit, the idea of being anywhere near a camera makes me more than a little squiffy.

Blogs, though, written word and still pictures, surely I can manage that. Yes, previous attempts haven't worked out so well, but I think I was limiting myself far to much. So instead of narcissistic rantings or half-assed book reviews, this blog is going to change up to be and everything platform. I'll share my stitching once my hand heals enough for me to hold a needle again, I'll muse both on life a little (not that I think my life is particularly interesting to anyone but myself) and whatever other pass times cross my path. I have several that I intend to try at some point - I had started to teach myself to knit last winter and the ideas of drop spindles and fabric dying and sewing and quilting all appeal to me... we shall see where that takes me.

What that means then, I guess, is that for the first time ever, I hope that people come on this journey with me. It has been wonderful to find the online communities to know that I am not alone in the art of cross stitch. That I am not crazy in my addiction, even if my partner does give me odd looks some times. 

Change wont happen over night, I do work full time - dented hand not withstanding - but it will happen. So please bear with me and I hope to see you around.