Manogamy

Hullo hullo everyone - we all doing okay today? Please forgive any typos that might occur from here on out. Just got a bluetooth keyboard for my shiney new tablet today. I will admit that even though I have had a tablet in the past, it is certainly taking some getting used to not having a laptop to fall back on. Like I said in my very brief update, I caved and broke my buyng ban and bought new technology. It wasnt in the form of a new lap top though.  I went with the option of updating both my laptop and my tablet in one foul swoop and got a fancier tablet.

I love it, dont get me wrong, and I certainly dont regret my decision. Its just that usual learning curve that comes with all these things.

And it wasn't just on tech that I broke my ban. I went into Spotlight on my way home from work yesterday to get another couple of DMC skiens for Eleni and what do you know, they had 50% off all their clearance stock. It would be rude to turn down such offerings would it not?  I didnt get too much, I am still trying to stick with my plan of not buying anything until after christmas

Like I said, not too to much.The travel cases were only $7.50, so I figured i would give them a go - I got two. After all these years  still havn't ever settled on a way of kitting up my wips that I truely love. I've tried the boxes and I've tied zip lock bags and project enelopes and baskets.... all the different ways have had good aspects but nothing has really screamed at me. Plus I'm pretty sure the Man Thing is getting sick of my bobbins perminantly streen across the couch. There is also a couple of key chain blanks thrown in there that were nly a couple of dollars. Might come in handy one day (the cry of stashers and hoarders everywhere).

As the title of this post would indicate and as i iluded to just above, I have only been woring on Eleni these last couple of weeks. Work still hasn't really slowed down, and I dont think that it will now until after the new (as yet to be employed) staff are trained and christmas has been and gone and left us in its dusty wake.  When I get home in the evening, my brain cant really handle much more counting, so I have been settliing down with this behemoth -

- all 880 pages of it, and not really moving until I fall asleep.

A such, only really stitching on the weekends, I havn't really got the fatigue that I usually end up with of working on the same peice constantly. So Eleni has ended up my one love it would seem...

Not the best photo I'm afraid, but like I said, still getting used to the shiney new toy.  Hardley seems as exciting when I'm only working on one thing I'm afraid, but I guess thats just what happens sometimes.

We shall see what happens this weeked with here. I NEED to sit down and finish my course work. The facilitator is coming tto visit next week and I hope to have it all done and handed to hime then. No, not hope, I WILL have it done and handed to him. I'm sick of having it hanging over my head. It'll cut into my stitching time this weekend but it should (in theory) free me up a bit once its done.

Thats the plan anyway, no doubt I will keep you in the loop.

Till 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.