Finally, The Weekend

Hullo Hullo everyone, and congratulations on making it to Friday. For a lot of people (though not everyone-  jealous) this was the first full week back at work. And boy did I feel it. I don't know if it was the working last weekend, the Man being on early shift (and the resulting 3am alarm) this week or the sore throat I've had for days. Or a combination of all three. Whatever, I'm glad it's the weekend.

I feel like I got a good chunk of stitching done this week. I'm not sure if I mentioned it or not, but I'm trying out a new thing this year. At least it's new to me. I'm tracking the time I spend on each project (and reading) to get a rough idea of how long I devote to each - as well as to prevent the past habit of not touching a project for a full year. Or more.

So, according to my handy dandy spreadsheet, this week has been quite productive. I worked on two projects; one older one and one newer.

The newer, and larger of the two being Shakespeare's Fairies by Mirabilla.

I only started this nearer the end of 2016, once my stitch bug had started to return, but I don't quite know what I was thinking when I chose the fabric. It was making me nervous that it wasn't going to be big enough,so I had to work my way to the edge. There's still three columns needed for beads, but it will fit. Just. I'm not sure I'm entirely comfortable with so narrow a margin, but I'm not frogging nearly a whole half of the piece.

Plus I really like how it looks on the fabric. 

A narrow margin will be fine.... right?

The second project I worked on was a definite oldie - Dalek Victory, dredged out from the dark depths on the box. I don't think I worked on it at all last year. It had been lumped in the "full coverage too hard" basket. But I like full coverage now (go figure).

It's been so long that I have no idea where I got this - beyond somewhere on the interwebs - or who it's by, but I am definitely enjoying it this time around. I am deviating from my ' normal' method though. Because this one is so much smaller, I'm going to give one colour at a time cross country per page a go. Just to see.   

That's all to report for the week. Not sure what the weekend will bring. Supposed to be catching up with a friend tomorrow, but beyond that I don't imagine much will get done. I should prably try and stop this cold from getting worse. Don't won't to be sick for my holiday after all. I have another week at work and then nine days off. Apparently I have too much annual leave owing. But I am definitely okay with that - I plan to be as lazy as possible.

So on that note, until next time...

All The Finishes

Okay, okay, maybe not ALL the fiishes, but three is a good effort right?

Hope this latest out burst sees everyone well. As I think I mentioned last time, I took some much needed time off work. It was my first day back today and already it was naturally a day of outting out fires and cleaning up messes which only makes the time off I had so much more meaningful. 

And I got three finishes so even better.

First of all I finished this little bad boy...

Just as a recap. He is the free Mirabilla christmas cherub from 2012. Stitched him up on 28 count antique white monaco with all the recomende whats its and do dads. the beading on this little guy was my first time using a tacky bob and I have to say I am in LOVE. Don't know how I every survived with out one. If you don't have one, and you bead, drop everything right know and go buy one. I'll wait.....

...thats how much I love the tacky BOB. And for those of you oaying atention, if it was my first time using a tacky bob, that must mean I went shopping and broke my buying ban. And I did. More on that later.

After the cherub, I carried on with the christmas theme and finished off my monochrome christmas sampler.

Its done on 16 count white aida (slowly getting rid of my aida stash, the stuff just doesn't do it for me anymore) with DMC 115. Ithought I would try it with a slght varigation to the thread. Kind of give varigated threads a real chance, you know? I see everyone with all these beautiful hand dyed threads and while I know I've said before that they are not my thing, I cant deny that they are lovely. So I gave it go. And I think I was getting the hang of it by the end. You can probably see that I had a few iffy moments nearer the top.

Then I went on an organising binge and found a little magazine freebie kit that I hadn't done yet. So I did it.

Its from Cross Stitcher I believe, with the horrible horrible threads. Don't know why I insist on doing them really. The threads make me angry every time.

Ah well.

The reason why I went on the organising streak is that I bought, as part of my shopping, the X Stitch app since it is now available on android. And I have to admit that it, so far, is living up to all the hype. It will be nice to have all my stash in once place again after losing my spread sheets when I ost my laptop. So far I've loaded all my patterns onto it and sorted out all my floss in preperation for inputting. I decided that I would put the floss from my UFO's back in the with bulk of my collection since I doubt that I will be going back to the full coverage peices any time soon.

Theres something very soothing to me about sorting thread bobbins. The side of my brain that likes order and lists and what not gets a kick of seeing all the neat little plastic spools lined up just so.

Happiness is well ordered floss.

Plus I want to get everything put into the cross stitch app before my latest order from Stitching Bits and Bobs gets here. I ordered with both them and 123 Stitch and I'm not even sorry about it.

I was doing my christmas shopping you see. Yes I realise that it is only October but I would just like to say that  for the first time ever, I am pretty much done wiith my christmas shopping. So as a reward, I bought some stuff for me. 123 was just some fabric to justify the shipping cost of the tacky bob. Stitching Bits and Bobs though I went a little more crazy. I will fill you in more when it actually arrives, but I at least got the stuff I need to finish Eleni.

Now you could easily be sitting there thinking, 'so Dana, I'm guessing all you did with your time off was cross stitch and internet shop.'

Well you would be wrong my friends.

I painted my living room.

It went from this....

...a big disgusting pile of mess. To this....

a not so messy nice looking room. I still need to get the tv hung on teh wall and we are going to build some shelves it the two alcoves on either side of teh fire. The tv is teh mans ONEJOB that he so far has failed to do and the shelves are waiting till next month since I am trying to get it all done without touching the VISA card. But it is progress. Finally.

And progress is a big thing for me right now when it comes to the house. Its a very small house. And the man has lived here or 10 years now. So it is this horrible combination of the amount of crap that one person can gather in a decade, with it having been a bachelor pad for nine of those ten year. Plus I think he may have the tendancies towarsd compulsive hoarding. I've been doing some research about it and it is looking like it. I would love to hear from anyone thats dealt with that sort of thing before - its starting to wear on my patience a little.

But thats enough of the doom and gloom here. Once again I don't know wha this week will bring stitchy wise. I am hoping to get my mosaic finished, but beyond that have not made any plans. I really don't know how tired the over time is going to make me so I will play it by ear.

Hope the next week sees you all productive and well.

Till next time. 

Unexpected Visitors

Hullo Everyone. I'm back again. Hope everyones weeks are going as well as can be expected. Daylight savings has started here so the air has a decidedly springlike feel to it make the week just that little bit brighter. The longer days certainly help with the brightness too. It never fails to amaze me, every year, just how much of a difference that little shift of an hour makes.

As the title of this post would dictate, I had a surprise visitor this weekend. My kid sister was in town at the South Island short course swim champs. I got to watch her race, and though she wasn't happy with her results (no medals, just a 4th placing) I thought she swam really well - especially since it was her first meet of this level and her first time really away from home by herself (shes 13 and I'm not counting school camps here).

It was a bit of a bitter sweet visit though. It was wonderful to see her, but the whole debacle (because thats whatt surprises always turn into) seems to have cememnted the shift/rift in mine and my fathers relationship. I wont get into all the ins and outs of the split, but it really has left me feeling like there has been a death, or like I am re living my parents divorce twenty years after the fact. 

But life goes on I suppose, and I really am happy with the stitching I got done this week. For the most part I am still sticking with my read during the week/work faithfully on one project at the weekend plan. There was just one little deviation from that this time round. Like I said above, daylight savings hearlds the start of spring in my little world, so when I got home from work on Friday morning I thought I would take advantage of both the sun and having the house to my self and work on my Chatelaine for a little. 

The little tree to the right there got done, plus the very start of the monogram. Retrospectivly, I may have bitten off a little more than I could chew when I started this one. While I am loving how it all looks on the black fabric - I always love how these things look on black - black 32 count linen for a peice that has a fair bit of one over one stitching may not have been my wisest decsion. It is death on my eyes. It has to be bright sunshine for me to be able to see it. Hopefully we will get a bright sunshiney summer and we can see more progress on this one. I really do love the design. 

Once my eyes got to sore for that - which admitably didn't take that long since I had early work starts over the weekend - I went back and did what I said I was going to last time. I started working on one of the Mirabila freebie cherubs. The Garland Cherub to be presise.

The Man has dubbed this one the naked fat man. Usually I would protest, but this is the first time since we started living together than he has come up with a name that is something other than 'the "insert colour here" blob', so we are just going to go with it really. Plus he is kinda naked I guess.

I'm not entirly sure about the green in the cloths at the bottom, but I'm following what the pattern says so I'll stick with it. Hopefully it will all work out in the end. Its also being done on (a far larger piece than I was originally expect) the 28 count antique white monacco that I have a few peices on at the moment. I got a heap of it cheap when I last did a 123 Stitch order to bump up the order postage wise. I am actually quite liking the monacco fabric I have to admit. Just wish I had bought it in pure white instead.

Ah well.

I think I shall leave it there for today. Not sure what the next week or so will bring. I have taken next week off work (nine whole days, I am so excited), so with any luck I will have more stitching time, or at least mtivation to stitch when I am no bone dead tired. That being said there is also a fair bit that I would like to get done around the house. Hopefully I can balance the two.

Until next time. xxx