A Very Busy March

Hullo Hullo everyone,  hope your all good and well. I'm sorry for the absence, but it's been a rather busy month. There's been a trip to Christchurch, a comic expo, a couple of weekends at work, multiple trips to the movies, a library book sale, and a surprise take over of a book club - and not a lot of time spent in front on my tablet. Luckily I've been almost completely monogamous with my stitching so I have something to show.

 I started Angel of Love as a memorial piece for both my grandma's that died last year. Beyond my temperature book mark, that's all I've worked on.

It's stitching up quite fast really - given the lack of time I've had, I'm really happy with it. I am hoping that I have done my math right and will have room at the bottom for names, but that's a while away - though I am planning to work on it this weekend as well. I signed up for the new Passione Ricamo SAL so I would like to get some progress on all that kind of WIP that I've got on the go.

My bookmark is the only exception to my monogamy-  and it's ticking along nicely.

The bigger it gets, the lest concerned I am with the similarities in colours some weeks. I'm thinking it will look good by December.

Reading wise, I've read a lot this month, so I'm not going to go through them all, but I will update the tab up there with my star ratings.

The biggest news is that I have become one of the new moderators for the Stitcher's Book Club on Good Reads. If you haven't heard of it, you should check it out. It's a group for cross stitchers who also love to read. We draw a genre out of a hat and vote on books from there. We have two selections every two months and the three of us new mods are hoping that we can facilitate a lot of really good discussions. This round (starting in May) we've selected out the genre of romance - not my usual option but I'm excited to see where we can take to group in the future.

Short as this is, I'm going to leave it here for now. Easter is coming and I'm hoping I can catch up on every thing then.

Till next time.

Back to School Time Again

Hullo Hullo  lovely people,  hope you are all well and good out there in your various parts of the world. We are here, despite the week or so delay in updating.  But life happens as we all are well aware.

Now let's start with the heading of this post - no, I'm not going back to school - I have neither the time nor inclination for such things at this point in my life. I do however live in the heart of "studentville" and they are all well and truly back for the year. Lectures start next Monday and O Week started today - neighbours on the right are listening to NZ pop and the ones on the left are listening to classic rock. Upside that both of them this year seem to have listenable taste in music, but the combo of the two clashing genres defiantly has me reaching for the headphones for the first time this year. The price I pay for city living.

Because of the arrival of the students, I have been all over the place - which is also the reason I've been a bit quiet. The bosses wanted the new cafe up and running - which we managed, just, opening last weekend. As a result the bakery has been left to look after itself, which in reality we should be able to do,  but if you've ever worked with people you'll know as well as I do that hearding cats would be an easier profession most of the time.  I was also foolish enough to volunteer for market shifts like some kind of crazy workaholic.

What this means is that lots of projects have been worked on, but not a huge amount of progress has been made of any of them. Hyperactivity is a symptom of stress I think.

I do however have a finish - most exciting. 

New Zealand Map, by Heritage. I very fittingly finished this on Waitangi day. The pattern had also charted the text ' New Zealand' in the bottom right and the coat of arms in the top left, but I left them both off (as you can probably see, despite the terrible photo). As unpatriotic as it sounds,  I don't particularly like our coat of arms, and I figured I could remember what country it's a map of.

Then this is where the ADHD kicked in.

I tried one of my HaEDs, but only lasted half a row.

So then I tried my kit from China, but again only lasted half a page.

Thought maybe I needed something smaller, so I  started a Mill Hill kit that I want to do for Mum, for Christmas.

It's going to be a penguin, not that you can tell yet. As you can tell, my attention didn't last long on that either.

So then I tried my Astrologer and was a little more successful with that.

It's still on he frame in the other room at least. 

I also dragged my Chatelaine out at one point, but I have decided to scrap that and restart it at some point on different fabric. While I can handle stitching on black fabric, I have come to the realisation that I do not like linen. It's not even and that drives me to distraction. Eventually I will get some evenweave for it. I do still really love the design, but it can go on the back burner until I get through some of these other big projects. I'm not planning to by stitch stuff until the end of the year anyway.

And while I have just said that I don't like linen, I did start another project on linen. Not just linen,  but 40 count. But it is only small and I don't want to waste the fabric I already have.

It is (will be?) The Bookshelf by Little House Needlework. 

Finally, on the stitching front anyways, I at least have been keeping up to date with my temperature book mark.

I did warn you I was all over the show this month.

Reading wise, I was a little more consistent, finishing four books. Kind of.

First was yet another book bub freebie - that this is dangerous I swear.

While I did enjoy this one, I think I did suffer from having too many points of view. Whether this is something that works itself out further into the series, I don't know, but while it was a decent enough premise, (zombie like plague forcing the human race back to the middle ages) it's not particularly high up the list of series' I need to finish.

Went back to my favourite authors with this one.

Dean Koontz is one of my favourite authors.  And I do particularly like his stories with religious overtones and the themes of good verse evil. This one defiantly fell into that category,  and while not quite as good as The Taking, still very good.

This one probably doesn't count as a full book, but whatever.

The Man brings then home when he finds them in the thrift store to try and finish off our collection. Both of us read them as kids - me loving them with every fiber. And they are still super fun to read.

And lastly I finished this one last night.

Again, this had a really good premise - what happens to the normal kids, when the heroes are out saving the town. I had, you doubts at first, but it really did come through.

I think that's about it for this time,  sorry it's a long one. I've got one evening shift this week, the touch wood, I should going back to normal. With any luck that means my ability to concentrate will return.  Hope every one else has very pleasant weeks, full of all you want them to be - I will do my best to be back next Monday to prevent another mammoth post like this one...

Till next time

Starting With a Bang

Hullo Hullo everyone - and happy February!!it's hard to believe that it's the second month of the year already, but there you have it. It's Waitangi weekend here in kiwi land at the moment, so no denying the passing of the year when we have a long weekend to prove the fact.

The long weekend will be especially nice after my week back at work. Unexpected training of new staff all week always adds to the usual chaos, but such is to be expected with the new cafe due to open in a week. 

Mum flew down for a coffee yesterday which was nice. She seems to be on the mend - at the very least she seems a lot more peppy and aware which is good to see. Especially when her visit was close on the heels of bad news from my dad - my Pop (and sole remaining grandparent) has been told he has terminal cancer so it looks like I'll lose three grandparents in the course of 18 month. The more morbid side of me is taking the view of 'well at least once their all gone, you can't lose any more'.

I have some very strange thoughts sometimes. 

Beyond that slight blemish,  the month has actually started out really well. Because I went back to work, and the Man was on holiday (and therefore home when I finish for the day), I just pulled out a small piece of stitching to work on, not really knowing how much I would get done.

Turns out, more that I thought, and I finished the piece. Not just finished but FULLY finished.

Peg the Plum Pudding Angel is one of Brooke's Books patterns and I am really happy with how she turned out. A few little changes here and there, but none particularly big enough to notice. Beyond leaving off the wings. Wasn't a big fan of the wings. She can now go into my slowly going collection of Christmas decorations that I never get around to hanging up  (but will one day).

I was then ready for something a bit bigger, so I pulled out my NZ map.

This was actually further along than I had told myself, and the back stitching and motifs don't seem to be taking as long as anticipated so maybe, just maybe, with the long weekend,  I can finish this this weekend. Or at the very least by next weekend.

Three finishes by the middle of February would be pretty stinking great. Four would be better since there's a new start I'm planning to make at the beginning of March, but I'm not going to push my luck with that one.

Finally in terms of stitches put into fabric, I did a few more days on my temperature bookmark. 

Still really fascinated by this. I can't wait to see it as it grows through the hottest months of the year this month and next month and on through winter. Really looking forward to it - so much so, I'm already planning to do one next year as well. And I have finally got my colour range sorted for it.

with guest appearance from the ORT jar

So pretty. I'm thinking that eventually I might give it its own page up to with all the information. At some point.

What prompted the sorting of the colours was the massive tidy up of my craft boxes that I undertook when I got home from the airport (coffee with mum) yesterday. I think I mentioned that I put in a huge order with 123 stitch with the intention of it lasting me the whole rest of the year without buying more. That arrived on Friday so that involves a whole heap of DMC that needs put onto bobbins, but the end result is that my full coverage pieces (plus one set to start soon) have its own project box of floss, as does my book mark that shares a box with whatever I'm working on at the minute (in this case, NZ map)

My current project gets pulled from a master set of DMC, which will be a little frustrating until I get my current number of WIPS down, but I'm using that as incentive. 

So all very good progress for the week on the stitching front. And reading has been  just as good. I finished this beast...

I FINALLY FINISHED IT!!!!

And I did really really enjoy it, for all the hard work it was. Plus I think I read it at just the right time in political history for it to have maximum impact on me. Defiantly a five star read that has now fallen into the category of me wanting to tell people to read it just so I have someone to talk about it with.

As a reward for finishing the behemoth, I started and finished another...

Not that the was now a challenge, being only 59 pages. It's a companion story that fell a little flat for me. There was no where near the level of mystery or chemistry between the characters that there was in the full length novel, so that bumped it down to a three star for me. But then I have never really been a short story person.

Defiantly starting the month with a bang.

As for what this week will bring, the Man is still on leave so no quiet time in the evening just yet for me. I am also pulling a extra shift to cover the market next Saturday,  which'll cut in to my time a chunk. I do so hope to get New Zealand finished though. Pick up my new glasses Friday too, so hopefully that helps how my head feels.

I very much hope that your weeks have been and continue to be just as you want them to be as well.  'Productive' is such a subjective term.

Till next time.

      

Day of the Frog

Hullo Hullo lovely people, hope you've all had satisfying weekend. I myself have been as lazy as possible to eek the last out of my leave. I'd be lying if I said I was looking forward to tomorrow.

As I think I mentioned last time, I was off to the optometrist. I spent the afternoon Friday trying on pair after pair of glasses to narrow down my choice of new facial accessories. My eyes have changed as I thought they would have, but not for the worst as I was expecting. Turns out I'm getting less blind: 1 point in one eye and a full 2 in the other. I'm Stoked!  I've been told for years, by various people, that the amount of time I spend reading and cross stitching will damage my eyesight - more fool them!

 To celebrate my improved vision, I had a new start and a sneaky finish. Which if I'm being honest, I'm a little surprised about given how much time I spent frogging stitches this weekend.

New start first, a temperature book mark...

I saw this idea on another blog, and thought I'd give it a go myself. I've been watching with great interest all the people doing the stitch a day Challenge,  and while I love seeing the progress, it wasn't really something that I could see myself doing. The temperature record tickled my fancy however. 

If you've never seen them before, the idea is that every day you record the daily temperature. One mine, that amounts to six stitches, a three by two block. Each temperature relates to a colour - the same as on most weather maps - and each of those colours relates to a dmc floss. I'll post the colours that I use once I get all the kinks worked out.

I spent most of the weekend working on my geek culture piece.

I was doing pretty good too, until the frog came to town. Apparently even when following a pattern, my spelling ain't that great. I have a sneaky feeling I might have made a slight hole in the fabric while frogging - turns out one over one is a mare to u pick.  On a brighter note though, I made it up to the top row and it looks like I will have plenty of boarder to rechart the bottom portion of the pattern where the lack of width of my fabric will become an issue.

So since I was mad at that one, I put it in time out and pulled out a smaller piece.

And finished it.

To be fair, it is supposed to have a lot of back stick detailing - lace work around the cloth and corners. And I did do half of it. And then ripped it all out again. It just looked so clunky and messy. I much prefer it like this.

So first finish of the new year. That's pretty exciting-  at least I think it is.

Oh and I think that I forgot to mention that I had a go at making my own needle minder.

I can see why every thinks they are so great - defiantly a convert.

Hopefully I can keep that up once I go back to work. Tomorrow. Drag.

But that's the price we pay for adulthood, isn't it.

Ah well, maybe it won't be so bad. Hope your weeks all take you in the directions you want.

Till next time. 

Addictive Qualities

Hullo Hullo lovely people, hope this last week has seen you all happy and well. Mine has seen me on holiday from work, so it has been fantastic. I love my job, I really do, but some times it is necessary to not leave the house for a week and stitch and read the hours away.

Leaving the Man to think I'm crazy - but I'm weirdly okay with that.

The only blemish in the week (beyond the storms) has been Mums illness. She had been on the mend after a weekend in hospital a few weeks ago, but it would seem that that was merely a brief respite from it all. She didn't sound at all like herself on the phone last night, and I would be lying if I said I wasn't worried about her. Since Nanna died last year, it's only her and my uncle left in Christchurch. I don't regret moving to Dunedin, I think that was the best thing I could have done for me, but I do wish I could do more for her while she's sick - especially since it has delt with it for so long by herself and it doesn't seem to be showing signs of slowing.

But enough with the doom and gloom, the week has been glorious none the less - I could really get used to the whole not working thing. If only I didn't need the money. But I do, so I best make the most of it.

I wasn't kidding when I said I didn't leave the house. I came home from a botched appointment last Friday  (people telling me one date and writing down another do not make me happy) and have not stepped out of the gate since. I will have to today, to go to the optometrist, but that's okay. That's in my best interest in fact.  I think I'm going to need new glasses. While the headaches haven't started, I don't feel quite right when reading. Oh well, if I do I do - it's been.... four years since they've changed. Not a bad run really.

And it hasn't stopped the stitching - which is almost all I've done this week - adding to the blissful nature of the week. I stitched on three projects this week, one of the obsessively for a few days. I'm not going to tell you the times that I tracked - but if I actually cared I would probably scare myself.

First up I did a bit more on my Book of Ink Circles

 Still not sure on the colours, but the colours I'm not sure on have changed. It was the orange I was primarily worried about, now it's the yellow.... but I'm not hating it so that's the main thing. I still want to carry on - though I have absolutely no idea what I'll do with it when it's done. It's also making me think I would like to do some other Ink Circle patterns. Which if I stop to think about it, is probably why designers give freebies...

Then came the addiction. The HaED.

Or one of them at least. Mini Universe in a Jar, artwork by Randal Spangler. I swear that HaED patterns have some forms of drug infused into them. I went from hating them to not being able to get enough of them so quickly that it's frightening.  I seriously could not put this down. There was one day that I even didn't have dinner because I was focusing so intently on it. Like not having to work, stitching these is something I could definitely get used to.

I will admit I got a little burnt out on the HaED though. I had intended to push through for a second page finish,  but I couldn't. My choices of replacement are slightly limited though. I decided to reorganize my stash and as result I am now waiting on a fairly chunky 123 stitch order. When that comes in I will go through my process with you all. But until then, as I say, limited choices. So I went with my newest WIP.

Even doing it one over one like I am, I will be cutting it close with the fabric. Hopefully just on the width. Don't know what did with the calculations-  think I must have missed allowing for a boarder. I'm going to work my way to the top row and hope to heck there's better allowances there - since I'm going to have to rechargeable the bottom couple of rows that are the widest. Am very glad I started in the middle and didn't just presume I left a boarder. Hopefully I can make this work. This is the third give I have started this piece and I really really love it - it just seems to be cursed.

Reading has been how I spent the rest of my time (including most of the night) though I don't have much to show for it. I am reading Atlas Shrugged at the moment, and as I mentioned last time, it's slow going. I love it, but it's slow going. It's making it hard to stick to my 69 pages a day goal - I can't remember the last time I was this slow to read a book, but I'll get there eventually. I'm about 60% through I think.

I did take a brief break from it to read something a bit lighter. Both to give me a buffer in my book and page goals, as well as to give my brain a bit of a rest.  It was a children's book in fact.

Though it was a dark and creepy and terrifying children's book. Not a bad romp - it reminded me a lot of Coraline. Defiantly not for all children - but I grew up on Goosebumps books..... that probably explains a lot about me now that I think about it...

Now that I've wasted most of my morning trawling the interwebs I best be off to the eye docs. And them two and a half more days of holiday before going back to the real world. If I remember, I'll fill you in on any progress for the weekend, otherwise I'll be back end of next week, or when I finish Atlas - whichever comes first.

Till next time...

  

*cough cough*

Hullo Hullo everyone, hope you are all well on this rainy Friday evening.

Not as much progress on this end as I could like. My scratchy sore throat turned into the most annoying cough I've had for a while that kept me up all the nights.  Funnily enough that made me a tad tired and made it had to concentrate. But, huge silver lining to that - I spent two nights after work bobinating a pile of floss that I had been ignoring for MONTHS. So winning there, yay,

 I have to admit that it is a little surreal to be full of the cold at the moment. One of my jobs at work this week was to process two crates of these bad boys...

...which you have to admit are the most summery thing you can get (at least I think they are). The cherries are summery, mean while I'm full of the cold, and it's close to snowing out side.... it is truly a bizarre sensation. 

I'm sorry, I always seem to talk about the weather, but it is just so unseasonably cold at the moment.

Your here for the stitching though. Two projects worked on again this week. A little more done on Dalek Victory.

This one I've got sitting next to the bed. When I get home from work, I tend to shower, put on the pj's and crawl into bed - it's warmer and the bedroom gets the afternoon light. Because I ended up bobinating this week, there's only really a little black been added - but progress is progress.

Meanwhile, in the living room, the boarder of doom is finished!!

Really really looking forward to starting in on the filling in on this one. If for no other reason than  to see how the colours turn out. This is the first project that I ever picked out my own colours for. I'm still not 100% sure about a couple of them, but we are soo far past the point of no return, so it'll be interesting to see it taking shape from here on out.

As with the stitching, not much reading got done either. I am still over my aim of 69 pages a day, but I have slowed down a little.

I did finish one book...

This is another between the books novella in the Artifact Hunters series. Probably my least favourite of the series so far, but I think that was more because it followed my least favourite character than any thing else. I did love that it was set in an alternate New Zealand - thats not something I have seen before, which was nice. Overall I gave it 3.75 stars.

The slowing down on the reading is probably due to what I picked up next - Atlas Shrugged, by Ann Rand. I am enjoying it, it's just slow going. I think reading so much 'pulp' fiction, I've lost the nack of reading older  literature. But it's not a race.

Other than that, not much to report. Still a little unwell - getting very sick of coughing. I do have next week off work though, and I am planning to do absolutely nothing, so hopefully the rest will kick the rest of the bugs out.

Fingers crossed.

Till next time

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...