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 

As Good As It Gets For Now

Good afternoon all (or morning or night) - maybe i should have stuck with hullo. Hope this past couple of weeks have seen everyone well. Mine has beenn busy, which seems to be the normal as of late. We had yet another staff member hand in thier notice, so the work load has increased once again.  Free time for reading and stitching suffers once again, but that  is being a grown up and all that I guess.

The single project approach that I mentioned in my last post is still in place. I seems to be really working for me so far. I see all you lovely people with your rotations and I always love the idea. I just always find it so hard to stick to. I either don`t feel like stitching that project, or I get obsessed with a project and don`t feel like changing them or doing anything else. I get demoralised and stitching becomes like work. Which it is not. It is a hobby, something that I do to de stress rather than to create stress.

Its something that I have been thinking on a little this week (again). With the added pressures that have been intrusted to me work wise, I am trying to minamise it in my personal life. There is so much that I am wanting to do and get done and I think for a while there, cross stitch was starting to overtake my life. Now, don`t get me wrong. I love cross stitch and I in no way feel any sense of guilt about enjoying that paricular hobby. But I do need more balance. Especially when coming home so exhasted.

So, and I promise I will get to progress pictures soon (though I think the rambling trend is becoming enough of a pattern that this doesnt surprise anyone anymore) - for the rest of the year I think I will try out a "new" plan for my self. I am going to re organise my WIP page, starting up a UFO section. This should hopefully elevate some of the guilt I have about those particular project. I just don't enjoy doing those full coverage projects. I might one day - I do love the patterns after all - but if I can get rid of the guilt I wont feel like I have to force my self to work on them. Which is step one of removing the stress.

Steps two and three are simpler. I am going to carry one how 've been going. Week nights are for reading, weekends are for stitching. Time off and long weekends are the exception but we will cross that bridge when I come to it.

Enough of that- on with the stitching.

I carried on wiith Eleni, as per the one project at a time tactic...

Sorry, it is still all creased, but technically it is not finished yet. I have done as much as I can. I need to order some more Krienik so that I can finish the back stitch. And between buying bans and not being able to find the shiney stuff any where, poor Elin is going on hold until after christmas. She is going to take a while to bead me-thinks, but I do really love her. Even better is that by sheer chance she matches the colour that me and the Man decided to to the feature wall in the bedroom.

Next I decided I wanted something small so I brought back out my Steam Punk Seaserpant by Samsara.

And looky looky, he is finished - buttons and everything.  Just as a reminder, he is stitched on 32 count winter sky linen, with all but one DMC conversion.

I am thinking that I might make a start on one of the Mirabila free cherubs next. I am still feeling the small sized projects. But we shall see.

Reading wise, I seem to be back on track - for the first time ever I am two books ahead on my GoodReads reading challenge for 2015. YAY! I finished SevenEves - much to the Mans horror - apparently reading a book that size in ten days is unnatural. But I'm okay with that.  I will update the reading page too, while I'm on my updating kick, if anyone wants my thoughts and opinions on that behemoth.

The buying ban also go a little bit broken in regards to books. Part of my job is to man a stall at the local farmers market - either for the bakery or helping out various other vendors as the seasons dictate. I was there onn Saturday, and what do you know, the stall next to us was some girl scouts trying to raise money.... buy selling second hand books. How could I resist. So $14 later I was putting 10 books into the car. Not a complete blow out - and it was for a good cause. But this time, I really really swear, no more buying until after christmas.

I will leave it there this time I think. It is getting dark so I better go rescue washing and those other adult type things.

Until next time...

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.

Done

Just a quick note to say I caved and bought new technology and have thus updated photos in the pages up to.

August

August, and the end of August at that - how did that even happen? Are we all well?

And with no blog post from me. Sorry about that. I really am. I sat down after work to on the Monday just been to write one, but hey, what do you know - my laptop decided that it had lost the will to live. An action that perfectly describes how my month has been.

To begin with, work has been crazy. Every one has been filing for time off before we start to get manic for Christmas (until you've worked in an artisan bakery at Christmas, you don't know what stress is - worse than in a mall by far) and so there is constant roster changers and filling in for people and so on and so forth - last pay day my usually 80 hours was well over 100. But its all extra savings for that second house we hope to buy next year. Plus the hard work went rewarded when the bosses asked me yesterday if I would take over from the leaving 2IC.

Promotions - exciting any terrifying all at the same time.

I've also started going back to the pool as part of this whole weight loss kick that I'm on. Lost 5kg this month so I'm a bit pleased about that. I have to admit, I have fallen off the waggon a couple of times  but I'm not going to beat myself up about it.

So between the crazy hours at work and the trying to be more active in the evenings, teamed with the Man being on ultra early shifts (we're talking 3am alarms here) I have been tired enough to want to spent most of my down time during the week reading. And not just any books, but my indulgent guilty pleasure genre of choice - paranormal romance. For some reason people seem to think I'm intelligent and as a result, expect me to always be reading books that reflect that. But I do love me a vampire love story. And luckily I managed to up date my book page just before the technology crash.

That may leave you thinking 'but what time did that all leave you for cross stitching?' And that is a very valid question. It is what we are all here for after all. And the good news is I did manage to find time when my eyes weren't too unfocused. 

But this is were the technology fail comes back into play. I am on my tablet right now. My tablet is nothing fancy at all. I bought a cheap one because at the time I had only really intended it for reading. As a result, it is really REALLY slow at up loading pictures. 

In a nut shell,since my last post, I have worked on six projects, had four finishes and four new starts. I will keep chipping away at the pages up top to get them all up to date with picres and the like and then hopefully by that stage I will have a better idea of what this tablet can do. I'm trying not to buy a new laptop right away - for he same reasons that I'm on a stash buying ban until after Christmas. We have renevations that we are trying to get done on the house and are saving to buy another when our mortgage comes up for renegotiation next August. So all spare pennies for a little while are being squirreled away. 

Hopefully I can make it all work out. We shall see.

Sorry this ones so wordy, I'll try not to make a habit out of it.

The Colour Purple

And I don't mean the movie. I mean the actual colour.

Hullo lovely people of the internet - I realized last time that I never actually say hullo and that seems a little rude of me some how. How are we all today? It has been a very spring like weekend and I not sure if my mildly loopy mood can be blamed on that or not. At the very least we can blame it for all my customers being in a good mood today and consequently me not coming home angry or frustrated - so win!

Maybe I shouldn't say blame - its not a bad thing in the slightest to have a small taste of spring after a cold cold winter. Even if every one knows that it wont last. August is never nice weather - and its only next week away. How crazy is that! Some one mentioned to me today how many pay days it was till Christmas - and that in itself is a terrifying thought not worth thinking about. At the risk of repeating myself, I never believed my parents as a kid when they told me that time speeds up as you get older. The year seemed to take so long to pass back then. But oh my were they right. 

Not much to report this week. The man has been away all week so I have had piece and quite to get along with things. And as much as I miss him, it has been quite nice to have the house to myself. We currently live in a very small, one bedroom house so it sometimes feels as though we are living on top of each other - I will be glad to have him home at the end of the week.

Him being gone has made me realize one thing though. I need to lose weight. Before I moved to Dunedin, so we are looking at... three and a half years ago now - I lost 25kg. I have always struggled with my weight, and that was such an achievement for me. I finally felt comfortable with myself. But now I have gained it all back. The majority of it since moving in with the man a year ago and letting him prepare all the meals. Not happy about that in the slightest. I wont harp on about it here though, I am debating with my self whether to set one of the pages above for tracking my progress, putting it out in the open for accountability or maybe start a sister blog dedicated to it. I don't know, we'll see. 

That revelation didn't stop me stitching though. I feel like I got quite a bit done with out the distraction of another person watching movies around me. 

I started with Eleni again.

So very much purple. I am really please with how she is looking - and how much I have got done. She was only started a couple of weeks ago after all, and I'm not the fastest stitcher out there. Its also a really enjoyable pattern to work on. I think I will definitely have to investigate others by this designer. But I can't lie. I got really sick of purple.

And since I am apparently insane, instead of grabbing out one of my WIPs to counter act the purple, I started something new.

Just a little freebie sampler from Jardin Prive. Not entirely sure that my fabric is going to be the right size - its 28ct antique white even weave of some description (monaco I think?) - but I guess I'll find out soon enough. I can always jiggle the pattern around to make it fit I guess. Again, just using the DMC conversions floss wise.

That's about all there is for now. Time is about to become precious. Back to 6 day/50 hour work weeks for the next three weeks and I want to start going to the pool again a couple times a week as well as trying to go for a hill work or two each week. Not to mention course work that I still have not done. Oops. 

We'll make it work.

Till next time....

Another Day

Real life always seems to get in the way of our hobbies, doesn't it? Now, don't get me wrong - I love my man and my friends, my job and work mates are wonderful, my course work I'm ambivalent to but it's for my job so we will claim that for a win. I just wish it left more time for hobbies. Maybe if we had more hours in a day or didn't need to sleep. Maybe if I was a twilight vampire.

Jeeze, did I just admit to knowledge about Twilight vampires? Lets maybe move on shall we?

Last time I posted - which was far too long ago - I mentioned that I was sick. I still am, surprise surprise. This cold that has been going around the city is kicking me (and everyone else that has had it by all accounts) around pretty hard. The extra infections have cleared up and the antibiotics have been finished, but still the hacking cough continues a month later. Oh joy. That's no excuse for a late post however. Although I guess "lateness"  is a relative term when I haven't really set "rules" on these things.

That is something I have  been thinking about over the last week or so. I was thinking about my stitchy bug and my reading bug and how they seem to come and go. Both are back now, incidentally and I will get into my progress soon, but I was thinking about these things while trawling through Facebook and YouTube and I realized that social media affects my desire to do things, but not in the way that I had previously thought. 

I knew that social medias enabled me more in my purchasing and my willingness to start new projects - a slight fear of missing out that was awakened in a way far stronger than I ever got from reading blogs. Perhaps because interactions are not as seemingly instantaneous on a blog, perhaps for some other reason entirely, I'm not sure, but on blogs I seem to be able to admire someones hard work and the piece of art that they are creating without feeling... obliged, I guess... to do something similar or to join in a SAL or whatever. Getting to know people still happens, just slower and more gradual - more natural in a way.

Social medias breed pettyness and social cliques however than I have never come across in the blogging word. And that makes me sad. That there is snobbery and people citing opinions as fact and feeling like you (or at least I feel like) are being force into choosing this side or that side of a ever raging battle between the right way and the wrong way. And the stress of that makes me not want to read or not want to stitch or not want to knit.

Of course maybe I have just been fortunate enough to avoid such things in the blog-o-verse, which would render my point useless I guess, but I can only speak from what I have experienced. Nor am I blaming social media. Petty social cliques are endemic, I have noticed, in any group of people - just look at any high school in the world. 

But when I am at home, I want to be able to be me with out fear of reprimand. 

By day, I essentially run a store. There are other people around - the bakers and the owner doing baking and owner type things, but over the last three years, I have become one of the main faces associated with the store. Its a small city, so consequently, I can rarely go anywhere without bumping into at least one customer that recognizes me. So you see, home really is the only place I can truly be me. Where I don't have to be happy or civil or tippy toe around the politically correct environments. 

At home I can be human.

I'm not saying that I'm going to ditch social media altogether - I do like it. But stepping back from it a little bit has done wonders for my productivity. Which we should probably get onto - I have rambled on for far too long and if you have made it this far without skipping, I applaud and thank you.

I have been a little ADD this last couple of weeks, trying to kick start my stitchy bug - but it worked, so we shall just deal with a lot of photos. We've just dealt with a lot of words so why not right?

First up is my Steam Punk Sea Serpant by Samsarah that I was working on in Kakanui. I have only done maybe another 20 stitches or so since coming home, but I never put any pictures in my last post so here you go - 

He still needs a head, but we will get to that eventually. I am doing the DMC conversion for this one for all bar one colour. Its a Weeks Dye Works and I'm still not entirely convinced on the thread. I know I have said before that I am boring with my fabric choices because I think that hand dyes are too busy and I think my thread preferences may be heading the same way. We'll see.

Next up I put Once Upon a Time back on the frame, but that didn't last long either.

I love how these always look so much better once I take a photo. It's like the action of stepping back and viewing it through a lens forces me to see it as a whole rather than as pixel stitches.

Then, as I said in my last post, I started Joan Elliot's The Reader.

This is about where I started the thinking of the thoughts that have been spewed out above. I got a decent chunk of it done but lost a bit of momentum because work and what not and didn't really feel like picking it up again. So when in doubt, start something knew - I am coming to terms with being a serial starter.

Just looks like random purple at the moment, but it will become Eleni of Troy by Cross Stitching Art. I am just doing her on an antique white 32 count even weave, and while I would have loved to do her all in beads, I am just doing the DMC conversion because that would have been a whole lot of money on a WHOLE lot of beads. And that money I need for house renovations right this minute. And tea. I always need tea.

Side note, this progress on Eleni was fueled by tea - t leaf T banana caramel to be specific. Its my current favourite and if you love tea - you should try this brand. I love them all - even their earl greys which until now I have never been particularly fond of.

Finally I gave my mosaic a bit of love

Not a huge amount, but I definitely think it would be a lot easier if I had a table or desk to work on, but alas, they are in storage at the moment so we make do without. Progress is happening on it though.

Hopefully I can get back on track this week. I still have one work book to finish for my course. I want it in by next Friday and then I am up to date with that. But my man goes over to Australia for a couple of weeks this weekend so at least I will have no distractions stopping me from getting that done and moving back onto getting all the pages on here updates and back only my stitching and reading. And knitting. I am going to have to go shopping (oh no what a shame). After the success of my pompom hats I have had half a dozen people ask me to make them one too. 

Practice makes perfect I guess.