Saturday, June 30, 2007
Catching up
It's so nice to be home :) I spent a lovely few days in Jarvis Bay this week. We went down to watch my littlest brother, Jamie, "pass out" from his Naval Officer training. It's not the first time I've seen it all of course, my other little brother, Carl, went through the same thing three years ago, and both of my parents were in the Navy, in fact they met at HMAS Creswell, and spent the whole weekend reminiscing and being very romantic with each other. So the week was filled with getting dressed up, sitting through boring ceremonies, and then schmoozing with people my parents knew, and I had to pretend to remember meeting when I was knee-high. I hate that kind of social function, where you have to pretend to be charming and witty with people you don't know. But it was quite exciting to meet and chat with some very important people, including the Chief of Navy, Chief of Police, etc. It was a bit intimidating, I felt like such a no-one, but all these men came up to shake my Dad's hand so I was also introduced. I think my Dad is quite an important person too.. or at least well known and liked. I also met my sister's boyfriend, and his family, and had a chance to catch up with some old family friends. Having grown up in a Navy family, and moving all over the country and the world, we met so many people when we were in one place or another, every time we catch up with them it's like a big reunion. But all in all it was an interesting and lovely week.

So of course, we were so busy with cocktail parties, receptions, parades, and the ball, that I had no time at all to get any stitching done, until the train trip home. I've done a little more on tranquility, but I spent most of my time frogging. I decided to take out the green motif on the first row and replace it with blue, and I'm considering taking out the light green one next to it, but I'll decide on that later, after I see the blue.

At the beginning of the week I was very good with my SALs. I put about 4 hours into JOB on Monday, and felt very proud of myself, and just as I popped online to upload the picture, I realised that the internet wasn't working, and neither was the phone! So I spent an extra hour and a half stitching whilst on hold with Optus trying to get it fixed. Well, they finally fixed it yesterday, as I discovered when I got home last night. So now I can post my SAL pics.
For Toccata II this week I did 'A' and Area 2. I was going to do Area 1, but I couldn't be bothered getting up off my bum to go and fetch my beading thread. *sigh* laziness is a curse.

Okay, next post I'll talk about Wednesday's trip to The Craft and Quilt Fair, and I'll show you all the lovely stash I bought :)

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posted by Tash at 12:50 | 0 comments
Tuesday, June 12, 2007
Convalescing
I'm back! I'm soooo sorry for being gone for so long. I had a lovely trip down to Canberra, followed by a horrible week of clinical, at Ryde hospital (I swear, no matter how sick I am, I'm never going there!) And after that, my back went out again. I have two prolapsed discs, which usually don't cause me any problems, but occasionally, it just goes. So I was on my back (literally) for eight days. It hurt to sit up and stitch, so I only got a few hours done. I could hardly even use the computer. And even now I'm still still on horrible pain killers that make me so sick and drowsy that I can't concentrate on stitching or reading or anything. At least I've got a couple of weeks off work, which I can't complain about. But I will be complaining at the end of the month when my mortgage payment is due.. eeek!

In other news, my brother Carl, who's in the Navy, got on his ship and sailed away to Iraq. My little brother is going to war :( Actually, it's quite funny, my father served in the first Gulf war, and now Carl is going off to the second. He acutally sailed from Perth, so I didn't get to see him off, but it sounds like it was just a giant sob-fest. He'll be back at Christmas time, only 7 months, not very long really. But he left his girlfriend, my old school friend Naomi behind, and she's been messaging me constantly, she misses him terribly.

So, back to stitching. I am aware that I owe three weeks of SAL updates, and I must confess that I haven't even been stitching on JOB. Yesterday was the first time I touched it in weeks, and the little I did wasn't even worth photographing, just the top half of the border of the last panel. Next Monday I'll definitely finish that one, and that'll be a big milestone for me. The repitive borders were the biggest thing that slowed me down last time. But I have been doing Toccata II. The first picture shows two weeks worth of stitching, I did very simple motifs because I was so doped up, and it took me a couple of days to do even one!

The next two pictures are the motifs I did for this week. I had trouble with the butterfly, it took me the whole weekend to do! I should have stuck to simple ones. But I did finish it in the end.


I haven't labeled any of the areas because it's too painful to stand up and fetch the chart. I can't wait until I'm back to normal again.

I do have more photos, but I'll share them tomorrow.

Okay, I'm really tired, so I'm going to sleep. Goodnight :)

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posted by Tash at 19:25 | 3 comments
Tuesday, February 20, 2007
Toccata II-sday (8)
Sorry I'm late this week, I've just walked in the door from spending a few days in Canberra with my poor lonely Mummy. Since my little brother joined the Navy a few weeks ago, and with Dad working in Sydney and only going home for the weekends she's got an empty nest, and has been begging me to come and visit. But I had a lovely time, just sitting and stitching, watching Foxtel, and admiring her quilts.

Aaanyway, down to business, here's this week's update on Toccata II.

This is Area 29 - Nun Stitch and Threaded Herringbone and Area 30 - Guilloche Stitch.

ETA: Oh, Mel, I have a parcel waiting for me at the post office, unfortunately I was back too late to pick it up, so I'll go and get it tomorrow.

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posted by Tash at 17:42 | 2 comments
Thursday, January 18, 2007
Bits and Pieces
I just spent a lovely morning re-arranging my stash. I've got a fabric drawer, a floss drawer, a kit drawer, and a chart shelf. It was so much fun because I found all these things I forgot that I had!

This was a pair of jeans that my friend made into a bag for me. I remember that it was my favourite bag for the looongest time. I called it, creatively, my jeans bag. But unfortunately there are too many holes in it, so I'm going to have to chuck it out :( But I thought I'd take a picture, to preserve the memory.



I really had forgotten about this! I don't even remember where or when I got it, but now that I look at it, I'm getting an idea. It's the pattern and template to make the box, and you're meant to go out and find your own fabric. But, I thought, instead of using fabric, could you cover it with cross stitch? I mean, if you measured how big the panels were, you could take a bit of linen and stitch up something and cover the box with that. Does anyone have any thoughts? Would that even work? I'm really excited about this idea, but it will take a lot of planning and fine tuning. And I don't actually know if it's possible!

I realised that I haven't taken a WIP pic of Japanese Octagon Box for a while. I feel guilty because I haven't worked on it for so long... but it was just that awful border! Aaargh! No, awful is wrong, it's lovely, but it's just so repetitive, so repetitive.


In other news: I *finally* got the pics from my trip to Perth off my camera. It was the first time in 4 years that we had the WHOLE family there. Well, almost the whole family. It would have been the whole family, except for my bro Carl. So I had to add his picture into this photo of all the Grandchildren. There's 14 of us, from 6 different families, the oldest (Me) is 23, and the youngest (Jack) is 8 months.

And here are the Grandparents. They're both 67 :)

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posted by Tash at 10:52 | 1 comments
Saturday, December 30, 2006
Quilts


I finished 'S' on time to give to my Grandmother yesterday. It was a mad rush at the end, as I knew it would be. I finished it as a hanging ornament kind of thing, but I sort of made it up as I went along. It turned out very nicely actually, and I'm very proud of myself, because I did it with no instructions and no sewing machine, all hand stitched. I hate hand stitching, it's very fiddly. But I really can't afford a sewing machine. Plus I have no room for one anyway. (Then there's the small matter of having no idea how to use one!) Deary me. Anyway... I've decided that I need more practice 'finishing' ornaments, bags, cushions, etc, because it's great fun to finish something and not have to put it straight into a drawer!

The Grandmother that I gave this to gave me a doll that she made for Christmas, but she's still in the car, and Cat has taken the car to Dad's house so no pictures today. But my other Nanna (the one who I visited in Perth a few weeks ago) made me a (huge!) quilt! And it's lovely:




I know, it's a terrible photo, but it's really hard to take a nice picture of such a huge quilt when you're home alone. I don't have any floor big enough to fit it on! It's big enough for a king size bed, and since I only have a king single, I guess it'll have to stay on the couch :( I actually have another quilt that my Mum made me that does fit on my bed, but it's getting washed at the moment so I can't take a photo of that one. So here's a photo of the one that's on my bed at the moment (made by Mum)


And the one that's on my sofa (also by mum). I love this one. It's chenille (whatever that means). All I know is that it's lovely and warm and cozy :)Mum and I have a bet. She's convinced that one day I will make a quilt. Personally, I don't agree. It's too freeform for me. I need a very strict pattern. Even my attempts at embroidery have gone awry. I always manage to make a disaster of it. Plus, the idea of choosing fabrics terrifies me. I mean, they're great fun, and I love looking at them, but I could never choose co-ordinating fabrics. I would always manage to bugger it up. I had enough grief choosing the backing fabric for 'S'!

Aaanyway... tomorrow (hopefully) I'm going to review my year and try and decide on some goals for next year.

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posted by Tash at 16:01 | 1 comments
Thursday, December 21, 2006
I'm Baaaack!
Finally back from Perth. My 'holiday' ended up being mostly babysitting bratty little cousins, tagging around behind Aunts in shopping centres, and being ignored by the other rellies. Lovely.

And to make it even worse, I didn't get to touch a needle the whole trip! But now that I'm home I'm going to make up for that. I've got a few nights off over the next couple of weeks, so hopefully I'll have time to catch up on some stitching. I've got a lot of deadlines to meet in the next few weeks... eek!

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posted by Tash at 15:14 | 0 comments
Tuesday, October 10, 2006
A couple of things
I know, it's been a long time since I last updated. I haven't been doing much stitching lately. Too busy with Uni and job interviews and stuff. Oh, btw, the job interview went excellently! It's in an aged care respite centre, but it's really small, only five clients at a time, and my best friend (Tara) is the manager! Tara said that the other interviews were a disaster, so they're pretty desperate. Her boss phoned me this morning and told me that I have the job and can basically pick whatever shifts I like. I'm so relieved! I can't wait to get out of where I work now. I hate that job. And I hate the people I work with. Well, some of the people. But I've been reluctant to leave because they pay above award wages. That's how they trap you, see? They give us an extra dollar an hour so we can NEVER leave (insert evil laugh here). It's cruel!
I have an appointment with our mortgage broker on Friday. My brother, Carl, and I are buying a house. This house actually. I'm going to own my own little apartment! Well, half of it at least. I'm very worried, especially with changing jobs and stuff. Plus...I'm too young to have a mortgage!
So because of all that stuff, I haven't been doing any stitching lately. I've been too tired at work to do anything. Staying awake is hard enough sometimes, and if I try and stitch I usually make too many mistakes. But I have managed to get a bit more done on 'S' (M Designs)

Also, my big little brother has been visiting us on weekends, because he's back in Sydney. But trying to get a decent photo of him is... *cough* well, you get it.

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posted by Tash at 09:18 | 1 comments
Wednesday, August 30, 2006
My beautiful babies
My bubba Chess
Chess with my little sister Catherine

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posted by Tash at 15:56 | 0 comments
Thursday, July 27, 2006
Imported
Oh, I've had a terrible couple of days on the stitching front... only a handful of stitches. I didn't even touch a needle today, and yesterday I only did 21(!) stitches on Scent of Enchantment. It feels like such a waste of valuable days. I'm always worried that I'm going to die before I have time to stitch everything I want to. Well, actually I think that's a certainty, because I have enough stash to last me several lifetimes, and a fairly exhaustive wishlist. So when I go for four days without doing more than a couple of threads I'm horrified! I did start a new WIP on Monday (like I needed another one...) but this one is only small. It's 'S' by M Designs, and I'm doing it on 40 count white linen and using Gloriana Desert Rose. It've only done a few threads, so it kind of looks like a weird scary eye to me. Heh.


I'm making it for my Grandmother, whose name is Sylvia. My biggest problem is going to be figuring out a way to finish it. I don't have a sewing machine, but I have no problems with hand sewing. But I've never finished anything before, not even cushion or needleroll, so I'm a bit scared. Anyone have any ideas or links?

Catherine returned safely from England, and came bearing gifts for me! 3 Flower Fairies kits: Willow Fairy, Snowdrop Fairy, and Almond Blossom Fairy. There was more, but those are the stashy gifts. I've been thoroughly spoiled. And, since she wasn't able to find most of the other kits I requested, she gave me back the money I gave her to spend, and I used it to place a $100 order from SB&B. Yay! I'm going to have a very stashy few weeks :D

Frankly, I'm going to need the stashy excitement, because work starts again on Saturday, and Uni on Tuesday, and I'm gonna be miserable again. I miss my holidays already :)

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posted by Tash at 03:31 | 0 comments
Tuesday, July 25, 2006
No more nakedness :(
I have precisely 2 hours until my holidays are over. Actually, that's completely untrue. Work starts again on Saturday night, and Uni starts on Tuesday, so I still have plenty of holidays left... but in 2 hours time my sister, Catherine, will be getting back from England, and I will no longer have the house to myself again. No more stitching in her big wonderful chair. No more rearranging the living room so that I can stitch and watch tv with my feet up on the coffee table. No more walking around the house naked just for the fun of it.

Le sigh.

Don't get me wrong, I love my sister, and I can't wait to have her home and all, but I'm a very solitary person, and I need alone time. I don't really know why that is, I just do. If I spend too much time around people and don't have the time to myself to just wind down, I kind of explode. I'm lucky I've just had a month to be alone, but the first week I was still at work, and I wasted the third week of it with Jamie here and going down to Canberra. You know what, I think Big Brother would be the worst experience I could ever go through. (Side note: I was watching BB tonight, and saw the housemates having a discussion about why he was called 'Big Brother'. Only one of them had a vague idea, and that was that it was "from some book". Appalling!)

On the up side, however, Catherine has told me that she has some presents for me :D, and I know that she's courier-ing some stash that I eBayed to my Aunty's house to save on international postage. I'm such a smartie!

<3 Tash

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posted by Tash at 05:49 | 0 comments
Wednesday, July 19, 2006
Great SEX
I got back from Canberra yesterday afternoon. It's soooo nice to be home again.

I did have a lovely time with the family, we played games on Saturday night, and we didn't clean the house, and we ate lamb chops and roast veggies... it was lovely. But unfortunately I didn't get much stitching done. I took Japanese Box, but didn't even get to finish the frame of the next panel. Shocking, I know.

I did some stash shopping in the last couple of days. I went to Stitchabout and got some fabric for my HAED RR, which I might not even use because I still haven't decided for sure on the theme. It's from 28 count Lugana from Stitches and Spice and the colour is called Tundra. I stopped at Victoria House on the way down to Canberra and bought 2 skeins of Caron Soie Cristale silks because they didn't have Gloriana. Mum gave me a needle case, and some Udder Cream, because it's so hard to find around here. And I bought the Flower Fairies book at Spotlight last time they had a 20% off sale.

I did plenty of online stash shopping too. I bought a few things on eBay, a couple of which are being posted to my aunt's house so my sister can bring them home from England for me (yay for cheap postage!!) Mum ordered some stash for my birthday (all the way back in April) from Nordic Needle, but some of the items were on back order for so long that we ended up cancelling the order, so I made a replacement order from The Silver Needle. Now I can't wait for it to come, then I'll have even more stuff to show you :)

I spent the morning doing some house cleaning, and then I spent two hours moving all my stash from the box it was overflowing out of into the drawer set that used to house most of my underwear and socks. It was so exciting. I love going through my stash, I seem to find so many things I forgot I had. I'm all excited about doing Flying High again!

But of course, there are only so many hours in the day, so after all of that, I only got 400 stitches done on Scent of Enchantment. I've done all down one side, and all along the top, and I've started with the first block on the second row. It's nice now that I can see how big it actually is. The colours are amazing!

I'm having so much fun stitching it, but I'm feeling guilty because I know I'm neglecting Japanese Box, and I should really be doing some more on Fire and Ice because I don't want it to become a UFO. I think I'll get that out tomorrow to do some on it.

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posted by Tash at 00:40 | 1 comments
Friday, July 14, 2006
Going to Canberra
Still plodding along slowly at Scent of Enchantment. I'm not really doing much. Having Jamie here is a huge distraction. Not an unwelcome one, but I'll be happy when I can go back to just stitching from dawn 'til dusk.

Today we're driving down to Canberra to visit my parents. I'll be staying there for a few days. The problem is, I don't know what to take with me to stitch. I'd love to take Scent of Enchantment, but I don't want Mum to think I've got too many WIPs, because she really wants me to finish Fire and Ice and Firefly Fairies. I think I'll take Japanese Box, because then I'll have to work on it and it definitely needs the attention.

On the way down today I'm going to stop at Victoria House so I should have some new stash to show you next time I update. I won an auction on ebay yesterday, and I'm planning a purchase from Dragonfly Dreams in the next couple of weeks, so when they arrive I'll be able to show you lots of stash pics. Yay for stash!

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posted by Tash at 09:08 | 1 comments
Tuesday, July 11, 2006
Panel 2 HD
I finished panel 2 of Japanese Box today (yay). But no picture, because I'm too tired to take one just now. Tomorrow, I promise.

I also managed another 200 stitches on Scent of Enchantment.

I've been giving lots of thought to ideas for my HAED RR, and trying to find fabric, but of course the fabric I choose will depend on what my theme is so I really have to sort it out. I'll talk more about this tomorrow.

Jamie is here, he's asleep on the sofa. Poor tired little boy. Tomorrow he's cleaning the veranda, the oven and the car. It's nice to have a slave :)

G'night

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posted by Tash at 23:16 | 1 comments
Sunday, July 09, 2006
Two weeks to myself!
It's so hard to get a blog off the ground. I wrote my first post a couple of months ago and then forgot all about this journal. I'm still stuck over at LJ, even though I'm not updating there either. I'm just reading my friends page and talking to the cross stitch community. But Blogger looks like it's got a HUGE stitching community... so I really want to get started over here.

Anyway, in news of my life, my sister is in the UK, so I have the house to myself. I'm on two weeks holidays from work so I can stitch to my heart's content (if I can ever get off the net!)

<3 Tash

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posted by Tash at 07:49 | 0 comments