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 :)

Labels: Eyecandy, Familials, Small talk, Stitchiness, Toccata II-sday, Tranquility

A thousand apologies for not updating for so long. How long has it been? It feels like about a month. My life has been absolutely hectic lately, I spent a week doing clinical at pre-school (so much fun, the children were so adorable!), and I've had two major assignments due in the last week, so I've been working hard on those. And exams are just around the corner, plus working hard on top of all of that... I've been exhausted!

So it's for that reason that I've been so slack with my SALs, as well as all my other stitching in the last few weeks. I have to confess that I didn't get a single stitch in Japanese Octagon Box for the past two weeks, until today. I worked on it for 8 hours today, and got the outline for the seventh panel finished. Only one more to go!

Actually, that photo shows the fabbie colour very well, but the stitching looks a bit dark. *Sigh* one day I will learn to take photos properly! Anyway, next up is a very overdue photo of last weeks contribution to Toccata II. This is Area 17 - Cross and Upright Cross Filling, and Area 18 - Interlaced Diagonal Cross, which is small and simple but very pretty indeed! I'm really happy to be working on this one again, I love it so much!

Next up is Tranquility Mystery, and of course I'm waaay behind. I'm still on part 4, and part 7 came out last friday. I know I won't possible catch up, but I'm still having great fun with this one, especially with picking out the colours!
Hmmm, looking at that photo, I just noticed a mistake I made at the bottom of that purple one. Oh well, easily fixed!

So, even though I've been busy, I still managed a Happy Dance at work on Friday night (yay!). This little cutie is Popcorn. He was for the other Round Robin I'm in. Actually, I'd nearly forgotten about that robin, it's so disorganized, I haven't had a rotation from that one for about four months. But now I seem to be back in the loop! Teddy bears aren't really my kind of thing, but he is very sweet, and he only took 10 hours of stitching!

It was Mother's Day yesterday, and I had great fun buying Mum' presents. I usually buy her fabric for quilting. But she used to cross stitch all the time, and I really miss that, so I decided that if I bought her something that I know she'd like she might be forced to have to stitch again. I got her two kits, Fruitful 1 and Splendor from The Heart's Content, because I know she's been eyeing them for a long time. And of course, since I was buying online, I thought I'd better make the most of the postage, so I bought myself a silk gauze kit: Gaze Awhile. When I got it in the mail, I was going to start it right away, but my WIPs are really getting out of control as it is, so I'm saving it for a bit later ;)

Well, Mum was very pleased with her Mothers day present, so she bought me a present to say thankyou (I told her that's not how it works, but I didn't argue with her too hard.) A gorgeous overdyed silk (Grape by Caron Waterlilies) and a beautiful pair of scissors I can wear around my neck whilst stitching, and a pincushion kit, with my very favourite (NOT) stitch all over it. Mum said she forgot that I hate Queen stitch, but I know that she was giggling the whole time, sneaky Mummy. So, I haven't been around, but life is still moving on. I do have some good news which I've been bursting to tell, and that is that I quit my sleep over job, and I couldn't be happier about it. I was really unhappy there, and I was doing 4 nights a week, which was just too much for me to handle with full time uni and the other two jobs. I've just had a horrible few months there. Plus I wasn't getting paid enough... $100 for 12 hours work is criminal! However, now that I have quit I will be absolutely broke! I think after I pay the mortgage and bills I will have $100 a fortnight for everything else. So there will be another job in the near future, but I'm definitely going to enjoy a few weeks of having more stitching time.

Labels: Blogging, Eyecandy, HAPPYDANCE, S.E.X., Small talk, Stitchiness, Toccata II-sday, Tranquility, Uni, Worky-purkey

Here's week two of Tranquility Mystery Sampler. I'm loving this so far. 1x1 stitching is so lovely, and it's so much fun choosing what colour to use next. I managed to get to Victoria House on my way down to Canberra last Sunday, and bought threads, (all GAST and WDW), and got thoroughly ripped off. 13 threads cost me $71.50!!! At the Crewel Gobelin it would only have cost me about $50 and online it would have cost me even less, including postage! But I am too impatient, so I paid the $71 and got over it! The colours I've used so far are GAST Cherub (LE), Cherry wine, and Bayberry (simply shaker), and WDW Curry and Purple Haze. The chart for week three is up, and I'm already deciding what colours I'm going to use.

I had a week off uni last week, but I still managed to get no stitching done whatsoever. Only a few hours on Mystery X, a few more hours on Michelle's RR, and page 2 of Tranquility Sampler. I haven't even done my motifs for Toccata II yet. I was hoping to get so much done this week. And back to uni next week *sigh*. But, I've decided that Tranquility is the perfect size to do at uni during lectures, so at least I'll be sure to keep up with it :)

So... tomorrow I was hoping to get a lot of stitching done, but I was asked to do a shopping service for a couple tomorrow morning, and I have to go and clean Dad's house in the afternoon. What a bummer :( Maybe I can do a quick job of the cleaning and be finished by about 4ish, then I can stitch until I have to go to work at 8. Here's hoping!

Labels: Eyecandy, S.E.X., Stitchiness, Tranquility