Neighbours

sigh .... nothing funny here today guys ... move along nothing to see here ....



Here in Australia in the suburbs we have a nighttime noise curfew.
10:30pm Sun-Thur and midnight for Fri and Sat. Last night was
Wednesday night. You can see where this is going ....



My f***wit neighbors started a
party last night at 11pm. Had at least 2 dozen cars blocking all
driveways up and down the street.





I called the police anonymously four times before they finally came out at 3:05am and shut it down.



My alarm went off at 6:00am - I've been awake since 5:45 am.





I feel like crap. And we have story time today - I can see a repeat of yesterday coming on.





Mel.

Cirque - first hours stitching

Ok - just because I wanna share - here's today's small effort. I *think* you can see the sparkles in the fabric in this scan ....

Just to check with the IT boyz I've upgraded my Firefox and attempted to add in another picture ....

AND IT WORKED!!!  OK anyone who is having problems loading with Firefox, upgrade to the new 1.5.0.7 version and you should be fine!

Mel.

Hand Dyed Fabric Stash

32ct Linen

This is the material I want to use for Cirque des Cercles.

Hand dyed fabrics in my stash

The Castle

OK this is really a chance to have a play and make sure I can upload pics into my blog again ....  The pic on the left is my original attempt on 22 ct Aida.  The pic on the right is my new attempt on 32ct Jobelan.

Iuaa - ITS FINISHED!

Iuaa is finished, washed, ironed and packed away ready to go the framers in the morning.

And I even got a chance to get some grocery shopping and house cleaning done this afternoon too!

OK time to go sleep now! Sleeeep! Will pick up Mystery IX on Monday - I'm taking the weekend to get some other stuff done - like continuing to catalogue my stash and organise my craft room.

Hugs
Mel.

Iuaa - cross stitches completed

Morning all,

I still don't appear to be able to insert pictures directly into my blog post but I can put them into a album in the photos section, so here's a link to my stitching for the week. Now to have a quick snack and then onto the backstitching.

Hugs
Mel.

Mel's Health

As some of you may know I've been having health issues lately.



A couple of days before I moved house, I went to the toilet and had a
completely unexpected episode of bleeding. It was non-menstrual,
but it was brackish and chunky. I went into shock - literally, I
could not stand up, I felt nauseous and thought I would faint
etc. Initial reaction was that I just had a miscarriage.



It was a one-off episode but the doc went looking for causes. I'm
35 and my periods have always been regular as clockwork - I have never
experienced mid-cycle bleeding etc.



It was 72 hours after the episode before I could get to see my
doctor. The pregnancy test came bank negative, but she could not
rule out that it was a miscarriage. She says that because I was taking
oral contraceptives (ie The Pill) and it was 72 hours later, the
effects of the pill could mask any hormonal changes in my body, and
therefore give a false negative to the test.



She decided to be on the safe side and send me for other tests. And then more tests, and then an ultrasound.



I do not have any STDs, tears or problems with my cervix or the lining
of my uterus. I do however have one non-developed ovary and one
enlarged ovary covered with growths.



The up shot of this is that I have either polycystic ovary syndrome
(PCOS), or tumors, or ovarian cancer. We are waiting on more
tests to come back.



One thing is for certain is that I cannot conceive. I cannot
produce eggs - which I guess means I didn't have a miscarriage :)



I found this out a couple of weeks ago and it affected me really
badly. I couldn't understand why because I've never wanted
children of my own, but then I had lunch with a friend yesterday who
spelt it out for me - I was grieving for the loss of choice.



I had chosen to not have children, but I have now had that choice taken
away from me. I no longer have the option to change my mind.



The good news is that although I haven't bothered telling management at
work, my co-workers know and they run all of the library pre-school
story times for me. I just can;t face doing them.



In amongst all of this a few weeks ago I started developing an ache in
my side, just inside the point of the hip. I thought it was the
enlarged ovary playing up. It aches all the time, day and night and
does not stop.



The doctor had a look and its not my ovary (its on the wrong side -
the pain is on the side of the undeveloped ovary) Its coming from just
inside my large colon.



More tests. I have either diverticulitis, an infection, a tumor,
an ulcer or bowel cancer. We ware waiting on these tests to
return.



The doc doubts it is diverticulitis because I have an extremely good
diet - I drink 2-3 litres of water a day, lots and lots of veggies and
small amounts of protein, very little processed foods. I'm gluten
intolerant so there are very few processed foods I can eat. I
also eat organic whenever feasible most of the time.



She is putting her money on an ulcer or a tumor. There is a very
very strong history of bowel cancer in my family. Normally she wouldn;t
even test for cancer at this stage, but because of my family history
she has. We are waiting on test results.



So current knowledge is that I cannot have children.



Worst case scenario I have two different forms of cancer, which means
they may have to look for more and I may have to really review my
stitching schedule for the next year, and the Secret Stitcher's
Mausoleum up and running.



Most probable case is that I have PCOS and a colonic ulcer.



I've been doing some personal research myself (sometimes there's a
benefit to working in a library :)) and I suspect we will find that I
have PCOS, I have too many of the other symptoms and usual
responses. We'll see when the tests come back, but for now, I'm
being very careful with what I eat, lots, of water, lots of fibre, low
carbohydrates and no processed junk.



And I'm being silly on lists and getting on with my stitching to keep my mind off it all :)



Hugs

Mel.

Iuaa for mum

Just to see if the hiccup with posting pics has been fixed, I'm attempting to add the cover pic of Iuaa and my first progress pic.

IT WORKS!!!!  IT WORKS IT WORKS IT WORKS!!1

BUT ONLY FOR EXPLORER - NOT FIREFOX   

 

Mystery IX update

Hmmm, what to say, I finished Paul's P lat Friday and then spent a little time Saturday and Sunday nights (after working all day) on Mystery IX.

Maybe I was too tired, maybe there were too many other things going on at that time, I don;t know, but I found this section really really hard. I only got this one little section completed, and I had to frog it much more than usual .... sigh.

Life happened for Monday through Thursday and Friday night I picked up Iuaa for mum instead. I'll get back to Mystery IX when that's finished.

Oh and the embellishment set for the middle arrived this week too. Here's a piccie of the embellishment set and the tiny amount of progress I made on this project this week.

OK FOR SOME REASON I CANNOT UPLOAD PICS IN MY BLOG ANYMORE! See my webshots sites for pics: http://community.webshots.com/user/mel_librarian

IT'S FINISHED!

Its done! The first pic is straight from the hoop. The second pic is after it has been edged, ironed and is now ready for framing. Or realistically, being wrapped.

Now to wrap it, and get on with everything else I have planned for the day. Its a cool, wet, miserable day, so I'm feeling good being inside curled up on the lounge. Need to be domestic now, clean house, wash clothes etc - about to start working 6 days straight from tomorrow.

Mystery IX Embellishment sets

Martina just posted the following:

"You won't believe it .. I counted packed and labelled the first batch of embellishment packs

today - they will go to the mail to morrow morning.



Si -if you paid on the 14th July your package will be at your door in about 7-10 days finally.



The other will follow in a few days then...



kind regards, Martina Weber "Châtelaine" -- Design and Needlearts

Duisburg/Germany http://www.chatelaine.net"

That includes me !!!!! YAY!!!!!!!!!

Mel's Sunday update - early

Morning all,

I'm spending today doing some house cleaning (and yes getting back to the unpacking - maybe) and then Paul is coming over tonight for dinner and another "talk". As I've spent all week working on his birthday present, its going to be packed away now and not brought out again until after he is gone. So I may as well post my weekly update now.

The pattern: Ruritania Alphabet from World of S
The fabric: Peacock Fantasy by Stitches and Spice (32 ct hand dyed Belfast linen)
The thread: Bejeweled by Crescent Colours.

As my relationship with Paul is not as it once was, I will only be doing the P instead of his whole name, with charms and beads that I had originally planned.

Anyway, this way I get onto more projects faster :)

Fabric stashing

Morning all,

Had a fun stashing time the other night. I ordered some fabric from Picture This Plus.

1/8 yard 28 ct "Monet" Crystal Cashel linen for Kaleidoscope by Keslyn's.

1/4 yard 28 ct "Meditation" Jazlyn fabric for My Castle by X's &Oh's

1.4 yard 32ct "Phoenix" Crystal Belfast linen for Cirque de Cercles by Ink Circles.

Will send pics of actual fabric swatches when they arrive - it will be a couple of weeks as some of the pieces are out of stock and need to be dyed.