Mel's Sunday Update

No stitching on the train this week - so no Tales I'm afraid.  I only worked four days this week, but I worked my tail off and put in long hours so I slept and read on the train ...

I did get some stitching done.  No more on the ThoM SAL unfortunately.  I did finished one project, but as its a gift, I can't show pictures here.



In other news, I received a late birthday gift from Sue in Oregon.  On one of the lists a little while ago, Tracy posted the link to a place that had a medieval pheasant chart on special - I was disappointed to find the international postage was prohibitive. Sue bought it anyway and sent it to me as a late birthday present. Thank you Sue.  Sue also, a while ago now, sent me the instructions on how best to do the back stitching on Party Cat.  I have to find some time soon to get this one finished off!



Also this week I received a RAK from Karen.  Walmart in the US was having a sale on DMC, 10c per skein. Karen offered to grab me some. She waived away payment as it was a "little" handful. Little ??? She sent me somewhere around 100 skeins here! That's not my idea of little!




Also from Karen this week, I received a chart I bought in a trade from her. Not only did she send the chart, she also sent the specialty floss that came with it out of her own stash.  Isn't she sweet!

And that's it from the Tigger this week. Hope everyone else had a good stitching week - I'm off to threaten bodily harm to my neighbours who stupidly let their Labrador puppy out and then he goes wandering and then they wake up the whole area by calling for him at the top of their lungs for streets and hours until they find him.  They do this every. single. day!  They aren't bright people.

Carrie's Threads Sale

My purchases from the Carrie's Threads LE sale came through today.  I bought six packs of choice 3 - Multicoloured.

all the packs had the exact same threads in them.  So I have enough if I want to stitch a large design :) :)

Pic here for those who cannot see it in the blog.

Mel's Sunday Update

Very small update this week :)

I spent the first part of the week working on a Top Secret project ....

Mum turned up Thursday to celebrate her birthday one month early (we just couldn't balance our schedules for October).  We spent Thursday chatting and catching up and checking out new stash we had each acquired since we had last visited.  Also as per usual, I showed mum the duplicate charts I had ended up with this time to see if she wanted any (before I RAK other people with them).

We got into a chat about Inkcircles design This Heart of Mine.  I showed mum my proposed idea of eye-searing pink and blues on black fabric.  Mum not-surprisingly said she would do it differently.  I pulled out all my fabric and hand-dyed floss stash and said - go for it!  Show me what you would do!  Then I went for a shower.  When I got out she had already started stitching!

So mum and I are doing a spur-of-the-moment Stitch Along of This Heart is Mine.  My album is here and mum's is here.  Anyone who wants to join in is free to do so.

Friday was spent clothes shopping (I bought mum a whole new smart casual wardrobe for summer for her birthday).  We then lunched with Workmate A (from old job) at a swank cafe and then spent the afternoon in long overdue therapeutic massages.  Fell asleep rather early that night.  Even the cat was worn out.



Yesterday we went to visit my favourite bricks and morter store Dragonflydreams.  Mum's record of our visit is here.   The first room we walked into was the chart room - watching her was like watching a kid in a candy store ..... we actually put back about a third of what we selected.  Unfortunately there was no afghan material there (as I want to start my first afghan - Mariann Lori and Gina have all inspired me! but some lady came in a few days ago and bought everything in the shop - everything on all three bolts of afghan fabric!!!!  Waaaah - not fair !!!!)

Karen was also out of Q-snaps and some threads so we didn't quite kit up as much as we wanted - I think the credit card was thankful for that.

I did look at Runekeeper and Gemstone Dragons and I decided on Gemstone Dragons for my Stars RR next year.   I think mum bought one copy of every other DragonDreams chart in the shop!  We also both bought linen for Inkcircles Tanglewood and will start that as as the next SAL when This Heart of Mine is finished.  It will take us a few months, which is good because mum will have to wait for next month to search the Canberra stores for the magazine.  And to purchase the Carrie's thread pack.  The next step is to teach her to internet shop and then she will really be off !!!!!!

That was a fantastic day and then last night Workmate A came over for dinner.  Lots of laughter dinner laughter wine laughter chocolates laughter coffee laughter and finally to bed after 2am.

Its now Sunday morning.  Maybe some stitching today ????

SAL - This Heart of Mine

This Heart of Mine - by Tracy Horner of Inkcircles Designs

A SAL Mum and I decided on, on the spur of the moment this evening while both discussing various ways of working this design.

Mum's pics can be seen here: http://denndragon.multiply.com/photos/album/27/SAL_-_This_Heart_of_Mine

Pearl Beach Arboretum

This is local - but we;ve never been there before. Last Saturday was such a gorgoeus day - you can see the blue skies in a lot of the pictures that we wanted to go out. So P and I went for a wander in the arboretum for the first time. We had so much fun taking pictures trying to make my point and shoot automatic do the types of artistic shots we wanted. Anyway here are some of the OK pics for those of you that don't see native Australian vegetation to enjoy. And yes most of these pictures were trying to be artistic rather than botanical in nature. None have been touched up or in other way edited - not even cropped.

Its Spring!

Just some pics I took of my garden last Saturday - 15 September 2007.

Show us yer Stash

Ok here's my desk. All the new stuff goes here until it is put in the spreadsheet and put away. Items of note are the ornament from Paula last year on the wall above, the box from Karen and Annette's fold out on top of the sub-woofer on the extreme left of the picture. Latest issuef of JCS with Tanglewood chart front and centre, Brittercup designs from Claire on extreme right side of the picture on top of my scanner, Karen's box of floss next to the talking books ... etc etc....

Well I asked everyone on the BAPXS list to do this - so I thought I'd better show mine. As there were lots of "I need to clean up before I can take pictures" replies, I thought why not show mine in all its disorganised glory !!!!

Yes people it *is* a mess you have been warned!

Mel's Monday Morning - a writing experiment

Well this just chewed up my lunch hour :)  Its a simple little experiment to see if I could capture the feeling and changing moods as I got ready for work this morning.

Its written  in a rambling stream of consciousness style which I hope helps place the reader in the story.  Or maybe its just revealing waaaay to much about myself.

Anyway its a writing experiment - so feel free to ignore.  If you do wade your way through it, some constructive feedback would be nice.

Be warned:  this is a first draft, so it has lots of spelling mistakes and the grammar is atrocious.  Mind you some of the grammar changes are deliberate.  But it still needs a good polish.  I just thought I'd ramble it off and send it out while the feelings were still fresh in my mind.

Be doubly warned:  This is a piece of self-indulgence - so if you hate it or its boring you *can* stop reading {LOL}

Monday morning, I awake with a start, is it 4:30am yet?  Have I overslept?  Looks at the clock, no its only 4:00am.  4:00am after finally dropping off to sleep around 10:30pm last night – five and half hours.  Not bad.  Around usual {groan}  Snuggle back under the doona for little while longer.

So paranoid about sleeping through the alarm I always wake up early.  Hmm what’s that noise?  Oh the alarm –I must have dozed off again – 4:32 – OK only slept in a little bit.  Shower then off to check my emails ….

5:25am finished on the computer, checked emails, replied to some and moved some money around – broke again, oh well at least it was a good weekend with Paul and I’ve arranged some gifts for next month.  OK dressed, and out the door – thank god I packed my bag last night.  Can’t be bothered with the cat litter – will fix it tonight. Trub’s still in bed anyway, OK lock balcony door open, check pockets for wallet, car keys and train tickets, all in their right places, lock the door and trudge up the stairs to the car.

5:55am On the platform waiting for the train.  Its freezing. Its September and its stinging my cheeks freezing!  God I wish I had worn my heavy coat!  Looking over I see a train pulling in going the opposite way a couple are sitting in a carriage.  No-one else there, just the couple, snuggling and smiling.

I look around the faces beside me on the platform.  All grim or blank.  Those that have gloves are reading the newspaper, everyone else has their hands jammed in their pockets, eyes mostly closed, drowsing or just blanking out. I close my eyes joining them.

6:00am I hear shuffling, a change in breathing and the sounds of backpacks and handbags being shifted slightly – I know the train is approaching.  I open my eyes to watch the train come into the platform and the first couple of carriages glide past as it slowly comes to a stop.

The train is slightly forward today, the doors to the third carriage are about a foot to the left of me, instead if right in front, so I am the fourth person aboard instead of the first.  Makes no difference on a Monday morning, there are plenty of spare seats around.

I enter my usual downstairs carriage – S is there again.  I take a seat a few rows in front and on the other side of the carriage from him, blotting him out of my mind.

OK, deep breath!  Time to get on and get moving for the day.  I pull open my backpack. No book.  Darn!  OK definitely stitching. New project.  I have the fabric.  I have the floss !!!  Bought the floss on Friday – even bought an extra skein and put them straight in the project bag as soon as I got them home – damn I’m good.  OK scissors, pattern, needles!  Great.  OK, snip a length of DMC, thread the needle.  Slide the threaded needle throw the knee of my pants.  Find the middle of the chart, find the middle of the fabric, and find the nearest stitch.  Ready – OK where are the Q-snaps.  I forgot the Q-snaps!

OK stitching in hand today it is.  It’s difficult to do a pin-head start when the train is going over a bridge.  Hmmm – good Tales column “Places not to try a Pin-head start!”.  

Its even more difficult when my fingers wont warm up properly.  The pad of my right index finger is numb.  I’m right handed.  Hope this is temporary.  OK started and got first row in, coming back for the second, hmm – looks a little odd.

OK its Silkweaver 32 ct opalescent linen.  And it looks like some of the warp threads have pierced the waft.  Or the other way around!  I can barely see the holes, I am so tired!  How can I figure out when it’s supposed to be a hole and when it isn’t?  This is weird.  The last piece I tried didn’t have this problem.  Maybe it’s because I turned the fabric around and I’m stitching landscape.  Maybe I’m stitching on the wrong side of the fabric.  Does stitching linen have a right and wrong side????

OK focus Mel.  Look up and down the strands, ah yes this one is pierced and thus shouldn’t be counted, that one is a real hole, just looks like it shouldn’t be.  Oh this is too hard. OK undo back to the beginning and try again, concentrate on each stitch!  Don’t look around.  Don’t look at S. Don’t think about work, concentrate on the stitching.

S. S the wanker I’m starting to think of him in my head.  He works in another section at the Uni.  He sits in another cubicle that butts right up against mine and always prairie dogs when he thinks he’s got something funny to say.  I know if I turn around or look at him, he will immediately move and sit next to me and start a conversation!  He’s a married man with kids – and a lousy conversationalist.  When I was first catching the train, I got on at different carriages, and he would walk up and down the train looking for me so he could sit next to me.  A few jabs with the needle warned him not to sit next to me when I was stitching, but he sometimes still does anyway.  And he’s sooo depressing!  Everything is negative.  Couldn’t have a happy thought if his life depended on it.  He was gloomy that the APEC summit didn’t disrupt our travelling last week – it robbed him of something to complain about! {snort} Wanker.

Oh wow, I’ve got eight rows in!  No hassles with split fibres – must have been concentrating too closely.  I love stitching, it gives me a great chance to zone out and just let my fingers work.  I’ve seen people do the same thing with knitting.  Maybe that’s why I hate confetti stitching so much? Oh that’s bright!  Where are my sunnies.  Bright?  I look around – oh the sun’s up!  And we’re in the city – looking good.  Looks like it will be a bright clear day. Wonder if it will be warm?  Coming into a station, better take the opportunity to do the pinhead stitch to start the next thread!  I love the city stations, sometimes the train stays still for over a minute – perfect to get that pinhead stitch done!  And yes she beats the clock; she’s got two more stitches in before the train lurches ahead!

Lurches ahead.  Like the dalek I bought Paul for his birthday – god that was funny yesterday watching him unpack and put together his remote-controlled dalek. And then both of us zooming him around the loungeroom and kitchen of my place.  Well slow paced zooming anyway.  I remember a story Paul rang me when I got home last night.  He always rings me after I drop him off home, to say goodnight and make sure I have arrived home safely myself.  He’s so sweet sometimes.  I can just imagine the scene – he was using his Dalek to chase his cat around the loungeroom and the cat simply ran up the stairs!  I mean that’s exactly canon for old style Dr Who.  How do you get away from the “over-sized pepperpots”?  You run up or down a flight of stairs!

I wonder how much a hover Dalek would cost and where I could find one?

Another station and a passenger beside me for the first time this trip!  No bad odds.  Doing well today.  I move and reposition slightly so I’m not crowding him.  Its an older gentleman.  He says no, don’t move, you need to be comfortable to stitch!  Bless him!  Oh bugger!  That block was supposed to be four stitches wide, not five.  OK undo seven rows of stitching. Hmm – 35 stitches?  Is that a frog or just a tadpole?  It is 35 stitches – but its all in block and using the same thread ….. hmm might ask as a Wednesday Wobble.  Lovely gentleman sitting beside me - he clears his throat every few seconds.  Its amazing what sounds you can get used to !  Like a barking dog, you can just tune some sounds out – and anyway, he’s reading a Raymond E Feist book.  You can’t get annoyed with a fellow science-fiction reader.  Actually there are a lot of sci-fi readers on the trains.  Maybe it’s just because it’s a form of escapism for commuters?  Whoops that was one stitch out.  Frog three stitches and I'm back on track - that was definitely just a tadpole!

Ooops there goes S the wanker.  Disrupting his seat fellow and everyone standing in the aisles so he can be the first off the train!  I fail to see why?  He always jumps off and then stands and waits for me to emerge so he can talk to me.  I gave up trying to do things his way.  I’ll get off when there’s space and my seat fellow has moved.  Better pack up the stitching – oh kewl!  I’ve done about 100 stitches!  Looks like a cute letter S.  Well all progress is good progress.  

OK Mel time to get your game face on and go and deal with the world.  Its Monday.  wonder what the time is?  You’re about to start talking shop and you’ll have to start thinking about work now.  Well maybe I could that last bit off until after the bus ride.  He’s S striding beside me now.

Edited to include a pic of said stitching accomplishment.  The train home was only five carriages instead of the usual eight - so we were too crammed in like sardines to even consider stitching.

Tales of a Stitching Commuter - Part the Fifth (and Mel's update at the end)

It is a truth universally acknowledged, that a single man in possession of a good fort ... whoops wrong quote.#

It is a truth universally acknowledged that any sized project can be stitched on a train as long as it does not contain confetti stitching.

For the past few weeks I was struggling with a bookmark I was stitching for a friend's birthday.  Well most of you have heard my views on confetti stitching and fine art to cross stitch conversions.  Stitching four, two or even one stitch and then having to switch tot he next colour thread is *not* conducive to a relaxing train ride, or much stitching progress.  I found I was more and more dreading pulling this project out so I read instead.

This week I was determined to stitch something I enjoy working on!  I planned to start Historic Countries Mystery Sampler by Papillon Creations.

It is a truth universally acknowledged that any sized project can be stitched on a train as long as it does not contain confetti stitching and you have all your supplies.

Monday morning I spent too much time on the net (as usual) and forgot I hadn't packed my bag.  I realised that I hadn't actually organised myself for starting the new sampler; measured down to the right starting point, sorted out which floss I would need initially - sorted them onto floss ring or into bags etc.  So instead I hurriedly grabbed Rejoice and hurried out the door.  I *just* jumped onto the train a split second before the doors closed!

Settled down to stitch and realised that I only had the thread that was on the needle.  The bulk of the skein was on the floss ring - which I had taken out of the project bag over the weekend.  Oh well, its Monday morning I stitch slowly anyway. Spent the afternoon ride home sleeping.

Monday night I got myself organised for the new Sampler and even managed four stitches into it before I fell asleep with needle in hand.

It is a truth universally acknowledged that any sized project can be stitched on a train as long as it does not contain confetti stitching, you have all your supplies and the person sitting next to you is not eating.

Monday morning I again scurried for the train ( the pixies had hidden my car keys in plain view again) and just managed to squeeze on.  After walking a few carriages I found the last seat on my own and pulled out the sampler ready to stitch.  At the next stop a man sat down next to me and pulled out a greasy paper bag and immediately began to messily eat a meat pie.  Flakes of crust were coming down all over me and my stitching.  As I was brushing them off a gobbet of mince and gravy hit my jacket right where my stitching had been laying two seconds ago.  My sampler!  My beautiful fabric!  I turned the man and said "excuse me, do you think this is the right place to be sharing your breakfast with me?" as I was scrubbing at the spot on my jacket with a tissue.  He merely grinned and continued to eat. He went through four pies that morning!  The train was completely full with people standing in the aisles by this time, so there was no point trying to get past him to another part of the train.  Needless to say, no stitching got down and my jacket was covered in oil spots from the pastry.  He was careful enough (or lucky enough) not to drop anymore of the filling onto me though.

It is a truth universally acknowledged that any sized project can be stitched on a train as long as it does not contain confetti stitching, you have all your supplies and the person sitting next to you is not eating or knitting.

Tuesday afternoon, still feeling a little unnerved by the morning's encounter - and still wearing an oil spotted overcoat, I took out my book to read instead.  Two stops later the knitting lady## sat down next to me.  She looked over and said "oh you are reading, Ill leave you alone to read".  Brilliant!  A coward's way out of the situation!  "Oh yes" I replied, "its a fascinating book, and I've just got to the really juicy part".  I have no shame. 

So its a good book
mmmmm
So who's the author?
mmmm
What's it about?
mm hmm

At that point she pulled out a pillow that fastened around her neck and went to sleep!  Yayyy !  We did end up in a conversation one stop from home, but she was talking about her cats so that was good. Phew!

It is a truth universally acknowledged that any sized project can be stitched on a train as long as it does not contain confetti stitching, you have all your supplies, the person sitting next to you is not eating or knitting and you are actually awake.

I spent the early part of this week in an intensive training course and the latter part of the week doing my supervisor's work (he was at a conference interstate) so I was really very very tired this week.  Spent Wednesday and Thursday dozing on the train and fell asleep with a needle in my hand about a dozen stitches into Mystery Sampler each night.

I was simply too tired this week to even think about picking up Faïence. So again no more work done on my dragski.  Maybe I should give up and have him as my Christmas stitching project.

So to sum up: No work done on Faïence, very little done on Rejoice. About a third of the first part of the Mystery Sampler was done - and most of that on my Friday off.

In other news the never-ending birthday continues.  Present this week from Listmum Claire.  Also Lyne and Pennie gave me gift certificates and the goodies I bought with them arrived this week. 

Claire gave me the chart Feather Friends by Brittercup designs, a DMC cutter with a gorgeous hand made fob, and a cute ort collector and needle holder !!!  Practical tools I needed - thanks Claire !!!!!

Pennie bought me a gift certificate from 1-2-3 Stitch and asked me to use it to buy a Calico Crosswords chart from my Lust List.  Well I bought two!  Green Paw and Check Up (the two newest Kats by Kelly full sized designs).  There was even enough money left over to cover the international postage!  Thanks Pennie!

Lyne bought me a gift certificate for Vikki Clayton's Hand dyed Silks.  Seeing there wasn't a specific design I needed kitting up, I used the certificate to buy more of the Dragon threads!  Ooh they are luscious!  I love Dragon Opal and will use that to do my M design with (a companion piece to the P I stitched for a friend)  Thanks Lyne and thanks Annette for opening my eyes to these Dragon threads by Vikki.

Hope everyone else had a good stitching week!

#  Opening line to Jane Austen's Pride and Prejudice: It is a truth universally acknowledged, that a single man in possession of a good fortune, must be in want of a wife. 
http://thesamplergirl.homestead.com/MrDarcy.html

## For non-regular readers, I first encountered this lady in Tales Part 3

APEC

Asia Pacific Economic Corporation.  Or as the Chaser puts it, A Pointless Expensive Crock.

APEC is in town.  Its held in Sydney, the largest city in Australia, and the city I now work in.  The meeting starts officially today and goes all weekend, but visitors have been turning up all week.

This means that our Prime Minister and Dubya, and the Chinese head of state and every other leader in the asia pacific region is in town.  Which means that Australia is seeing the biggest security (read civil rights invasion force) that has ever been staged here.  Most of it because Dubya's here. {sigh}

At my Uni we are well away from the section of the city that has been cordoned off.  So my travel was not disrupted this week.  Getting to work early and leaving late meant that I missed most of the traffic congestion caused by motorcades coming in from the airport etc etc.

Also as the meeting officially starts today, anyone working in the metropolitan part of Sydney (including my Uni) got a free public holiday today.  Translation, stay the heck out of Sydney and get paid for doing so.  Fine by me!

Speaking of the Chaser - some of those boys got arrested yesterday. Full story here. And to full understand the Aussie opinion on it all, read the comments below the article!

I think it was a pretty good stunt they pulled.  Unfortunately as they weren't stopped at any of the regular checkpoints, they actually got to within 10 metres of the hotel where Dubya is staying before they revealed themselves (one dressed as Osama) before any of the security people cottoned on as to what was happening.  All the official sources are saying that the boys went too far with this stunt - but frankly what does it say about all of this security if they can get that far in and then had to draw attention to themselves to get noticed.

I think they mainly got arrested for flamboyantly exposing holes in the security.  I don't think even the Chaser guys expected the security to be so bad!  I think they just expected to get a few laughs out of chatting up the guys at the outermost checkpoint - but they just kept being allowed through and then the next one and then the next one until they were right outside Dubya's hotel .....

Sometimes I love working at a University.  All week all the commercial establishments such as cafes and restaurants and the student run activities have all been playing protest songs all day.  Everything from Pink's Please Mr President (which I have as the background on my main page) to Green Day's American Idiot to various Midnight Oil songs.

Only bad spot of the week was on my way out to one of these coffee shops a student ran full tilt into me, knocking me down and smashing my Ziltoid mug!  And the A-hole didn't even slow down, just kept running!

I'm more peeved over the loss of my mug - I love Ziltoid and bought that mug especially from the Devin Townsend site and got it shipped over from the States!  Grrrrrrr!

Other than that, I'm off to do some more present buying and then coffee with a friend and then P will probably be over this afternoon.  Hope I can find some time to get some stitching done :)

Today's pic is one Paul took after work a couple of months ago - this is how Trub and I usually stitch and in my usual stitching position.  Only difference is she's getting annoyed with the camera flash and looking over instead of curling her head inside and going back to sleep.  I remember that night because P left me there to stitch and unwind while he made dinner :)

Mel's Sunday Update

First up I'd like to apologise - no Tales of Stitching Commuter this week. I've had a few health issues this week and am feeling rather blah so my muse has fled for safer company I think :)

I only went to work Wed-Fri this week and spent most of my time on the train sleeping ...

I did however, get some stitching in on Monday and Tuesday while I was home and I have all the cross stitching completed on Castle Anniversary Sampler.

I finished the cross stitching Friday night before I fell asleep.

Yesterday I was feeling restless, I wasn't up to starting the specialty stitches on CAS yet I wasn't up to starting Faïence either .... so I hauled out one of the M Designs word ornaments Rejoice.  I bought the fabric for four of these during the recent PTP sale and this was the only one I have all the floss, beads and treasure for.

Only problem is, I am using the floss called for in the  chart - but it doesn't look anything like the floss in the cover picture !!!!  The floss in the cover pic has a definite blue parts of the variegated and Thread Gatherer Mississippi Mud definitely does not !!!

Wonder if the Thread Gatherer has changed its colouring for that floss or whether M Designs made an error on the chart.  Its weird because the beads it calls for are bronze in colour and the treasure is a topaz coloured star ..... So it all works together - it all just looks wrong!

Still deliberating whether to continue in the colours I've started or whether to change them out for others ....

This coming week is Faïence week and I will hopefully be starting the Papillon Historic Countries Mystery on the train this week.  I thought it was time I pushed myself into trying larger projects on the train and this, with its single colour motifs sounds like a perfect way to start!  And hey, if it all goes wrong at least I have something to put in a Tales from a Stitching Commuter column :)

OK I've had it, I'm off back to bed for another few hours :)

WIP - M Designs

A direct scan from the cover of the chart. Its very light and very small.

This is an album for all the M designs word charts that I have stashed - I thought they would be good projects for the train or when I get frustrated with whatever else I am working on.