Stitching Related Goals for 2011

Yep, even with 2010 being what it was, I'm still making some goals for 2011.  Admittedly these aren't life-consuming stressful goals.

• Keep up with my stitching commitments and not commit to anything else until I complete the commitments I have. This is where I am letting others down as well as myself. Kay's RR is being worked on now, and Rosanne's (which is due to be posted in Feb) is already here.  Also I have shamefully long overdue stitching to be done for Laura and Hilary. 

• Stitch and finish Mariann's birthday present. A couple of years ago Mariann specially made up for me instructions and a kit to start Hardanger or drawn thread work. There is now a person coming to the Colours Down Under friday night sessions who does a lot of this stuff and has agreed to help all of us through starting with hardanger and drawn thread.  My project for this get-together will be Mariann's Birthday present.

• Decide to either fully join in BAPXS and other stitching groups again, or to leave. This half-assed crap that I'm doing with yahoogroups is not conducive to anything productive. On a related note - is anyone interested in taking over the Wednesday Wobble as I've really let that aspect down too.

• Finish presents I have started for other people. i'm thinking here mainly of Wild Thing for Alison and Ash for Kim, but I'm sure there are a few others buried deep in the WIP pile.

• Finish at least one Chatelaine project.  This will most likely be Midi Mystery 1 or Mystery IX but I have a few others kitted up so you never know.

• Start and finish at least two new projects, one from Inkcircles and one from Cross Eyed Kat.  I have the projects in mind, I just have to rummage through my stash to *find* the charts, threads and fabric.
  

Christmas 2010

At the last Friday get-together at Colours Down Under, Cathy gave these out to all of the regular stitchers.

I've been bad at documenting my presents this year and saying thank you to those who sent them. So here are my lovely Christmas gifts and the people who sent them.

Vienna Ball in all her glory :)

I'll try to take some better pics later, but here is a first photo of Vienna Ball completely finished. Its slightly out of focus but you can ceertainly see the beads.  Feel free to make the pic larger to look closer, but I do warn it is slightly out of focus ...

Mel's Sunday Update

Just a quick post ... I had to do a mini happy dance.  All the cross stitching and back stitching on Vienna Ball is complete.

Now to start the beading .....

Well alright, now to bed.  Beading after work tomorrow.....

Mel's Sunday Update

I've been a quiet on the stitching front, well I've been a bit quiet all around I guess.  I've picked up some additional hours at work what with it coming into the holiday season so I've been working flat out and mostly too tired to stitch when I get home.  Part 11 of Vienna Ball was also a lot larger than I expected (never make assumptions).

So for a few weeks there I gave up on Vienna Ball entirely and stitched two smalls.  Jewel by Moonflower Needleart and Morale by Sue Hillis.  Both are in my finished album.

Then back to Vienna Ball.  I finally, last night, finished Part 11.  Pics in the Vienna Ball album.

Now to make dinner and then settle in to start Part 12 (the last Part!!!!!!) of Vienna Ball.

Mel's Sunday update

Well I got through another part on Vienna Ball this week.  Its now September and I'm now working on September's part! Woot!

I haven't stitched anything else for months, but I'm finally back up to date-ish on this one :)

Total progress at end of Part 9 here.
Part 9 closeup here.

Hope everyone had a great week!

Mel's Sunday Update (on Monday)

What with working yesterday, I completely forgot to post this ...

Our insane attack kitteh currently has cabin fever.  At aged 4/5 months she has come on heat.  The vets wont neuter her while she is on heat or at the moment anyway because she is too small.  The only answer has been to lock her inside the house for two weeks or risk her getting pregnant.  Every entrance to our home (doors and windows) have all been sprayed by multiple male cats .... we are under siege!  (without Steven Segal!)

So for the latter part of last week and I suspect the next 10 days I wont get any stitching done.  The kitten simply goes feral when I pick it up and she has actually stripped the needle from the floss and carried the needle off, (while I'm trying to catch her) too many times already.

Pause while I clean up and change clothes.  Eating coco pops, blogging and fending off bored attack kitty at the same time is a dangerous occupation.

Anyway, in the earlier part of last week I did manage to finish off Part 7 of Vienna Ball.  The peacock.

Album here.
Peacock here.

Hugs
Mel.

Mel's Sunday Update

Morning all,  Well I finally managed a little stitching time this week, and finished off the lamppost in Vienna Ball.  That's seven parts done now :) 

Album here.
Close-up of lamppost here.

Hope everyone has a good week this week.

Mel's Sunday Update

Yes I have actually been stitching!!  It took throwing in a part time job *and* getting the flu to do so - but I have finally been stitching.

I stitched up a segment on Lyne's RR And a Forest Grew.  I basically did a hodge podge of motifs to finish off page two and do all of page three up to the surrounding for the wording.

Close up of motifs including mine:
Progress on Lyne's RR as it was posted onwards:

I also finally finished Part 5 on Vienna Ball.  This was a simple piece of six shades of grey with just a touch of backstitching around the vases, but it took me all month to find the time to get it done.  I finished it 2 hours before Part 9 was released :)

Part 5 Close up
Whole piece at the end of Part 5.

And that's it for this week.  Hope everyone else had a productive week stitching.

Mel's "What day is it?" Update

Well life has had its downs recently and now it has a few ups.

I've landed a part time role at my local library as a skills librarian - a training role.  This is quite different to anything I've been formally hired to do before so I'm actually looking forward to it.  I start on 15 June 2009.  Its only part time and very poorly paid, but any money is better than no money.

I've also been stitching a lot lately.  As the above pic shows, I have two main forms of therapy and I get depressed when I don't pay attention to both of them. 

I have updated my finished album.  I have three pieces finished so far this year and they are all Inkcircles designs.  This is pure serendipity!

I've finished my section on Claire's RR in our private round robin. 

I've finally finished Part 2 of Vienna Ball.  On the day that Part 7 is released!

But I'm making progress and life looks like it might be on the way up.  I even got half of my books unpacked and on the shelves yesterday.  Now just to get the unpacking fairies to unpack while I sleep so I can spend the last remaining week of unemployment stitching.  Unfortunately that is not likely :(

Stitching Update

Well I think I've finally managed to get my camera connected to Mr NTB's computer.  I can't edit or "clean up" the pics in any way so these are just raw photos.  Sorry.

First up is an update to Black Bloomers. 
Apologies for the amount of cat hair.  I don't have my lint brushes with me.  I'm loving the way this one is turning out.

Also update to Vienna Ball.
Yes I have the whole border finished. Finally.  Apparently the amount of teeth gritting and golem like behaviour has been increasing as this part of the project seemed never-ending :yes I will finish my precioussssss".

So - now do I go back to Black Bloomers, start on part 2 of Vienna Ball or start something else I have with me?  Or read a book?

Today's picture is one of the last ones I took of Trubs in the old house.  As you can see there are a number of strategically placed baskets around the room and she sleeps directly on the floor right in the middle of them all.  She's a cat.

Mel's Sunday Update

OK so its Monday and this is actually the first one I've put up for the year - I'm a slacker :)

Finishes:
Well I've only had one finish so far this year and an almost finish. BoInk is finished a scant couple of weeks ahead of the pack and Moscow I'm waiting on replacement threads from Vervaco in Belgium.

Round Robins:
Well the International Round Robin is off to a good start this year.  Mine is now with Laura and I've just finished my part on Kay's.  Kay's was quite fun because its all speciality stitches. Not a standard cross stitch in sight!  Of course I shouldn't have tried to stitch it with a head cold .....

Chatelaine's:
Well thanks to the vagaries of International mail (and an incompetent nincompoop who actually delivers the mail)  I've only received one of my Christmas presents this week.  So Chatelaine Workshop 1 will start at some point in the future even though the actual group is now closed.

I have however started Vienna Ball.  I'm still not 100% happy with my fabric.  But I'm using it anyway.  Part One is the border and I'm less than half way through - but I've got a while to catch up, we're only on Part 4 in the group ....

Black Bloomers:
You've all seen Tracy's pastel masterpiece Bloomers?  Well Tracy has sent me a variation to stitch called Black Bloomers.  I hope to be starting this tonight.

Gifts:
Speaking of International mail, a gift Kay sent back in September 2008 arrived this week!  I had been sent here, never delivered, never found by local postal staff, eventually sent back to the UK, repackaged by Kay and posted to my new Post Box and ta da! it is here. 

I adore the stitched dragon in the frame!  This sits next to my monitor every day!  Surprisingly the chocolate was still edible (urp).  The Socks look so kewl and I adore the Devil keyring :) The cat toy squeaks as well as being filled with catnip and on an extra long elastic.  I can't wait for Trubs to wake up to try this!

After Tracy showed a computer mock-up of Black Bloomers I decided I had to stitch it.  I begged Tracy for the conversion and put in an order for the chart (and the Celtic Ice ornament kit also fell into my basket),

Tracy added the fabric, all the threads and a copy of the Twisted Heart chart to my package.  Isn't she the sweetest!



Stitching wise that's about it from me so far this year - I know I'm a slow stitcher :)  The picture at the top of the screen is a type of pigeon that I'm now getting to my feeder station.  Sorry for the blurriness of the picture its taken through a screen door and a glass door.  The little things are still fearful and fly off as soon as I poke the camera out the door.

OK time for dinner and then to prepare my clothes, resume etc for an agency interview tomorrow morning.

Its the little things

If all bits and bobs arrived in time I planned on starting Vienna Ball on New Years Day.

I collected most of the DMC.
The specialty kit arrived from Debbie.
On New Years Eve the fabric arrived.

It was hideous.  OK not hideous - it was in fact quite a pretty pastel sky blue.  For something that called "Evening Shadows" and supposed to be dark purples and greys ????

Pictures for comparison here.

I was quite depressed about the whole thing.  I have emailed Catherine at Country Stitch and sending the fabric back.  She is dyeing a different colour for me once I decide between Twilight and Thundercloud.

So instead on New Years Day I continued stitching on Moscow.

I was sitting it down late last night (ahem early hours of the morning) and viewing the work from a distance - as you do.  I admit I was still a bit rankled that I was working on it instead of Vienna Ball. 

Mr S was just finishing up his stuff when I made the comment "I always seem to be working on boring pieces when you are around"/

I received a distracted "I don't think any of your stitching projects look boring".

Its the little things .....

Happy 2009 to all!

WIP - Vienna Ball

Cover pic. Need to change the background fabric.

Group files started first of December 2008. Kit arrived early January. Thanks for help in fabric selection.

Mel's Sunday Update

Not much stitching at all done this week I'm afraid.  Busy at work, Christmas things, power outage and migraines all conspired against me :)

The only stitching I did this week was this cute little small.  After all of the gift stitching I thought I'd add one tiny piece in for myself.  I actually stitched just about all of this on Thursday afternoon/evening sitting in my front garden waiting for the electricity to come back on.

Good?  Is in my 2008 Finished Album.

Also in there are the framed versions of Coffin Buzz and Verdi.

Zoom in on Coffin Buzz - I am quite pleased how this monster came out.  It is huge by the way - 20" x 24".  I had no idea this little piece would frame up so big.

The framer was fast - he framed all four pieces within a week - but I left the other two pieces there until next payday so I can finish paying for them:)

Only other news is I'm now subscribed to this and Debbie so very kindly RAKed me with the kit minus the fabric.  Mariann - want to SAL with us on this one? 

This week I'm back to BoInk trying to stay ahead of the pack while getting through a full workweek, preparing the house for visitors and doing the last of the Christmas shopping .... arrrrgh!

Now back to your regularly scheduled serenity ....

Tantrum - feel free to ignore

http://europeanxs.com/online.html

I WANTZ IT !!!!

OK I know I've put myself on a self-imposed stash diet ....

I missed seeing this one before and I REALLY want it.

Not buying the kit really hurts ....

I have the money this pay but it needs to go on other things to reduce my debts.

But I REALLY want this one.

Wonder if its too late to ask Santa for a Christmas present? (hmmm no chimney, no stocking ... no belief in anthropomorphic Coke advertisements - could be an issue!)

If any unexpected and therefore unbudgeted money comes through in the next few months - the cash is going on the kit for this.

I've broken my promise already by subscribing to the chart ....  I'll collect the chart pieces for now.

{pout}

Mel's Monday Update

Did no stitching on the train last week,  I tried, I had a small confetti-type piece I wanted to do, but my enthusiasm waned far too quickly !!!  I ended up reading for most of the week.  Tales of a Reading Commuter doesn't have the same ring to it.

At home (read most of Saturday and Sunday morning) I completed Part 1 of Chatelaine's Anniversary Castle Sampler (minus the beads).

My maths for working out the border were actually correct.  Its just that it turned out I had worked the maths for the inner-corner of the border and then started the outer corner of the border at that point, so the whole thing was too far to the right and too low down the fabric by 10 stitches. (The width of the larger corner block).

I did a kinda fix on the horizontal (unpicked the corner, added in one more brick and moved the corner block to the left of that) but by the time I got to the bottom of the vertical side, I couldn't be bothered and left it as is :)

I really like these Rhodes stitches and I love the Waterlillies colour used int he border too. I used three threads for the Rhodes stitches to make them stand out more - give them more of a textural change.

I haven't included any beads yet. I'll leave them until the end. I learned my lesson on Mystery IX.