Picture This

A plump woman in her mid 30s with vibrant dark purple hair, wearing all black. Her clothes are black. Her backpack is black.  Her MP3 player and ear buds are all black.  Coming out of the ear buds is Ziltoid the Omniscient (Devin Townsend - comedic heavy metal).

And she is calmly stitching a sweet little cherry and chocolate design on light pink fabric with the words "How do I love thee, let me count the ways" clearly emblazoned ....

Apparently it confused lots of passengers on the train this morning .......

Valuable Advice

You've heard the one that says "Don't drink and Drive" ???

I have a new one:

Don't Stitch and Txt !!!!!

I was txting with two good friends on the train this morning and stitching in between txt messages.  I was packing up as the train pulled into the station and discovered I made a mistake right back at the beginning and will need to frog almost everything I stitched this morning.

So next time you consider txting while stitching, I say DON'T DO IT !!!

Regards

From Little Things ...

Woke up this morning very yucky.

Bad period.  Crampy, Yucky, Messy. Blah. 

Had shower. Gave up. Went back to bed.

Got up at a decent hour (nearly 9am).  Made breakfast, showered again, took drugs (Naprogesic) and decided I'd better be useful.

Went shopping for cat food and cat litter - Trubs lets me know when she's low on the first and needs changing on the second!

Today I have:
* bought Trubs specialist dry food and food for birdies (shop is out of my way normally)
* checked in at framers (Fireflower still not ready)
* claimed money back from my health insurance fund (again only open 9-5 Mon-Fri - when else can I do this?)
* bought new work shoes (something I was putting off)
* bought 5 new T-shorts (relegating the last of the SCA T-shirts to the rag bag)
* bought assorted vitamins and stuff for general good health (looking after me)
* bought food, bought cleaning products, bought Trub food and cleaning stuff.
* Changed health fund insurance companies (had been meaning to do this for six months)
* Changed mobile phone plans (ditto)

So out of a day I took off work because I was feeling too miserable and too messy to spend 2 hours on the train .... I got a lot of procrastinated projects done.

My new health insurer has all the benefits of the old, plus added benefits all for a lower fee per month.  Also I can claim money back over the phone instead of having to go into a stupid branch on my one day off a month!  And they will pay towards my remedial massage up to $400 a year.

My new phone plan kicks on 25th March and will include a few hundred free txts a month!  This is another procrastinated project.  My txting has been steadily increasing every month with my bills getting larger and larger .... this month sky-rocketed and that forced me into action.  So after 25 March I can txt as much as I like every month :)

The T-shirts are an emotional moving on for me.  They are the last constant reminder of my old life.  There was a time where the *only* T-shirts I bought were commemorative SCA event T-shirts.

I stopped attending SCA events in 2001 so my T-shirts are getting rather old and tatty.  I finally did it today.  I bought new T-shirts.  I happen to loathe clothes shopping but I've kept the rest of my wardrobe up to date except for the T-shirts.  Even late last year they were at the stage where Paul would not be seen out of the house with me until I changed out of my T-shirts :) 

Something clicked today.  Something made it easier to let go of some imaginary feelings and move on.  I dealt with issues that I had been avoiding.

A good thing.

Oh and the pics of the spiders?  My house seems surrounded by them !!!!!  I could draw a long bow of allegory and make comments of spiders and webs and weaving and being industrious ... but I can't be bothered. 

I'm off for another shower and some more naprogesics and a good lie down .....

EDIT:
And in the manner of all such things, at 6:00pm at night I disover that my lights fuse has blown sometime during the day.

I have no idea how to change a fuse and this one looks really blown - black soot and some areas the enamel has come off down to bare metal .... so the landlady has called an electrician who will come out tomorrow afternoon sometime.

No stitching for me tonight.  I do have power though so still the internet, and cooking facilities and a hot shower for the morning.  Oh well maybe I just need an early night :) :)

Monday Morning

Walking past the Coffee Cart on the way into work I noticed the three gorgeous guys there were wearing identical T-shirts that said:

Good Food comes from Good Stock

One of these days I'll get my mind out of the gutter and find out what they are really advertising :)

Caught the culprit

This week' I've been working on "How do I Love Thee by Designs by Lisa.

WIP pics here.

Chele RAKed me with this one with the comments "I think you should stitch this pattern for YOU! ... For every stitch, think of another person who loves you just the way you are right now!"

Well, with such a kind message how could I do anything but start it immediately - after all Chele RAKed me the threads as well as the chart.  So I did a floss toss that night and started it on the train the next day.

All was going well until the morning of the third day - the train was just pulling into the station when I put the finishing touches on the main heart motif and was admiring it before I put it away when I thought the heart was looking a little squashed .....

I had missed out an entire row in the middle of it.  I had to frog the entire top of the heart.

Well no pun intended but I didn't have the heart for it .... so I left it alone until the cricket started this afternoon. I frogged and restitched large sections of the heart and continued on.

I was interrupted by Trubs about a half hour ago - she was being too athletic - that meant she had live prey.  She was playing with a frog.  My cat, my friend, my sleeping partner brought a frog into my house !!!!!

I took a pic of the little feller before I put him back outside.  Trubs is now scratching at the back door because I've got her locked in until the frog makes his safe escape .......

I figured it was as good a time as any to show an update of today's stitching. There is very little of the red thread left.  Its CUPID by Crescent Colours.   I suspect even if I hadn't made a stupid mistake, I still would not have had enough thread to finish the entire design.

Nowhere on the chart does it mention that you need more than one skein ...... {sigh}

Well after chatting with two LNS stores I finally found a second skein of CUPID today .... mum has one !!!  She's posting it to me sometime this coming week.

Birds

No matter how much I winge, rant, rave or vent .....

there's is nothing in my life so bad that session of hand feeding wild parrots cannot fix.

Equanimity is restored (even if I am on dial up speeds for the next 2 and a half weeks)

Today's music squabbling lorikeets with accompaniment by Enya .....

Lust List - Threads

ThreadworX 6 stranded cotton 1025 Blue Navy

1 skein Northern Pine: Blue Bayou

A listing of threads needed for charts in my stash that I would like to stitch. This is my go-to list when I see items come on special :) The list is broken into two sections:

REGULAR A-Z
Threads needed to kit up charts in my stash. Although the threads are listed via manufacturer to make it easier to sort through for the sales, each one does list the project it will be used for.

KITS $$ LOWEST - HIGHEST
The kits (as opposed to single threads) are listed at the bottom of the page. Some of the items in the kits have more than one colourway option. In every case I have left the option of the colourway choice up to the buyer. I figure if, in the unlikely even someone actually spends serious money on a gift for me, then they can choose which colours they like would to see the item stitched up in :)

Otherwise when I buy it myself (see above reference to sales season!) then I can decide on the day I purchase it :)