I’ve had a finishy week – both the Thames biscornu is complete, ready for assembly at class AND I completed the Just Nan Porch Garden Mice humbug. Lesson? Always interface Floba before finishing. I didn’t, and the base is a bit shady. However, it’s done and on the shelf! That’s another assembly method I now can do.
Shady side hidden!
I also machine stitched the small stockings for the Makower UK advent calendar. 48hems, 24 assembled items – it was actually quite brain numbing but now it’s DONE hallelujah. I still need to iron and buy a wide red or gold ribbin, and 24 wooden clips for the display, but it’s only September so I’m doing OK.
I also had a follow up visit with the GP regarding my long covid, and I now have another daily med to add to the rattle. After two days my sinuses do feel less “full” or pressurised, so hopefully this stops the frequent headaches and migraines. She said it’s very common for sinuses to go into overdrive for an extended period, but couldn’t tell me how long this period might be!
So it’s been a long while since I wrote. If you haven’t been on my IG, we’ve got a lot to catch up on.
Family-wise, we’ve grown although maybe not in the expected way. Back in February, Si was putting in the last of the Expol underfloor insulation. I was in the room above him and I heard an “oh shit!’ then a much much louder “go and get your mother!”. I went around and under the house where he told me that he thought we had rats. We don’t even have a compost bin and live in suburbia, and I thought this was really unrealistic. Sure enough, after I grabbed his headtorch and had a look, it wasn’t. I was exceptionally passive aggressive when I made the torch shine directly in his eyes and said “…it’s kittens”.
Turns out Mama Cat was dumped when the people behind us moved out. She wasn’t much more than a kitten herself and was malnourished and therefore so were the kittens. We found three live kittens and brought them into the house to be warmed up and fed. So now we have Charlie (was 205gm), Elise (was 225gm) and Kayn (was 265gm) – at nearly six months, Kayn is “average” while the girls are much smaller, but everyone is now thriving. Mama is now spayed and re-homed, but the three terrors are staying with us.
Charlie, day oneKayn, Elise & Charlie, night oneCharlie, on Sunday. An ideal builders cat!
And I have a teenager again – and we’ve done the high school visit. Ouch.
Work-wise, nothing much has changed for me. The role has reduced down again, so it’s getting to time to look for something more. I have read over the material for the next Tikanga paper, and decided not to proceed there. I think language might be the go, or a dressmaking course. Honestly, it’s all about me so I’ll move the way I want to.
Reading-wise, I am devouring older Nora Roberts, Deb Kastner, Becky Wade and anything that has a Christian/K-9 Assistance trope. Luckily that’s a huge swathe of Harlequin novels so I’ll be there until that runs out. Re-watching older episodes of Grey’s Anatomy, Taskmaster UK, and The Great British Sewing Bee. I made a lined waistcoat for Si, for his formal awards dinner (his team theme was loud), and now I’ve mastered darts and bagging out. Woot. Patrick Grant would still be looking down his nose at it!
Stitching wise, I have finished quite a few things, started some more and purchased even more. I have mastered a few embroidery stitches – queen was a real headache to ensure it was even – and have put off starting a Chatelaine mandala as (insert gasps here) I have fallen into the full coverage rabbit hole. I know. I know!! Please God, let me live to 102… Pattern Keeper is an amazing app
Finishes:
Mirabilia Fairy Idyll
HOD North Pole Trading Company (adapted to two antlers, not three)
Mill Hill Sunday Night (two of course, and FFO’d)
HOD Cookie Exchange SAL (need to FFO on a kitchen board)
HOD Reflect Upon Your Present Blessings
La-D-Da Sweet Pea (on Floba, FFO’d even!)
Tis The Season Abigail’s Sampler (good for learning new stitches)
Faby Reilly Fox biscornu (ready to FFO at the Thames Retreat)
Sweet Pea #ffo
Still to complete:
Chatelaine Castle I (still back stitching the gate)
Beth Twist/Heartstring Samplery Coffee Quaker (my over one conversion)
Mirabilia Princess Elliana (still working on conversion)
Mirabilia Le Nouveau Sampler (LHS of garden)
Mirabilia Fairy Tales (to bead)
Started since we last chatted:
Nora Corbett Coral Charms (converting to the same look as my Luce Mia mermaid)
Stitching Jules’ Watercolour Sheltie (via etsy, about 15%)
HAED Lesley Anne Ivory Tournee Le Chat Noir (about 12%, but it’s HUGE)
Ink Circles Red Velvet
HAED Aimee Stewart Cliffhanger (mini, just over 26%)
Just Nan Garden Porch Mice (on floba)
Cliffhanger by Aimee Stewart
I’m also working on the Nora Corbett Patreon pattern, Rogue Dragon. He’ll be converted, as hers is red/orange tones, and that isn’t my jam. He’s the next cab off the rank once Garden Porch Mice is done, as I really do want to see what & how the humbug forms. I’ve not completed one of those before. One of the ladies at the embroidery group I go to had one done last month, but on 32ct so much smaller. I have the 32ct for this one still with the chart, but I doubt I’ll do it again. Also, the urn and mice could go well into another Hare, especially if I was to use the same shape as the Sweet Pea I finished this month.
Anyway, I will try to write more frequently. I’d like to get back into a weekly routine again, and Zeb has been asking for flosstube again. Not sure if I have the emotional spoons for that but we’ll see. Where on earth would I start from??
Hello! It’s early evening for me, & I’m snuggled up, watching TV & stitching on this week’s #magicalstitches homework. The challenge is around Professor Umbridge becoming headmaster of Hogwarts, so we have to stitch on something we wanted to quit. Ouch.
Last week I chose the penalty challenge. We had to link our piece to how we would divert Umbridge & her squad from finding the Room of Requirement and the students who were studying in Hermione’s illegal Defense Against the Dark Arts club, or Dumbledore’s Army, as they became known.
I chose Shakespeare’s Fairies, making up how they were flitting around the castle, winding up Filch, Mrs Norris & encouraging Peeves to add to the chaos. I’ve just been marked so that story worked!
I’m now up to the wings & skin of the last fairy, and into the second page. Hooray!
And on a super cool note, Donovan is SOLD. One more bout of cleaning, lawn & garden maintenance and Si & I are done.
I could quite easily copy/paste the same info as last time we met.
Still plodding away on the reno at MIL’s (deck done, but the weather isn’t conducive to concreting so Mase & I have been planting like mad things)…he took the photos from this last batch. It’s cool to have a gardening buddy. We knew the tags are unlikely to stay with the plants, so at least we have a rough idea of what we planted in this batch. His fav is the Fireworks.
Still radio silence from the SIL (I’m about ready to tell her not to come up, but that would hurt the MIL & actually, I need a break)…
Still working slowly on Fairy Idyll…mostly hour chunks when I can get control of the TV remote from Mum! We watched The Great NZ Bake Off last night, and the guy in the photo was eliminated. GF sponge cake is hard, y’all.
I did start and finish CloudsFactory’s The Princess Bride, as a tribute to William Goldman. If you haven’t seen the movie, you’re in for a treat. And it’s PG, so family safe. I think I want to add his name and dates to the bottom tho. Appropriately, this is on Cloudburst 28ct Lugana from Countrystitch.
Now, because the stitchy bug has been gone, or superseded with all the other things, I didn’t post in either the Oct or Nov WIPocalypse pages. I’ve given up on Stitch From Stash, as I have been buying ALL THE THINGS and really gone ridiculous (for me. Maybe not if you’re Katy the Stash Queen). I am daily anticipating the first parcel from 123…and the fabric from Catherine at Countrystitch. I went for Urewera Mist (that mottle one). I’m going to return Gail’s Fairy Idyll chart as I have my working copy & will hunt out an original for myself. I really, really want to work on Shakespeare’s Fairies so I will, once the fabric arrives. Stitching & guilt shouldn’t go together IMO, & I also know that if I do park a Mira for a while, I will always return to it.
So – here’s the Q&A I missed from the last two episodes.
October 28 – Do you prefer to stitch on a rotation or one project at a time? I’ve tried rotation and it doesn’t work for me. I prefer to leave a project out on the bars rather than pop on or off…& I usually have a car project with me to break up the monotony of being monogamous.
November 25 – What new stitches or techniques did you learn this year? Eh – nothing. I brought back some embroidery (two hoops, whoop-de-woo) & perfected my pin stitch, but that’s about it.
I’m telling myself it’s still Wednesday somewhere…
Not much had been done in the way of stitching this last week. However, Mum’s gardens are cleaned up, re-planted & barked. I need some more filler plants but I need to research a little first. Low pollen is needed, but she wants colour. Right.
We’ve also started the ramp… at the recommended 1:12 fall, it’s going to be over 9 metres. Eep. That’s a lot of timber, folks (yes, we could get a temporary metal ramp, but that wouldn’t tie into the existing decks and it would look very, very ugly). I learnt how to rout timber!
On the bad side of things, the SIL is still in radio silence with everyone but mum. Christmas is going to be interesting.
So. Minimal work on Fairy Idyll, but one strand more of the over one was included in all that.
Hope you all have a lovely Stitchy or yarny but joy filled week.
This past week has been really odd, frantic busy & I haven’t had much stitching time at all. I finally started Little House Needlework’s Bethlehem & this is all I have managed, in between swearing & work, while in my little office.
We finished the work at the MIL’s on Tuesday, just in time to run home, clean up & shoot into town to see Jimmy Carr at the Aotea Centre. Another night without eating (trying to get parking & pre-pay so we didn’t get towed ate up the time) but it was so worth it. I know he’s crass & non PC, but his humour is on multiple intellectual levels. And his reaction to hecklers is spot on. I laughed until my cheeks hurt & very nearly at crying point. And we had a late night visitor – those stripes look odd!
Last night MIL and the boys arrived home – hooray! She kept on saying she’d loved what we had done, but then spoiled it a little by commenting about our wanting to sell it. For the fifty-fifth thousandth time – it’s not us thinking about selling. Grr. She has a lot of trouble just being grateful & that is getting to me. After all, that space was original 1979…it was well past due!
I don’t see much stitching in the next week either – I want to go to the last days of the Corsini Collection at Auckland Art Gallery. It closes Sunday but I plan on going Saturday with Mase in tow.
Blurb: From the private collection of the eminent Corsini family in Florence, Italy, comes this fascinating exhibition featuring Renaissance and Baroque painting by artists such as Botticelli, Andrea del Sarto, Caravaggio and Pontormo.
The exhibition provides a window on the family’s continuing passion for collecting art, their support of artists, and their ongoing loyalty to the city of Florence, which has prevailed through the devastation of WWll and the inescapable forces of nature during the flood of Florence in 1966.
Portraits, landscape, mythological and religious paintings, as well as sculpture, works on paper, furniture, costumes, embroidery, games, kitchen equipment and a lavish dining room set for six, will portray the life of this family at the Palazzo Corsini and their patronage of the arts.
It’s been a busy week. My mind is alternating between frantic & lazy, so I know I’m about to reach the end of all my tolerance.
Since last Wednesday, my Twitter #nzsecretsanta parcel has been checked into Santa’s warehouse, & bonus! The one that is coming to me is also checked in. Mase won Player of the Day at Tag; and celebrated finishing Goldfish #3 at swim school with “play” day, or what the teachers would call survival skills. Ben, his teacher, is off to Massey Uni next year as he has been accepted into Veterinary school. Mase’s sentiments? Hmm. I finished the last colour of Believe – and would you believe it, going back thru my planner I saw that I started this in January. That is how much I have hated stitching on a big piece of perforated paper! We had the school concert last night, finished painting the bathroom (I can hear Elizabeth’s “about time!” comment lol) and I am nearly done beading the second of the Jamaica Santas.
The bathroom is clean & clear of all the debris. 840kg worth, people. My wrist & shoulders hurt. Simon started nailing down the new tile slate tonight. With “help”.
I managed to get a decent hour or two in Fairy Idyll after everyone else went to bed. Hooray! That’s another 250+ stitches in this weekend.
I got up early this morning, mostly for coffee & to hustle the Screaming Teen out the door; he was getting picked up at 7am for a day refereeing. I got five or six threads into Fairy Idyll before the rest of the house got moving, then we got stuck into demo.
We learnt a few things.
Only one of the walls had the proper gib (wallboard).
The toilet pan was glued to the floor. No screws.
The cistern wasn’t fixed at all.
The basin carcass was also glued, not screwed.
The ammt of glue used to hold down the top wouldn’t fill a bottle lid.
Surprisingly there was insulation in the outside wall. We had our doubts by the time we got to that one.
I’d forgotten how much I hate demo. And yay! We’ll get to do it all over again with our bath before summer ends.
sewscrapmuse 