Category Archives: Mirabilia

WIP Wednesday, WIPocalypse with Winners

Posted in cross stitch, Mirabilia, WIPocalypse by

Hmmm – how was that for alliteration?!

Let’s start at the top. WIP Wednesday is post day this week- April’s piece is done and will be off in the post to Crafty Rahenna today. I chose Christmas Elegance and went thru HEAPS of beads.

April's piece - only Rahenna & Lenna to go and it looks gorgeous.

April’s piece – only Rahenna & Lenna to go and it looks gorgeous.

Christmas Elegance

Christmas Elegance

I’m not sure what I will pick up next – I have decided to frog Roses of Provence as I simply can’t cope with the uneveness of linen & so I’ll sell or swap that fabric. So there’s Persephone in progress or I have some 25ct Lugana for some Christmas ornaments & the bookmarks. That should give my eyes a rest – I was in hospital on Saturday hooked up to the good drugs for the migraine & while the optometrist says my prescription hasn’t changed enough to warrant a change of glasses I think I’ll get that double checked.

Then we’re up to WIPocalypse. This month’s question was around special threads and being scared to use. Mine would be Whisper – I hear it’s awful to stitch with. I haven’t even brought any, and chose to stitch the reindeer tails in B5200! Eventually I’ll get some and test but I can buy two packs of beads, six skeins of DMC or 1.5 rolls of Kreinik or a skein of Waterlillies for the same price, so right now I don’t think it’s all that important.

20151027_194535Last night I stopped at the top of Metcalfe and took the shot. Sorry this is with my cell but the moon was gorgeous. Mase said it looked like a cheese wheel, Z was slightly more poetic and said it looked like paper on fire.

And now we have winners! Thank you for the feedback. I am grateful.

Snippets:

1 Fawn https://stitchtherapyblog.wordpress.com/
2 eadouglas http://douglust.com/
3 Ginny https://mytimestitching.wordpress.com/

Yes – three winners! Fawn & Douglust will be sent the snippets, and Ginny, I hope you’ll love Travelling Bunny. He got returned to me recently after some time in the ether but I’ll send him on complete with some goodies and the rules. I think you’ll love him. I posted about him HERE

and for the bookmark? I’ll be making TWO. Congrats to

1 Jenna Austens
2 KerryCan Mysteries

please email me at paulainauckland(AT)gmail(DOT)com with your postal details!

WIP Wednesday

Posted in cross stitch, Mirabilia, round robin by

First – please don’t forget to enter my blog giveaway! Check it out HERE and make a comment – entries are open until next WIPocalypse – only one more week! 🙂

20151015_170443We’ve gone from the League merry-go-round to the swim merry-go-round. This one involves a lot of early starts/early finishes at work, driving then sitting around. I spent about 4 hours there last week. This is my usual view now.

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Roses of Provence as at 18/10

I am up to a lot more data entry at work, up from roughly 600 delivery issues in July to 1100 last month. My right wrist is really, really sore and stitching has slowed down. I’m sure this is also due to stitching on 32ct linen as I’m finding I’m very annoyed with the unevenness of the weave. I got past that on Stargazer but I’m not sure I will on Provence – this is after about 8 hours. The leaves have been converted to more even greens; the charted were too lime for the dye of the fabric. I may frog and sell this fabric, and start again on Belfast. I am also plodding along with Christmas Elegance – found one mistake & frogged a little. I think I’ll wag work for a few hours Friday and go to the stitching drop in. I miss the community that arises around stitching or craft groups. I can also grab a pack of Mill Hill to bead around her cape. I had thought of using the Abalone in my stash but it’s not quite right.

Christmas Elegance as at 21/10

Christmas Elegance as at 21/10 – backstitching makes all the difference!

I also got some stash. I wanted Ashley’s Roses and this came as a set. So now I have two copies of Rose of Sharon and Sleeping Beauty. I’m more than happy to swap so drop me a line.

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The seller also had the seasonal angels from Lavender & Lace so I tripled my L&L stash with this bunch of 8 J no, I have no idea when I will get around to stitching everything in my folder, but who cares?

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Hi Five for Friday!

Posted in cross stitch, family, grateful, High Five For Friday, house - gardens, Mirabilia by

Because it’s October, I’m in my Grateful series.

  1. The leaves are starting to appear on my dwarf apple tree. And there are buds on my climbing rose, which I still need to plant in situ. I forgot to take photos, sorry.
  2. ROPI had so many choices about what to start on my next stitching piece which will be (tah dah!) Roses of Provence. I’ve just snuck off my beads & Kreinik order to Elizabeth (stitchnz.co.nz for Kiwi followers. Her service is AWESOME!). Unfortunately the Summer Queen didn’t arrive in the post, but the seller gave me a refund.
  3. I’m recovering from the flu so my energy levels, while still all over the place, are coming back.
  4. 240_galleryBran has agreed to join Swim Club at the base. He was reluctant as it’s a step up, more time and he will have to wear “budgie smugglers” but he’ll get over it when he realises all the other boys are too. I’m glad because otherwise we would have run out of class options at the end of this term & swimming is such good therapy for head injuries as well as a de-stressing tool. I’m tempted to get him these ones (available at budgysmugglers.com.au) but I think I’d best go with plain black speedos.
  5. My eye test this year only showed a slight deterioration in one eye, not enough to warrant changing my prescription. I am ordering prescription sunnies tho and I expect that in a couple of weeks I’ll be asking myself why I didn’t do this earlier. I drive into the sun in the morning and then again in the evening which we agreed is stressing & adding to the headaches I can get. But there is no disease apparent or retinal detachment. Yay!

WIP Wednesday

Posted in conversion details, cross stitch, DIY home, family, Mirabilia by

I’ve had a real up & down week. Early last week I came down with the flu, thanks to my boss and a workmate who just didn’t stay away (ugh). I crashed Wednesday (yay for scheduled posts, altho this is one I would never normally schedule), worked from home Thursday then lazed around all weekend. I think one day, in between coughing fits, napping and doing absolutely nothing, I had the massive achievement of 18% of my activity goal. Hmm. But feeling a lot better now, almost caught up on work after two days at the kitchen bench on the laptop, so here we go!

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I did get these stitched this last week. I figured that if I was giving them away, I had better stitch them first! Residence was altered to match my house – we’re at #36, it has a brown roof & beige bricks, and I have lemon & apple trees. Then I altered the colours in Stitching Forever (hubby doesn’t love the sentiment, to be fair, but hey! His laundry gets done and that’s all that counts). Lizzie*Kate designs are so easy to alter to whatever suits you so if you’re at all hesitant on converting threads, they’re ideal to start with. If you don’t like the look of something, there’s only a little to frog out. For example, I was originally going to make the initial letters to resemble illuminated letters – but that looked too odd! I’ve also deliberately duplicated some colours so that when they are hung there will be some visual “same/same”.

trees!

trees!

Also please don’t forget to enter my blog giveaway! Check it out HERE and make a comment – entries are open until next WIPocalypse!

Original Used featured
Residence
470 4045
322 as charted
924 930 door, words
3823 3782
829 839
899 3756 windows
3363 3345
windows – b/s in 839
other – b/s in 3733
lemons MH 02002
apples MH03056
Original Used featured
Stitching Forever
3740 930 lettering
309 as charted
210 309 S back
3364 4045
3363 367
3740 3021 centre letters
3364 3782 H back

IMG_20151011_125930I also made Mase some jammie pants for summer. This is the trial piece – I had to alter the Simplicity pattern to make butt/legs for a 7y.o and the waist for a 4y.o! I think the fabric is perfect – a light cotton with monkeys.

Next up is a big decision – Raven Queen, Roses of Provence or another blitz on Persephone? I do have to buy two threads to complete April’s Mira RR and while that’s on 40ct (eep!) there’s less than a week’s worth of stitching to do here. I ended up using Christmas Elegance, which is another I could start, as I do have the fabric for it, as I think the one used in the model stitch is perfect…thoughts? FB is leaning towards RQ, Instagram towards RoP. That’s no help! Please comment! 

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Raven Queen. I do have all the sparklies for her.

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Provence. I’d need to get the beads for her.

High 5 4 Friday!

Posted in cross stitch, family, friends, grateful, High Five For Friday, Mirabilia, round robin by

As it’s Thanksgiving period for my State-side friends, I thought this month’s High 5’s would be things I’m grateful for.

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Cross stitch can be so so satisfying. I finished the V (another goal crossed off!) and rocked straight into the international Mira RR piece. This is two days of Christmas Elegance.
Daylight savings means more play time. Z at Browns Bay.
Flu mess keep the crap at bay. But they do stop me from hitting post on the last entry!

But the most important thing this week is Baby M. He belongs to M, and is an absolute sign of faith and prayer. Born in early September at 30 weeks, he’s a fighter. He’s inspiring a group of us to praise God & keep praying for his family and the hospital staff. Please join us in prayer. Seeing faith in action is amazing.

WIP Wednesday

Posted in cross stitch, family, grateful, me, Mirabilia, round robin by

Today’s WIP are brought to you with a bit of bitterness on my tongue. I won’t go into this too much, as I am not out here for sympathy, but I am choosing to walk away (click away?) from a FB group. I will miss some aspects of the community but it’s healthier for me (& less drama for others) if I just leave. So that’s what I’ve done. This way I can forgive & then forget without the constant reminder that someone let me down then broke my trust in them.

Keely's choice; Angels from XS Crazy 2012

Keely’s choice; Angels from XS Crazy 2012

Anyways, let’s get onto the good stuff. This is where I left Keely’s piece at last week. Since then I have completed most of the Angel’s skirt, her wings (blah to DMC metallic) and some of the presents that are on the bottom left. I forgot to take a more up-to-date shot (even on Instagram) so next week’s will look much more complete. I won’t be posting it this week tho, which gives Kathryn a bit more breathing space.

I’m waiting on the international Mira RR to get to me still but I had to get back into something that was my own for a little bit.

progress as at 9th Sept

progress as at 9th Sept

The rugby world cup has started and so I pulled out Persephone while the AB’s played Argentina (very) early Monday morning. I got two cranes done then, and a half plus the ribbon done while supervising homework later than day. I love working with the silks of the Waterlillies – this is the first piece I’ve used them in, as they are quite expensive down here and previously I’ve always subbed them with the DMC. I’ve now got the frame around the top done so it will be all about filling in this last section of “wallpaper” this week. I can’t wait to start back-stitching to define her face but that beading should wait until the end. It’s heavy already given that I stitch “in hand” & I don’t think I should add to that weight yet!

Let’s see if that thought lasts until Christmas, hmm?!

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progress as at 22nd Sept

WIP Wednesday

Posted in cross stitch, Mirabilia, round robin, steptember 2015 by

Well for today I don’t have much to show at all. I managed a few days on the wallpaper of Persephone (while bingeing on SOA). The left top corner now only needs the beads, which I will do much, much later. It’s a carrot to keep stitching along, especially as I wasn’t sure about doing the background initially.

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Then one of the NZ round robins I am organising went to custard. I have picked up the two pieces that were at one person’s house and now have THREE robins I’m stitching in. Luckily I don’t have the latest Mira one yet (probably next week) but the person hadn’t stitched much on the other pieces – one is due to be posted next Friday (not even opened!) and the other was a couple of weeks ago. Part of the issue was out of her control but I’m still disappointed.

I’ve decided to work on Andi’s piece this week (in between work, rep footy and walking) – it’s a Shannon Wasilieff piece called Gingerbread Houses. It’s available in her etsy store. I found this image on Google from another blog (mylifeisinstitches.blogspot.com which now looks like it’s been abandoned).

gingerbread SAL

I’m going to start the top left house & I’ll probably ignore the border – but the goal is to get a house done quick smart and off to Kathryn as soon as I can!

And she’s done!

Posted in conversion details, cross stitch, Mirabilia, Nora Corbett by

Yay for Saturday mornings with no sport.

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And a close up:

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I did change out some beads, more because I had them to hand but they fit so well on this fabric. Everything is still Mill Hill.
16603 became 03016.
18828 became 00143 (happily the packet I didn’t use for Stargazer).
In the bubble trails from her fins, I used 00150 instead of silver and 00161 instead of 02010.

I do feel a little stupid in that she’s been sitting in a bag for a year, and it was only a week to get a finish!

WIP Wednesday

Posted in cross stitch, Mirabilia, Nora Corbett by

So as I’m in between round robins and I felt kind of stupid having all those beads and something that was nearly a finish so…

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I finished her hair this morning. Just a tip: of you’re planning on stashing a WIP for any decent period, highlight where you get up to. That’ll save you a few hours!

Her tail is beading up quickly, as I’m only attaching them with a half stitch. All shiny!

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August WIPocalypse

Posted in cross stitch, grateful, Mirabilia, WIPocalypse by

WIPocalypse is a monthly-ish blog hop hosted by Measi.  This moon’s task was to choose a WIP and tell the story.

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This is Mediterranean Mermaid. Long time followers will know all about her; but for everyone else, this is why she’s still a WIP.

Our youngest, Mase, often has asthma flareups. Bad ones. End up on nebuliser ones. It’s long hours, often alone as there are other children at home, so I had to have a project that was permanently packed & could go anywhere with me. Lynne suggested Jug (as in, she carries an amphorae).

But so far in 2015, and with winter nearly over, we’ve kept Mase under control. Small flares, nothing major. Poor Jug hasn’t been worked on for nearly a year (I even brought the beads earlier this year in preparation),

It’s hard to feel for her tho!