Category Archives: Mirabilia

WIP Wednesday

Posted in me, Mirabilia, Nora Corbett, stitching patterns, Teresa Wentzler by

So after putting down my fairy (and forgetting to initial it, FAIL, so pulling it out again), I had to have a severe talking to myself. My WIP pile was growing and while not as large as some in any of the FB groups I belong to, it takes up nearly a whole drawer in my craft organiser. Right now (in age order)

  • Si’s country scene (a Stoney Creek design that bores me now & he’s forgotten about)
  • Teresa Wentzler Tapestry Cat
  • Z’s birth sampler which needs a whole section re-charted or frogged out
  • Teresa Wentzler Noah’s Ark – the frame broke so it’s just sitting on the bars
  • Nora Corbett Arezzo – who had the great idea of doing this all over one?! What a muppet. I’m waiting till true Summer so I can do this in daylight
  • Mirabilia Stargazer – which I started this year
  • Nora Corbett Mediterranean Mermaid – again, started this year & is my hospital visit piece

I didn’t consider either of the TWs (I would have to re-kit out the Ark and I’m up to the over one anyway) so I dangled a metaphorical carrot over my head. Do a decent week on a WIP and you can start something new. So I got out my Maria, which is on (un)evenweaved linen. 32 count too. Ugh. She looks good but it’s very, very slow compared to anything on Lugana. But having to slow down might help my wrist heal.

stargazer dec 3

The orange is what I’ve done since Saturday night…getting along. The gaps are where I need to bead – lots and lots of beads. She’s coming to Sydney too – eight or nine hours at airports or on a plane means a decent chunk will get done. The biscornu disaster is postponed again!

Dealing with Pressure – NaBloPoMo four

Posted in books, Journal, me, Mirabilia, NaBloPoMo, photos, stitching patterns by

normal

Normal by Lizzie*Kate & stitched by Claire. Pattern available here: http://www.123stitch.com/item/Lizzie-Kate-Normal-is-Just-a-Setting-Cross-Stitch-Kit/LK-K32

Sometimes I can deal with pressure like a sponge, and soak it all up. Sometimes the smallest thing will set me off. I guess everyone goes thru phases like this. After going thru a crap last six months at a previous employer, I have learnt a few things. I also know that I would rather work for someone else and be able to shut the door behind me at night.

four

  1. Have a PLAN for achieving things. If I record something, I am not only more likely to do it, I’m more likely to achieve more. Plus planning allows for movement. Urgent report? Move this to do that. Easy. Take a look at the diary offering at your local stationery/big box store or try the planner link from yesterday.
  2. Have an ESCAPE HATCH. Do something that makes you happy, be it something crafty, read a chapter, surf the web, go for a short walk. I return to work refreshed when I do one of these.
  3. While I have been known to crank up Seether, I usually listen to something softer. (Confession? I am a closet Nickelback listener, but more of their earlier stuff. Yeah I know, such little justification!) Make a playlist of your favourites, hook up the iPod/phone, find a radio station, listen to a book. I am a bit late to the party but have discovered podcasts. BBC comedy? Yes please. Lee Mack, you need to get on there more.
  4. Have something in your pod/office space that INSPIRES you. I have no outside windows so I have a few extra things. A huge Eiffel Tower canvas from Typo in Onehunga. Glass candlesticks with globes, turned to where my friend Jill is sailing presently or where friends who need prayer are (it will be showing Noo York for a while). A framed stitching piece (converted version of a Mirabilia mermaid’s compass). Inspirational quotes – we’ll get into some of those each Thursday. A Garfield coffee mug from L that holds my pens & pencils & stuff and makes me smile, as I know she was thinking of me when she brought it. Photos that bring back memories. Too many electronic devices.
  5. Nine times out of ten, a toddler is cranky ‘cause they’re hungry. The same thing applies to us too. Eat lunch away from your desk for an extra mental break. And so your keyboard doesn’t get full of crumbs and yucky stuff.

What do you have around you? What do you do to help alleviate pressure at work? Do you have any other podcast recs?

imagesCA9AHI2U

oh oh yeah yeah yeah yeah

Posted in family, house - gardens, me, Mirabilia, Nora Corbett, Project Life by

I’m currently reading “The Lady in Red” which is a biography about Lady Seymour Worsley, who was the centrepiece of a major Georgian trial in February 1782. Seymour was a contemporary of Georgiana, the Duchess of Devonshire (yes, that Duchess as in the movie) and until I got to page 141, I didn’t realise her antics far outstripped that of the Duchess. I’d resisted reading any further than a brief synopsis on Amazon, so imagine my eyes popping out of my head…

I started reading as an offshoot of my Tudor reading (Seymour’s husband was a direct descendant of that Worsley) and because I’ve always liked Regency/Georgian history. What I didn’t realise is that this bio is like a train wreck – you know someone’s made an absolute mess of things but you can’t stop reading.

The centrepiece of this is a Criminal Conversion trial against a Maurice George Bisset by Sir Richard Worsley and also Sir Richard’s movement to restrict his wife further, after she had gone against convention and run away with his fellow officer, Bisset. Picture this – Worsley is screened from view in the open court forum of the Court of the King’s Bench. His four lawyers have presented what seems like a water-tight case of adultery and “crim. con.” against Bisset, and he can feel that the jurors are on his side (he was asking an almost impossible sum, twenty thousand pounds damages) and soon all the embarrassment will be over.

Then the defence lawyers, namely one Edward Bearcroft, drop the bomb. As Justice Mansfield has stated, “If a Plantiff encourages, or is privy to, or consenting at all, or contributing to the debauchery of his Wife, or joined in it, he ought not to recover a verdict.”

Bearcroft then starts to reveal Seymour’s marital history. “Prior connections to such an extent that the idea of seduction by the present Defendant was totally done away”.

So this is the bit that I am now up to. Annoyed that I have to put it down and return to my spreadsheets! Altho it is starting to sound a bit like a Women’s Day or Slater/Whale Oil salacious “news” article, ick.

Non-affiliate link: http://www.amazon.com/Lady-Red-Eighteenth-Century-Scandal-Divorce/dp/B0071UN9CI/ref=sr_1_1?s=books&ie=UTF8&qid=1412622484&sr=1-1&keywords=the+lady+in+red

If you like the thought of this one, also try my absolute fav, the biography of Jane Digby (the cover is coming off, and yes, I actually kept the print version!) http://www.amazon.com/Scandalous-Life-Biography-Jane-Digby/dp/1857024699/ref=pd_sim_b_3?ie=UTF8&refRID=15DZ27YSD4HTTVPVCWCX Anything by Mary S. Lovell is well worth the hunt.

 

On other news, tonight is Date Night. We’re off to see Gone Girl (hopefully) dependant on Si’s physio appt.

Stitching – still on the mermaid and I haven’t picked up Stargazer in weeks, if not months. I’m so tired! Yesterday got given some meds and discussed further treatment options. A couple of choices ahead. What is apparent is that I can’t keep up with having an iron level as low as it has been. I didn’t even dare tell the doctor about the dizzy spells.

Stayed up late Sunday to watch the Rabbitohs thump the Bulldogs. WOO HOO! One of the best Grand Finals I’ve seen in a while, courage on the field and little dirty play. The ref also didn’t decide the game, the players did, which is an improvement on some of the season’s games. Mase now wants me to buy him Souths jammies when we go to Sydney later on this year, while B is telling me he was only wearing his Bulldogs gear because it was all he had (cough). Yeah, right.

Project Life – caught up on June, July & August. Need a few hours each weekend and that is hard to find!

Gardening – got all the seedlings out and the weather turned nasty. Resigned to re-sowing the tomatoes and cucumbers. Some basil & Italian parsley that I had on the windowsill are thriving in the old coffee cans. Can’t wait to make my own pesto. The rosemary cuttings that were on the windowsill are doing ok too, out in the pot on the patio. Starting to plan how I will plant out the top end of the section but this is a little restricted, given the stormwater drain running along the fence line.

Journal, day eight

Posted in Journal, me, Mirabilia, Nora Corbett, stitching patterns by

Prompt 8

The snowman walked in the air! Nancy Sinatra wore boots that were made for walking. Your mission today, if you choose to accept it, is to write about the last time you walked in the rain.

‘All truly great thoughts are conceived by walking’
Friedrich Nietzsche

 

2014-07-08 19.34.07

Today. That would be today.

I caught the train again today (it’s around fifteen minutes walk there, and ten on the other end) as I couldn’t be bothered to drive. Well & truly at work before I realised that I’d left my brolly behind, and then a couple of minutes later the tweets start.

Wind Warning. Thunder. Lightening (cue song in my head). Heavy Rain.

Brr. Got home before the worst of it, but I still had to pour the water out of my flats when I got home! But at least I don’t have to wash my face #panda

2014-07-08 19.33.12

something for my english friends 🙂

Excellent news: all my blood tests came back in range, except one which I shan’t worry about. I still have a well functioning liver! Months to go before I have another scan tho. And…yesterday’s step count, which roughly equals 11.1km!

2014-07-07 21.51.07

I haven’t rotated my stitching again this week – I need to go to Ribbon Rose and get some Kreinik and beads so I’ll plod along with Stargazer’s dress. I think she’s looking gorgeous.

2014-07-08 19.14.41

Mase has been practicing his writing; there will be tears when he starts school next term and is told that he can’t write everything in block letters. At least he didn’t include New South Wales in his list of favourite teams, but where are my Bunnies?! Time for bed, little man.

2014-07-08 19.18.42

 

Catching up

Posted in me, Mirabilia, Nora Corbett, stitching patterns, Teresa Wentzler, Uncategorized by

So last week I had the brilliant idea that I should follow Anne’s example and rotate stitching. So I planned a start to Stargazer, kitted up another Nora Corbett/Mirabilia (Mediterranean Mermaid) and planned on working on Tapestry Cat in week three.

It’s week three and I can’t be bothered with TC. Part of this is a reluctance to pick up the confetti like stitches, part is the flu. I have the man flu! Managed to get one of the strains NOT covered in the injection, which was not clever of me at all. Stink bro, as Gish sings…

image

Mermaid after one week

Stitching

Posted in Christmas, embroidery, me, Mirabilia, Nora Corbett, stitching patterns, Teresa Wentzler by

2014 saw the start of a big creativity phase. So far, I’ve…

  • started and completed Teresa Wentzler’s Stretch (her dragon logo) and a little Christmas ornament is ready to finish as a hanging ornament. 

Stretch
  • I also added some beads to Misty, one of the TW Rocking Horses. I think she’s ready to frame now.
    detail from Misty


  • attended an embroidery class with Zeb, a new friend (who I’m sure will get me in lots of trouble and laughs in years to come). I’m fairly confident with about ten stitches now.

My StitchSmith owl. Yet to be completed. Cause I’m lazy.

  • started and completed Nora Corbett’s Santa’s Sleigh AND AM TOTALLY IN LOVE WITH IT, so much so that I have acquired six of her reindeer patterns.  
    The Sleigh, nearly completed (some beading was still to be done at this point)

  • started Nora Corbett’s Arezzo, setting the bar high in making this my first colour conversion (hate the dress colour and the lilac roses, and have made the leaves darker) and my first “over 1”, meaning over the one thread not the usual two. Squintville, here I come. Not sure if this is truly an NC or a Mirabilia design, but it’s pretty and delicate.

Nora Corbett’s Arezzo

I’ve also stitched quite a few Christmas ornaments (starting early, but there is a lot of downtime while you’re waiting at league training and for reports to run) and made a cushion cover from a Pintrest image. Check out my NYC envelope cushion!