Tag Archives: cross-stitch

No Jiggety Jig

Posted on June 5, 2006 | 8 comments

Well, we’re home again, home again, jiggety jig, as they say. Though on account of my stitches, more likely ‘no jiggety jig’, as Finn always insists :giggle:

The news, in very brief…

In true Small fashion, she decided to rebel against all plans, and arrive a little early. Almost three weeks, actually, and boy, we were so not ready! But yay, I got to have my VBAC after all! Brief gory details: my waters broke Friday night and the hospital admitted me with the intention of going into surgery the following morning if labour didn’t come on naturally. It did. It was (relatively) fast and seriously unpleasant, as she was posterior. By the time I got an epidural, I was already fully dilated, but I’m not sure I could have successfully survived the rest without it – in another measure of conservatism on the part of the hospital, I was given a 1-hour-pushing ultimatum. From there it would have been straight to theatre. Let me tell you, that worked wonders for my motivation – I sure as heck got her out in an hour… but just! Small was born on June 3rd, 11.05am.

The girl herself is (of course) just beautiful, and true to name, and contrary to the double-chinned photo OtherHalf posted, she’s Small, at just 2.87kg (6lb 5oz)! So much tinier than Finn was, at 3.78kg (8lb 5oz).

It seems the other cat is already out of the bag – no doubt I let it slip more places than I realised 🙂 Finn’s new baby sister is Niamh Mary. For the curious, and I know you all are, Niamh is pronounced ‘Neeve’, and comes from Celtic Mythology – Niamh of the Golden Hair, daughter of Mannanan, the Celtic God of the sea. I’ll let you Google the rest of the story if you’re interested 🙂 Mary is for OtherHalf’s mother who I never knew – she died from cancer many years ago. June 3rd was also Mary’s birthday (and, coincidentally and quite sadly, her death-day), so it seemed appropriate for us to choose ‘Mary’ for a second name instead of ‘Sara’ as originally planned.

So yes. I had a rather interesting weekend! Thank you everybody for such wonderful wishes, I appreciate each and every one of you, and I’ll be back soon with more attractive pictures!

By the way… You’ll like this. Completely appropriately, my waters broke while I was sitting stitching my latest start – ‘You were hatched’, by TW! I’ll show you a WIP when I get a chance.

8 Comments

Posted in Counted Stitchwork, Family, Pregnancy, The Kids

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Exchanges – More

Posted on May 26, 2006 | 4 comments

TWGTG-ornie
As an addendum to yesterday Wednesday’s entry, the mail today brought my half of the Aussie TWBBers ornament exchange. Tannia stitched TWs Intermediate Whitework Ornament for me in great autumnal shades (click for more). Lovely – thanks Tannia 🙂

Edit: Did you see what happened there? I lost an entire day – here I thought I’d blogged yesterday, but it was in fact the day before. Hey! Somebody bring back my lost day!

4 Comments

Posted in Counted Stitchwork, Finished

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Exchanges Galore

Posted on May 24, 2006 | 2 comments

Way hey – a non-baby post! I have the glories of two exchanges to show off today.
mels-exchange1a

Melanie’s Exchange, much as it wanted for a better name, was an exchange I moderated on the SBEBB. An interesting kind of exchange – the first part entails sending a specialty thread and embellishment of some kind off to somebody. For the second part, you stitch a design using the thread/embellishment you receive in part 1, to send to a different somebody. Um… clear as mud? Anyway, for part 1, I received a Weeks Dye Works floss and some lovely beads from Chiara, with which I stitched this heart (which is part of a freebie by Liberty Street Designs for Thread Gatherer). I made it up into a little treat bag (clickety-click for more details) for Heather. The pics come courtesy of Heather, since it completely slipped my hormonal mind to take any!

mels-exchange5a
Also, yesterday’s mail brought my second package with it. I received my stitched piece from Paula. Paula designed this herself – a lovely needlebook and matching scissor fob (clickety-click to see). I love it! See the inside here, and the extra goodies here.

TW-fob
I also have pictures to share of a scissor fob I sent to Linda in an exchange between the Aussie TWBBers (clickety-click again for the details). I stitched the corner motifs from TW’s Castle Sampler, one on each side of the fob. I really had a hard time parting with this, I must stitch the same for myself one day. It was nice to be stitching something by Teresa again, it’s been a while.

Coming up next on my exchange calendar is the Friendship Exchange. My partner is Leslie, and I’ve come up with something I think/hope is perfect for her. I had to order it in, hopefully it gets here soon and I can make a start. After that, another scissor fob exchange, on the Rotation BB. After that… I need to take a break from ‘obligation’ stitching, because Small will be here, and I’ll be doing my best to rejoin the ranks of humanity!

2 Comments

Posted in Counted Stitchwork, Finished

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New Stuff

Posted on April 21, 2006 | 2 comments

Christine, your comment about crazy stash acquisition made me smile… since going off the Wagon Challenge at the end of ’05, I’ve been a bit crazy myself. I haven’t always fully confessed, but needless to say, I haven’t stuck to that ‘goal oriented’ plan I had 😳 My latest temptation was the SB&B Easter Sale, and I’m waiting on a couple of The Cat’s Whiskers charts, Enchanted Mermaid, a Drawn Thread chart and some mesh bags. I think that’s it!

purple_fabric

Anyway, all guilt aside – first off today, a new fabric I dyed up recently. I adore this. It’s a fat quarter of 28-count Lugana, and I dyed it with Mirabilia’s Midsummers Night Dream in mind. I have just plugged it into the fabric viewer, and it does look lovely with that design, but there’s a number of other Mirabilias it looks great for too – oddly enough, Enchanted Mermaid is one of them. I never envisaged a purple for that design.

I have a bunch of other white fabric just waiting for inspiration to strike – 2 FQs of Quaker (my personal favourite), 3 FQs of Cashel, and 2 more of Lugana. I also have a piece of Belfast I dyed but hate the results of, so I’m going to try over-dyeing that to see what I can acheive. Hopefully, if I get a bunch of satisfactory fabrics out of this lot, my desire for stash expansion will subside a little!

md-motdb20
Next is my newest start – yet another Mirabilia – Mermaids of the Deep Blue. I seem to be going through a very definite Mirabilia phase at the moment 🙂 I’d estimate there’s about 20 hours put into this so far, though I didn’t record times so far. There’s two weekends away worth of work in it, put it that way. I’m stitching this on hand-dyed Babbling Brook Jobelan – my first large piece on Jobelan, and I like it more than I thought I would, actually.

2 Comments

Posted in Counted Stitchwork, Dyeworks, General Ramblings, In Progress, Other Craft

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I’m a Silkweaver Floozy!

Posted on April 12, 2006 | 1 comment

Ahhhhhh. Nothing quite like a Silkweaver order to put my mood back on the top shelf. I finally got to an Odds & Ends update before everything disappeared, and baby, I cleaned up on the 28-count fabrics! For the curious, here’s the list: Cashel in Misty Blue, Ice Blue, Smokey Pearl, Lilac & Vintage Country Mocha; Jobelan in Dove Gray & Twilight Blue; Lugana in Pewter, Lavender Bliss & Moss Green 😆

My stash is a bit light on fabrics, so this will provide a healthy boost. I must say though, I’m a bit sad Silkweaver are going out of the standard fabrics business. They have always had such a great range and their prices and postage are wonderful. The stash-packs and small cuts were great, I don’t see similar offerings anywhere else (though please enlighten me if there are). In my dreams there would be one fantastic ONS where I could get everything I wanted, rather than having to shop multiple locations.

Something else happened today to put a huge smile on my face. Annette sent me a simply gorgeous, snuggly baby afghan for Small. I don’t have a picture yet, but I promise to show you very soon.

We’re going away for a few days over the Easter weekend… I know, still no Floss tutorial, I’m sorry 🙁 I’ve just been super busy doing… hmmmm, not really sure. This’n’that, really! But I have been super busy doing it! Hope you all have a lovely Easter as well, and I’ll see you when I’m back 🙂

1 Comment

Posted in Counted Stitchwork, General Ramblings

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Like a Machine, I Am!

Posted on March 21, 2006 | 5 comments

Or so said OtherHalf last night… and before minds fall into the gutter 😛 , what he actually said was “you’re a cross-stitching machine”! Here’s why:

Friday-Sunday: Elizabeth’s Designs Little Leaf Designs – Butterfly
ED-butterfly
Sunday-Monday: Teresa Wentzler’s Intermediate Whitework Ornament (free on her website)
tw-int-whitework
Monday-Tuesday: Indigo Rose Four Little Hearts freebie
indigo-rose-freebie
Hopefully I’m about to become a dyeing machine again, because as of 8 this morning, I am in possession of a lot of floss 🙂 🙂 🙂

5 Comments

Posted in Counted Stitchwork, Finished

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My Unyellow Lilly

Posted on March 6, 2006 | 6 comments

As I mentioned, DMC didn’t want to come to the party on the deep plummy-burgundy colours I had in mind. This is what happened instead:
mdlilly10

Bear in mind this is my first conversion ever. Someone more experienced/talented than I might have been able to massage and blend the available colours to get closer than I have. But it seems to me there aren’t a good range of deeper shades in DMC. For perspective, the lightest pink here is DMC 3727. The darkest shade here is actually a Weeks dye works floss – ‘Bordeaux’, and is more what I had in mind for the mid-tones. The fabric is ‘Sapphire Sky’ Cashel by Silkweaver.

Putting aside the frustration of not being able to get exactly what I wanted, I am actually pretty happy with how it’s turning out. More ‘Rose Satin’ than ‘Burgundy Velvet’, but pretty all the same. I’m not at all sure whether I’m going to go with the original ‘blankie’ colours now or convert to greens as I had planned. She’s had her first ten hours anyway, so she’s going away for a little while, and I’ll cross that bridge next time I get to her.

So… put on your Critic’s cap and tell me what you honestly think so far 🙂

6 Comments

Posted in Counted Stitchwork, In Progress

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For Laura

Posted on February 26, 2006 | 5 comments

And for me

And for all who loved and miss her

Iris-for-Laura

5 Comments

Posted in Counted Stitchwork, Finished

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Warning: Border Ahead

Posted on February 25, 2006 | 5 comments

Yesterday I finished a ten hour slot on Patricia Allison’s Spring Dragon. I took a ‘before’ shot, since the last one you saw wasn’t completely up to date.

SD-02
SD-03

You can see I spent most of the ten hours on border leaves and backstitching. If you will excuse my language, this border is a bitch! (And if you don’t excuse the language, it still is :giggle: ). I also stitched on a negligible amount of gold treasure, and would have done more if I hadn’t suddenly found myself without 032BF… how can that be possible?! Stash gremlins are at work in my house again, I swear – I’ve also ‘misplaced’ a few of the threads I need for Mermaids of the Deep Blue, which I had intended to start next, and some red crystals I recently traded for (but can’t even remember what they’re for)!

The colour of the fabric, by the way, is woefully inaccurate in these photos. Imagine a lighter colour with a more greenish cast to it, and you’re about there. It’s Rue Green Quaker cloth, for those that need to know 🙂

I went cross-country today to visit a not-so-LNS to pick up some more 032BF, plus supplies for my exchange partner, and fibers for the quilt square I’m stitching in memory of Laura. I do love this particular shop, but I really, really, loathe paying Australian prices for anything. Support local business, sure, but there is a limit – effectively, I couldn’t afford this hobby if I had to rely on getting everything locally 🙁

5 Comments

Posted in Counted Stitchwork, In Progress

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Blah

Posted on February 20, 2006 | 2 comments

Yep, that’s about it. Blah.

I had a very Not Fun blood-taking experience today. The vein in question has apparently decided to bleed under my skin, thus I have a gory looking inner elbow right now. Ewww :yuk:

Oh… in case you’re wondering (and I’m sure you were on the edge of your seats!) a long-neglected WIP won the screaming contest – I dragged out Spring Dragon, and have so far spent 3 hours of a planned 10 working on it. On the never ending border. Achieving apparently nothing. Grrr. Then today I spent almost that length of time again re-kitting it, because I decided I hate working from DMC flossbows for large projects, and have (gasp!) returned to bobbining. I swore I would never bobbin again, but here we are :bored:

Blah.

2 Comments

Posted in Counted Stitchwork, In Progress

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