Archive for the 'Counted Stitchwork' Category
Finn, Niamh and I spent yesterday morning with Marita and her girls, and Marita’s sister in law and her boys. There was playing, snacking, and even (shock!) stitching. Not much of that, mind you, but I gave a little bit of love to my Wee Beasties dragonfly. It was such a lovely morning, company and weather-wise, that I was reluctant to leave, but Finn needed to go to kinder, and Niamh to bed, so we had to head off all too soon. Hanging out for the next time! Funny, just a few short months ago, I was lamenting the fact that I didn’t have any crafty friends who also had kids of a similar age. I guess sometimes the universe takes notice 
Then in the evening I spent a good long time on the phone to a close friend who I have been woeful at keeping in touch with these last few years (since I had babies and she went off to other parts of the world - if that sounds a touch green-eyed-monster-ish, it isn’t meant to!). She’s now back home(ish)… in Tasmania, and (surprise, Mel!) expecting her first baby in December. I’m so excited for her, and hoping to make plans to get there for a visit sometime in ‘08.
Today’s pic is finally the promised photo of Elizabeth’s Designs A Simple Life. The grass at the bottom was kind of tricky - I didn’t want the variegation in the thread to come through in vertical or horizontal stripes, so I intentionally stitched ‘blocks’ of the grass at a time, trying to emulate dappled sunlight coming through the tree. Not quite sure it was 100% successful, but y’know, it looks okay, I think. And marks finish number 9 for 2007.
September 07 2007 | Counted Stitchwork and Finished and General Ramblings | 9 Comments »
(Aka a-very-boring-blog-post)
Stuff 1
My order arrived a few days back, and the bits I couldn’t remember were a couple of Elizabeth’s Designs charts: Red Door and Nature’s Alphabet. Nice! I saw Junette’s finished Nature’s Alphabet ages ago, and liked it then, but when I saw Carol’s finished fobs (here, here, here… and more…), I was completely sold. So pretty!
Stuff 2
It appears Niamh suddenly prefers bottle to boob at bedtime. I am simultaneously saddened yet relieved it wasn’t difficult. Only snuggly-in-bed-morning-feeds left now, and who knows how few of those to go 
September 04 2007 | Counted Stitchwork and Family and General Ramblings and The Kids | 2 Comments »
With the exception of today, Melbourne put on a lovely show of weather this week. Yesterday afternoon, while Niamh was sleeping off a bad case of the grumpies (please let it be teething, oh please let it be teething - I can’t cope if she’s going into the tantrummy-twos already), Finn and I sat under this:
Finn (with liberal amounts of help) worked on this:
I worked on this:
(which incidentally I finished off tonight, but the photos I took were a bit on the crappy side, so I’ll have another try in some decent light over the weekend).
Later, I went along to this (you can spot me in one of the pics on the blog if you squint), and I stitched on this for a bit:
Fun fun. The design is an ‘06 Christmas freebie by Hillary Lang, and there is a matching boy-elf, so I’ll be stitching the pigeon pair to make up as Christmas gift bags for the kiddos. Cute, huh?
Have a great weekend - we’re off up north to celebrate Fathers’ Day with multiple fathers!
August 31 2007 | Counted Stitchwork and Family and General Ramblings and In Progress and Kid Crafts and Other Craft and The Kids | 8 Comments »
Well lookie here. My wee biscornus got a little spot on the Focus on Finishing blog. Thanks Karen! Glad I could provide some inspiration - I’ve been feeling a little short of that myself lately.
In order to try getting myself inspired to stitch again, I’ve been going through my stash and weeding out some of what I don’t need. I’m not fully organised yet, but I’ve been doing some ebaying and Freecycling, and in the next couple of days, I’ll post a few more things I have for sale but can’t be bothered ebaying up on the blog, so keep your eyes out.
While looking back into my archives for the details on the car story, I realised that in May this year, I missed the second anniversary of my blog’s birth. So, uh, Happy 2-years-2-months-and-a-bit Blogiversary to me! Since I missed that celebration, I’m going to celebrate the 1000th comment on this blog instead. I’m going to start putting together a little something for the person who leaves the 1000th comment on Million Stitches… but I’m not going to tell you how close we are to that milestone yet! I assure you, it’s at least a handful of posts away, and given my recent post frequency, it could take some time to get there. Or not. We shall see 
August 02 2007 | Blog Blather and Counted Stitchwork and General Ramblings | 7 Comments »
Thank you all for your warm words of support and advice re. my last post. Virtual hugs are almost as therapeutic as the real thing I have had a generally good week since. On the weekend, we got away for a couple of days, and the distraction of a grandfather and two uncles provided the kiddos some amusement while I managed to nap. Both days! And stitch! It was nice to break that particular 3-week drought.
The week since has been fairly uneventful, at least until today. It’s the second week of school holidays here at the moment, so no pre-school for Finn, but we’ve had some extra swimming lessons, trips to the library, trips to the park, and lots of mess-making (erm, and DVD watching) at home to keep us happy. Today I thought ‘hey, let’s venture further afield. Let’s have a day-trip to the Museum’.
I should’ve stuck with the DVDs. Not terribly far from home, we were rear-ended by Mr-Impatient-Guy. Dammit. Now the car needs repairing, and I suffered that lovely post adrenaline-surge hangover all day (we didn’t go to the Museum, btw. Finn was cool about it, particularly since he got to ride his bike down to the nearest playground instead). Let’s hope this vehicular incident doesn’t turn out like the last one two.
Okay. Moving on, and filling your screens with something far more interesting than my weepfest. These three wee little biscornu ornament/fobs (is biscornu the plural as well as the singular? Or is it something funky like biscornii?!) were finally sent out to their new homes, weeks after finishing them, so now I can show-and-tell:
These were to be ‘GTG gifts’ for Tannia, Anne and Junette, only I decided less than 48 hours before we met up that I wanted to make something, and so naturally, they weren’t finished in time. (Actually, the stitching was, but the finishing was not.) The fibres are all dyed by me. The designs are freebies from My Aunt’s Attic. Have you seen this project? A box of old hand drawn charts has been recovered in an attic, designer unknown, and this lovely lady is making them available for free. Many of the designs are quite lovely. My favourite (yet to be stitched) is the Butterflies chart in this post.
Oh, and yes, one of the biscornu/ii is slightly crooked. My advice? Don’t try making biscornu/ii with sides which are an odd number of stitches. You have to compensate at each corner, and while two of them worked out, for some reason I messed up that middle one slightly, and couldn’t make it come good (sorry Junette).
Question… do these three count as one finish, or three, for my 12-finishes-this-year goal, d’you think?
July 12 2007 | Counted Stitchwork and Finished and General Ramblings | 12 Comments »
The Blogger’s block continues. But I have been stitching. A few secret things - more on those later. And, surprise, surprise, I dragged something out from beneath the mountain of unfinished-finished-things:
I stitched this Teresa Wentzler freebie bookmark back in 2004. Finally, I actually made it into a bookmark! And used it, what’s more:
I used this stuff to fuse the fabric together:
I don’t know how kosher that is with regards to longevity of the stitching, but watch me not care. Also not caring about the lumpy seam up the back of the bookmark. The front looks good, and it does what it should, and that’s all that matters
Also in the interim since my last post, I spent a lovely afternoon meeting some fellow Melburnian stitchers - Junette, Anne and I descended on Tannia’s house where she plied us with food and wine, and we whiled a few hours away chatting and getting in some quality kitty time. Niamh came along, and made short work of befriending all and sundry, except perhaps Banjo, who remained unconvinced. It was lovely, and I hope we do it again sooner rather than later.
Then, we spent this weekend just past away for a couple of days with Dermot’s (large) family. Annually, on the weekend following Queen’s Birthday, we hire a school-camp facility (dorm rooms, communal showers and kitchen - you know the kind of thing) and spend two days eating, drinking and being generally merry, all in celebration of his grandmother’s birthday. She was 87 this year, and we all had a wonderful weekend. Here’s to many more like it 
June 19 2007 | Counted Stitchwork and Family and Finished | 9 Comments »
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