Tag Archives: exchange stitching

Whiiiine

So this morning I had a rather unpleasant internal examination – want to hear about the state of my cervix? No, didn’t think so :giggle:

Anyway, as a result, I’m super sensitive and irritable, so I’m going to have a whine about some online-y things that have been getting me down of late.

Can anyone tell me why some people are completely comfortable with ruining the online experience for the rest of us? My question stems from a few ‘issues’ I’ve been having:

I am informed by OtherHalf that my domain name was recently appropriated by someone for use as a ‘sender’ address for spam. So if I’ve spammed your mailbox lately, sorry, it truly was not me. I don’t use this domain for anything mail related. OtherHalf has put measures in place which will hopefully stop this happening again – what makes me most angry is that not everyone can necessarily protect themselves like this – I’m just lucky to have someone on hand who happens to administrate mail servers for a living.

Secondly, I was targeted by a couple of splogs recently. Splogs are apparently ‘spam blogs’ – fake blogs (usually full of nonsensical or plagiarised content) set up purely for the purpose of either A) promoting other sites belonging to the blog-author via lots of linkage, or B) making money from AdSense impressions by luring visitors to the splog, or C) both. It seemed to be a couple of the B-type splogs which got me – incoming links to my blog are listed on the WordPress interface, and I usually check them out to see who’s linking to me (Um… I do believe that’s called vanity!) In this case, by visiting the blogs in question, I earned the authors a little bit of income from their Google AdSense ads. Sucks :grr:

Edit: I just want to clear up a little misunderstanding – Splogs are not exactly the same thing as comment spam. I have quite good comment spam moderation on here, and if I got more, there are several WordPress plugins that work really well at eradicating comment spam. Splogs are not possible to control in this way – they work by linking to me, I see the incoming link via Technorati or the WordPress interface, and visit the blog to find out who it is that’s linking me. Slightly different, and I can’t control who links to me… all I can do is stop visiting those sites to check. It’s more like referer log spamming, if you know what that is. If you find what you believe is a splog on Blogspot, you can ‘flag’ that blog as having ‘offensive content’, but I don’t know how effective this is at having them removed.

OK, now the third thing is a little closer to home. Stitching Exchanges. More specifically – mine. In trying to sort out the state of affairs – who has posted and received, and who has not – it has become apparent that one of the group has… well… disappeared. Absconded. Leaving behind her a trail of unfulfilled exchanges (so I hear now). Mine included. I feel awful for the person who’s missing out on her exchange (only she won’t miss out in the end, because of course I’ll arrange a replacement for her), and I feel really let down personally (partly because I’m the moderator, and partly because I was the person to send the fiber/embellishment supplies to her to use in this exchange). Why would you do that? Personal gain? There’s very little of that in this case. Malicious intent? I guess some could take perverse pleasure from upsetting people like this… but I just don’t get it. At any rate, it has soured my first experience of moderating an exchange, and I’m not sure I’m going to be jumping in to do another.

Aaargh! There was more, actually, but I think I’ve got the bulk of my grumpiness out of the way, so I’ll just stop here… Finn and I are going to go and cook Osso Bucco to make me feel better 🙂

PS. In case you did want to know the state of
Things-Cervical, all is well, and the finger-crossing can commence now, please :giggle: ! This month, one way or the other, I’m going to have a baby 😮 !

Exchanges Galore

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!

Exchanges, Part Deux

SBEBB_RedR1

I came home yesterday to a package from Terri. Yay! Here is the lovely little drawstring bag and red scissors she sent me as part of the Redwork exchange. Yes, it’s true… I am no longer a sole-pair-of-scissors stitcher :giggle: On the opposite side she’s stitched a monogram for me. You can see that here. Thanks Terri for such a lovely gift, I really appreciate it 🙂

SBEBB_XmasR2

Also as promised, here’s a pic of the ornament Annette stitched for me – also red! And if you look here, you can see the whole bunch o’stuff! The little reindeer fellow is for Finn, who adores all things stuffed and furry, and also adores Annette, who spoils him 🙂

Belated HDs

I started my day with a wonderful package from Annette this morning. Poor girl must be quite sick of me – not only was I her partner for a whole year in the Seasonal Exchange, but then by chance she drew my name in the SBEBB Christmas Ornament Exchange as well :giggle: Anyway, the ornament she’s stitched for me is quite lovely, but will have to wait for another day (maybe tomorrow?) when I un-lazy myself for long enough to find the digital camera.

But.

SBEBB_Red1

It did remind me that I have been remiss in posting my own Exchange happy dances. So here we are. First up, here is the cushion I made for Annemiek in the Redwork Exchange. While I adore the design and the effect, I’m not sure I love stitching in one colour, there’s little to relieve the tedium. The fact that I stitched it in silk helped a little though 😉

SBEBB_Xmas2

Nextly, we have the ornament I stitched for Danielle. This is the Prairie Schooler ornament from the 2005 JCS Ornament Issue (thanks again Cathy 🙂 ) I really love the colours in this, and despite some curse words being muttered as I did the finishing (I cut the matboard insert a little bit too large, and a little bit skewiff), it turned out very nicely, if I do say so myself!

See… I do stitch! 😛

Meep

The sound you hear is me emerging from under my mountain of notes and textbooks, to discover myself still stuck beneath mountains of boxes in the new house.

Yes, we’ve been here for 2 weeks and it looks frankly worse than it did on the day after we moved in. A lot of stuff has been unpacked, but a lot of boxes are only half unpacked, in the frantic search for this-that-or-the-other, which leaves us with M-E-S-S 🙁 I’d like to say I’ll get on top of it soon, but health-wise, things are kind of difficult at the moment. I’m feeling really good for only a few hours in each day, and I’m trying to spend those playing with Finn, lest he nominate me for world’s worst mother:giggle: (And after I accidentally opened a door in his face the other day, believe me, I’m in the running. Poor kid :ouch: ).

I did finally get my redwork exchange piece finished and off in the mail, only a day late. I’m feeling somewhat anxious about the finishing of the piece. Not what it is, but what colour it is (hint: not red). The rules didn’t say the finishing should be red, but the other finishes I’ve seen already are all red. I just didn’t find a red fabric that worked for me, and what I chose does make the redwork stitching stand out. I just hope it is well received, because I like it 🙂

Now on to doing my Christmas ornament exchange. Huge hugs to Cathy for the 2005 Just Cross Stitch Ornaments issue – I love a lot of the ornaments this year, so I’m going to try and settle on one from there to stitch.

Not much else in the works at the moment, due to the feeling-like-crap thing. Sleeping is high on my list of priorities, that’s for sure. Will try and be around a bit more often though… I’m missing blogging, and feel like I’ve dropped out of the community a little bit in the past weeks.

On The Upswing

Didn’t I tell you I’d post an all GoodThings post someday soon? Well, things are not quite all good, but are definitely back on the upswing.

The washing machine finally stayed dead long enough for TheGuy to see what was wrong, and hoo-boy was it nasty. The control board had burned out badly enough to have charcoal on it! I don’t want to know what one of those things costs, I’m just super glad the machine was still under warranty.

The car is fully repaired and happy to be home again. The liability issue is ongoing. Let’s not talk about that :giggle:

Then, good things arrived in my mailbox on Tuesday and Wednesday. First, official notice of unconditional approval on our home loan application. There had been some delay in that, for reasons beyond our control. Second, a lovely stitched piece by Annette arrived. This was the final mailing in the seasonal exchange we took part in last year, and I just love it, it’s a great design. And thirdly…stash! For me! New Stash! I’m sure you can tell how happy I was about that – I bounced around the room for a good half an hour :giggle: Kati from The Wagon sent me these great Paw Printings charts which have been on my wishlist for a good long while:

rak

I think I have enough black perle cotton in my stash to stitch the ornament on the Onyx chart, and suitable substitute beads, so after I finish my red piece, I might treat myself to a new start. I can do that right? It’s only small, after all…!

Thanks Annette and Kati. It’s so nice to share a hobby with such a great bunch of people. Kati’s gift was a RAK (Random Act of Kindness), which have just been introduced on The Wagon. I RAK’d someone this week too, but shhh, it’s a secret!

Oh, and the final GoodThing I have to report? I’m not going to turn this into a weight loss journal. But. I’ve lost 5.5kg in the last 6 weeks. Happy Dance!