Thursday, June 30, 2005

Rose Arbour and Setting Sail Updates

So far so good, I'm sticking to my rotation plans ... okay, okay, it's only been about 4-5 days, but that is GOOD for me! LOL

I'll update with a Kiss piccie after Saturday night when I finish the weeks stitching on it.

Meanwhile - here is Rose Arbour, my UFO Tuesday slot - this week I stitched the bits sticking out of the greenery in the pot (I can't think of the right name for it!) ... funny enough once I'd stitched that all of sudden it doesn't look to onerous to getting this one finished. It's an experience stitching her though - firstly I picked out the colour of the fabric from my then very small stash (probably about 4-5 years ago), so the colour isn't quite what I'd pick now, and also I know the white roses are going to get lost on it. I also started this before I discovered (or understood!) about starting on a vertical thread - so it's stitched on the horizontal - which feels very strange and I find the thread slips under the thread of the fabric, not only that but the crosses just don't look as nice, they leave holes, or look tight, or something ... but I will slowly perservere and finish it, eventually!



and here is my Setting Sail kit - I'm hoping to finish this by about October so Deb has time to frame it for her DH, Jim, for his birthday in the middle of November - she said take my time, and when it's finished she'll give it to him for whatever is coming up next, birthday, Christmas, anniversary, whatever - she isn't worried about how long it takes ... but I just want it out of the way!

I stitched the fleshy coloured part of the sail, bit of the blue in the sea and started coming down the sail last night ... I was watching the exciting NZ vs Australia netball game at the same time, so I wasn't stitching very fast!



... and while that piccie is just up above, I'll answer the Stitchers Blogger Question -

Q. When starting a new project, do you start in the middle? If you do,once you've worked down to the bottom, do you turn your chart andfabric around so that you are stitching the top section downwardsagain or do you just stitch upwards from the middle?

I usually start in the middle, but then try to climb upwards so I can stitch downwards, which I prefer. I often start smaller things or samplers from the top left-hand corner though. I often stitch upside down, usually when I'm stitching big blocks that are working upwards, I usually use the sewing method for the bottom leg for big blocks of colour, and for some reason I can't do that going upwards - my hands just don't work right. I only just came across the wonderous revelation of stitching upside down a year or so ago - I love it! In the picture above, I stitched most of the pinky part of the sail (yes, that is going to be a sail ...) with it upside down, but now I've got to a point at the top of my work, I'll start working downwards, the right way up - which I prefer.

Right now it's 8.15pm and I'm at work ... and there isn't any, so I'm going to stitch on The Kiss - I didn't get my usual hour or so this afternoon because Charlotte did something to the TV and I spent an hour trying to fix it, finally deciding that the cable connection was broken, spent a good half an hour on the phone organising someone to come and fix it tomorrow morning ... only to find just before I left for work that it was magically working again ... no idea why, except maybe I was trying the wrong channel on the TV *blush* ... I have to ring tomorrow and admit I was being blonde, at least I don't have to spend the whole morning waiting for a repairman though!

In family updates -

- DH started his new job last week and he is loving it, the people are so much more positive and friendly - a much nicer atmosophere to work in.

- my sister ran her first marathon on Sunday and ran it in 3.34hr, 2nd woman, 1st in her Master age group (40-44yo) - yay Dianna! (... I really missed those genes LOL).

- Charlotte is all better ... but the bad tempernessed seems to have lingered, I watched a programme called "Little Angels" last night that sorts out toddler bad behaviour ... I'm embarrassed to admit that a lot of "Emily" reminded me of Charlotte ... but on the good side, a lot of what they were doing to handle her and try to make changes, I already do *phew* ... pretty automatically ... you learn a wee bit after four children, before the fifth ... even if the fifth is a lot harder work!

- Said sister above, told me her nearly 15yo daughter is smoking pot ... she is 10mths older, and very close to my nearly 14yo son, so I asked him about it ... he doesn't know anything (they don't tend to hang out together at school or with the same friends) ... but did say he could quite easily get hold of the stuff if he wanted to - eeeeekkkkk! This is when I really hope the good sense we've tried to teach him (and he seems to have) is going to come through ... maybe Miss Controlling 3.5yo isn't so bad afterall - at least I can put her in her room for time-out if she is naughty. David is taller and bigger than me now, I'm not sure what I'd do if he suddenly decided not to listen to me - pass it on to bigger and taller DH, I suppose!

Can't think of anything else - that's probably enough rambling for a day anyway!

1 comment:

Anonymous said...

Hi Lisa, it's lovely to read your blog. I don't do it often, so I had to read a lot and because it's in English I read slower than I want to. But I finished it and think you're very brave with your stitching scheme. I stitch away and don't worry to much about finishing. The ebaything is a great idea. Hope you get lots of money from it. I love to read about your children: my oldest (daughter) is from January 1991, my youngest son from July 1999. And there are 2 more (daughters). So I can recognize a lot of the things you were writing about.
Funny it's winter in your place...