Seasonal stitching

Which I don't do very often due to my snail's pace stitching meaning things started for one Christmas are highly unlikely to be ready until a successive Christmas, years later.
For example:

this Historical Sample Co pattern was in the October 2005 issue of The Cross Stitcher. Although I put the magazine, kitted up, in my stash pile at time it arrived - I didn't start stitching it until a month ago.

Amazingly for me, it is now finished. "All" I have to do now is make it into a hanging.

Christmas fabric stash run to Spotlight coming up...

...a day after their sale ended.

Quick update...

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=1SfRQjq65vk

Don't know if the above works. It's a link to a compilation video clip of Jess during comp season this year. I put it together to learn how to use the editing software that came with the camera.
I had tried to post it to the blog, but anything bigger than 10Mb just choked everytime.

It's been quietly busy here. Jess is busy working on L5 skills and looking forward to her new school for next year. She went to the orientation on Friday and was all buzzy when I picked her up cos she knew more girls who will be there next year in Y7 than she thought she would.
Tamsin is enjoying her beginners Rhythmic class, and has managed to get a place in the competitive squad for next year. The rhythmic coaches at TriStar are really sweet - and organised! They handed out a great info pack that was perfect for the control freak info junkie that is the Evil Gym Mom. She's also moved into the big pool at swimming and is now a junior Squid.
Guy Fawkes was good - the pyromaniacs of the family got together at my sister's place again and happily combusted their way through several boxes of fireworks while the rest of us pigged out on brownie and chocolate fondue.
I'm even getting some stitching done. I'm never as fast as I'd like, so there's not enough time in a day to get the progress I want. Oh well. I also have 4 leotards cut out ready to sew for Tamsin. She's grown a smidge in the body and all her leos are now showing way to much knicker for my (and her coach's) liking. The last batch of sewing I did only produced one for her and 3 for Jess so I needed to rectify that.

Please send me stitching vibes so that the next post will be about stitching finishes (plus photos to prove it, LOL).

Small, but pretty

Well, I like it :)

Finally, a finish:
Just Nan's My Fair Ladybug.

Now, that eternal question - how to present it? I have thoughts of it as a box topper, but where to find a box? I've not had much luck finding a source here in NZ.

The Ribbon Rose are now stocking Framecrafts lovely bowls, but they're quite expensive (try $98 for the large one).

I will just have to keep my eyes open in my travels for inspiration.

Long time, no post

And not much stitching either

And there are many in the WIP pile (one with a need to be done by date - yikes!), and even more in the stash pile, all waiting patiently for me to get stitching again.

So much for a finish a month

Ah well, as an Amway business owner once said: when the going gets tough, the tough go shopping. Off to Ribbon Rose and Spotlight it was for a stock up on petites (needles) and DMC to kit up some of the charts in my stash.

Y'know - I did feel better afterwards and I have done a teensy bit of stitching...but not enough yet for a progress pic, sorry.

But cos I like pictures in my posts, here's more from the archives:

That's Cheetah in her favourite spot for overnight snoozing.

Yes,well. Burma just has to sit on/in something...

Kids, cats, leos

Finally got around to making the girls some more training leotards.

They'd actually managed to start to wear them out just as the leos were just beginning to be a bit small.

Plus Spotlight had nylon lycra on special....

Love the fluoro colours. The girls are really easy to spot when I arrive at the gym to pick them up!

So took photos and transferred them onto the PC, finding some others on the camera while I was at it.

The cats are Burma (she who brings home others' laundry) and Boodle (the youngest, now bringing home rats and skinks).

The kid is Cinnamon, a Nubian cross that my niece Laura is raising ready for school Calf Day mid October.

Fabulous Friday

Why?
Cos I went to the Quilt & Craft Fair in Hamilton with two close friends on Friday. No children. No work. And best of all - no deadline for coming home, LOL.
So we stayed there till the end of the show plus 5 minutes.
It was great. Lots of stalls, lots of fabulous quilts in the exhibition, and an amazing fibre arts show in the upstairs gallery.
We chatted, we gossiped, we laughed till we just about cried, we saw people we knew, we oohed and aahed over the things on display and, naturally, we shopped.

It was great, and we've promised ourselves that we're going to do it again next year.
Nothing like S.E.X. for S.A.B.L.E. to make a crafty girl happy - especially when done with friends.

So thanks for your company Sarah and Cherry, looking forward to next time!


Stash Enhancment eXpedition
Stash Accumulation Beyond Life Expectancy

while I'm on the subject...

I found some photos while uploading the ones for the previous post so I thought I'd inflict them on y'all.

That's Tamsin at age 3, ready to start preschool ballet at SABA.

On the topic of different leotards - not only does each ballet school have different colours, some of them also change when advancing from Grade 2 to Grade 3. SABA for example changes from pale blue to navy blue, while Lily Fong changes from baby pink to royal blue.

Gym clubs obviously have different leotards to save confusion at competitions. Here's Jessica's progression through the past 5 years (Acrobatics, West City, TriStar):

Also progressing is the zoom and focus capability of our camera and its operator, LOL.

This is to prove that Tamsin wasn't always long and skinny as she is now (that's my sister BTW)

and she's about 4-5 cm taller since these photos were taken in May!





Some years back, the girls got to take part in the Pumpkin Patch fashion parade at Auckland's annual Teddy Bears' Picnic held in the Domain in February. It was a lovely sunny hot summer day, and Pumpkin Patch were using the show to preview their winter range. So yes the girls got quite hot - especially as it was a 20 minute dance show done four times across the middle of the day! They had a fabulous time though and got some fantastic gear for doing it.








Last year, Jess did cheerleading and went to Australia to compete with her team at the Down Under Spirit Champs. Here she is with the trophy the team won.

This is a piece I'm really pleased with - Sweetheart Tree's Forget Me Not sampler, done for my parents 45th wedding anniversary 4(!) years ago. Yes, it's the Golden anniversay next year, along with my sister's 25th wedding anniversary, Jess' godmother's 40th birthday, Tamsin's godfather's 5oth birthday and my dad's 80th birthday. It's going to be quite a year!

To finish, I found this one of my favourite people

The torture is now over and you may leave now.

KTHXBAI