Autumnal RR

Cathy's Autumnal RR for the Stitching Blogger's Round Robin. All finished now and ready for mailing. I stitched the squirrel. He stitched up really fast only a few hours work. It's a little bit strange though, I've never heard of a brown squirrel, they usually just come in red or grey. I think he looks a bit more like a beaver actually, but what would a beaver be doing in a tree with an Acorn? The mind boggles..... still it's complete now.

Red Sky over Newlyn on Thursday evening.

DAFT

This picture illustrates why older people need their driving skills continually assessed when they reach a certain age.


This happened last Saturday, it's a shame I didn't get my camera out sooner or I would have captured a fireman reversing this silly little old ladies car out of the alleyway that she'd mistakenly driven down thinking it was a road.

I came across the sight of the alleyway completely blocked by the reversing car. The fireman did a good job of getting it out though and there were only minor scratches on the bumper. I wonder if she had got it jammed in the alleyway as there was no more than about an inches clearance on either side of the car. I wonder how the fireman got in the car to drive it out? He probably had to climb in through a window.

I had to laugh when I saw the car's number plate, the three letters spelled out "DAF" Daft or what?

Which Sci Fi/Fantasy Character Are You?

Kosh

A reclusive seer shrouded in riddles, you reveal very little and only what is deemed congruent with your plans.

Understanding is a three edged sword. Your side, their side, and the truth.

Kosh is a character in the Babylon 5 universe. You can read a few tidbits about his race at The Lurker's Guide to Babylon 5.

================

This is cool. I love Kosh. Still re-watching B5 on DVD I'm up to season 5 now, Kosh must have rubbed off!

Stitching Blogger's Question of the Week: Grateful for Gifts?

Have you ever stitched something as a gift and later realized that receiver doesn't respect your stitched gift a bit (for example it's never on show, or you have other reason to suspect that it may even be nonexistent or at least placed in some dark storage room corner)? If so, what have you done? If you've been lucky enough to avoid such people what would you do if it'd happen to you?

I've not given away many stitched pieces, in fact, I think I've only given away presents and cards to other stitchers who appreciate them because they understand the amount of work that goes into them.

Many, many years ago though, I did see this happen to a friend's daughter. This was many years before I started stitching. When my friend, (who was my mother's friend really) passed away her daughters were going through her house and sorting things out and one of the things that she found was some towels that she had stitched for her mother many years ago. They had never been used. Jane felt a bit put out at this and took the towels back to her own house. I don't know how I would feel if this was me. At least Pam hadn't thrown them out and had kept them as treasured possessions. Maybe she thought the towels were too good to use and spoil?

Stitching Blogger's Question of the Week: Chart Marking

Do you mark or hi-lite your patterns or can you follow them without any markings? Do you make copies to mark up, or do you mark originals?

I've only recently begun marking charts. I only do it with black and white ones which are particularly difficult to read. At the moment I'm marking an enlarged copy of "Above the Clouds". I'm doing this because this design is quite difficult because of all the blended threads.

I never marked coloured charts.

Yet another quiz...

Your Japanese name should be

'Moriko'

which means "forest child".

You
love being in nature and see beauty in almost
everything; the trees, the flowers, the sky,
the sun. You're at your best surrounded by
nature. You love animals and they love you!


Which Japanese name fits you best? [females, 9 results + absolutely stunning ANIME pictures!]
brought to you by Quizilla

You must be getting bored of them by now?

Religion?

No surprise here either!

You fit in with: Atheism Your ideals mostly resemble those of an Atheist. You have very little faith and you are very focused on intellectual endeavors. You value objective proof over intuition or subjective thoughts. You enjoy talking about ideas and tend to have a lot of in depth conversations with people. 40% scientific. 80% reason-oriented.

Take this quiz at QuizGalaxy.com

My Epitaph

You can tell I've been on a major blog-browsing fest tonight: [lol]

Take this quiz at QuizGalaxy.com

What's your ideal Career?

Your Career Type: Conventional

You are orderly and good at following a set plan.Your talents lie in working with written records and numbers in a systematic, orderly way. You would make an excellent: Bank Teller - Bookkeeper - Court Clerk Mail Carrier - Post Office Clerk - Secretary Timekeeper - Title Examiner - Typist The worst career options for your are artistic careers, like comedian or dancer.

What's" Your Ideal Career?

I found this on Jenn's Blog. Seems pretty accurate to me.

The Eowyn Challenge

I found this on Black Cat of the Family's Blog.

What an interesting way to promote exercise. Basically you set out on a walking/running regime and use your actual miles to chart your progress as if you were joining the Fellowship of the Ring on their journey to Rivendell and beyond.

Weekend Stitching Update: Beads and Dragons

I finished adding beads to the Mermaid Queen's crown on Saturday afternoon. Because I'm beading at the moment, she's not exactly the most portable of projects, even with the help of my new lakeland craft caddy that I'm using to store the beads in, so I can only work on her while I'm at home.



Still got lots and lots to go, as she's got beads all down her bodice and tail, I've also got the Crystal Treasures to attach too. Not quite sure how to do this, I'll have to have a look on the Mirabilia bulletin boards and see if anyone has any tips, also I discovered that I'm short of one of the treasures, because the pattern didn't list out the correct number required, which was 3 - there were only two in the pack I received from Silkweavers. Oh well, I sense another SEX [Stash Enhancement Session coming! lol. Like we need any excuse?

Here's this weekends progress on "Above the Clouds" by Teresa Wentzler. I'm amazed how much this dragon reminds me of Stretch. Is it the same dragon? And did he just eat a lot of knights? lol

Pirates of the Caribbean

Found this on Christine Doyle's Blog. I love this movie can't wait to see the sequels next year!


You're Captain Jack Sparrow: smart, savvy, a demon with the eyeliner and the best damn pirate we've ever seen. And only a litte crazy. Savvy?

Which Pirates Of The Caribbean character are you?
this quiz was made by alanna

3:00 AM Litter Box Accident

Well it's 5:00 am and I'm awake and blogging?

What woke me up? Well Jade decided to use his litter box at about 3:30 am and I guess he sort of stumbled and fell out of it. I wondered what the clatter was as it woke me up. Then he started meowing. Not the usual "give me attention" meows, more a sort of "what the hell has happened here?" sort of meow.

More awake now I turn the light on and see what has actually happened. The whole litter box is upside down and is completely upended spilling it's entire contents beneath itself. How the f*** did he manage to do that?

So there I am, 4:00 am sweeping everything back up into the box including the wet litter that he's just peed on. Some of it is still sticking to the floor - but I'm not going to start hoovering at 4:00 am!

Yuk!

Stitching Blogger's Question of the Week: Hoops and Rotations

How do you `non-hoopists' who use a rotation system handle it (as it
seems to be lot easier if you are in good terms with hoop)? Do you
have several scroll frames? Do you use Q-snaps or maybe something
completely different? Or do you just have one or two big projects and
others are small enough to be kept in hand while stitching?

I have two q-snap frames, a 9" and a 14". At the moment, I've got both of them combined into two rectangular-shaped frames. One is currently in use for the Mermaid Queen, the other hasn't got anything on it at the moment. The 14" q-snap is ideal for my large WIP of Paradise Island, but I can't stitch on this at the moment because of combining the q-snaps. I guess this could be a bit frustrating if I got a bee in my bonnet to finish it.

I've got lots of different sized hoops. Above the Clouds, which is my other focus piece at the moment is on a 7" hoop. The fabric isn't wide enough to use the 9" q-snap - even if half of it wasn't combined with the 14" q-snap. All my other projects and WIPs are in my stitching project bag which contains quite a few other different sized hoops. I think I may buy a smaller q-snap, one that is about 6 x 6 in size as I've found that I enjoy stitching with these.

Crafter's Creations: Happy Dancing

Crafter's Creations: Happy Dancing

Dawn has finished one of the Cats in the Hats on my fabric for the Stitching Blogger's Round Robin. I'm thrilled, can't wait to see it in the flesh when it finally comes home to me.

I'm glad I got this little lift today, I'm sitting here at my desk sneezing and dripping all over the place. Boo hoo hoo.

Stitching Blogger's Question of the Week: Future Projects

When you have almost finished a pattern and start thinking about the next one to stitch, how do you select it? (a list, most recent purchase, etc.)

I wish I was organised enough to have a list of projects that I want to start. Usually it's just the next one that "shouts" stitch me, which I begin next. I don't have a system for working through my stash of unstitched projects. I've seen other online Stitching Bloggers have Stash Reduction Plans. Melissa even has a STRIP list. This is a very good idea.

I used to have my stash listed in a database program which was quite useful as I could input all my skeins, how many skeins I had in each project on the go, so I could find a particular colour out of a WIP. You could also use this piece of software to pre-plan your next stitching piece by entering in the material requirements, and it would give you a shopping list if you were out of or low on a particular DMC colour that the project required.

Sadly - that little piece of software went the way of the dodo last year when my old laptop died. The site that hosted it online has subsequently closed too, I can't even remember what it was called now. There are other Stash Databases around, but I think you've got to pay for them, while the one I had was completely free.

Solo is now Complete

This is Kiwi Jo's fabric for the Stitching Blogger's Round Robin, which is a 28 count blue Joblean evenweave. The design at the top was stitched by Joanne herself, while my Solo is underneath. I've just completed him and took a picture less than 10 minutes ago and couldn't wait to share my happy dance with all you other bloggers. Here's a larger version of Solo that I uploaded to my Webshots folder.

I'm really glad that I was stitching Solo on Evenweave because basically, the backstitching was a pig. Nearly all the stitches lined up with the middle holes of the evenweave and not the normal holes that you stitch in. This sort of haphazard backstitching would make this design very difficult to stitch on Aida - so anyone tempted by him should be warned now.

I'm pleased with the overall look though. I hope Jo is too. I'm going to be mailing him back across the pond to Dawn, who currently has my Cats in Hats piece.

The Giveaway Times

WH Smiths are doing a promotion at the moment. Buy a magazine, they give you a free copy of The Times newspaper and then give you a further 40p off. So my Quick and Easy Magazine this morning cost me only £2.95. I don't know how they can do this offer - doesn't really make any sense. I mean are you going to turn down 40p off your magazine for nothing. You don't have to read the free Times either.... just bin it, but then The Times is actually a paper that is usually worth reading as it usually has some decent content unlike newspapers like The Sun.

When I was at college doing marketing classes, a large piece of emphasis was placed on the newspaper that you read every morning, it helped to define your socio-economic demographic. Not reading a daily paper completely throws the Marketeers!

As most people use their blogs for a good old rant now and then, let us just say at this time that I'm ready at the moment to Kill Empire Direct and their repairs people "Solutions" of Newquay. All I can say right now is my TV is buggered and I'm sick of Solutions missing appointments. As soon as I get home today I'm going to write a nasty stinking sarcastic letter of complaint as I've just about had it with them [grrrrr].

Solo the Cat (No Anchor Here!)

Here's a WIP update of Solo the Cat. Which I'm stitching on KiwiJo's pale blue 28 count Joblean for a Stitching Blogger's Round Robin. He's nearly complete now, just a few odd missed stitches in the foliage to go, plus the back stitching of course.


I'm stitching this with converted DMC threads because the pattern only lists Anchor skeins. Why do magazines do that?

I know that this is a design from an Anchor range and I guess they want to push sales of Anchor thread by giving this away as a freebie - but they must know that any stitcher with a nonse of common sense is just going to convert the threads to stitch their design with what they feel most comfortable with.

For anyone who needs a conversion chart, try this one.

All Anchor/Cross Stitcher suceed in doing is wasting about 10 minutes of a stitchers time while she converts the threads to DMC. Unless of course you are fortunate enough to have the full set of both, or are solely an Anchor Girl. Me, I'm DMC through and through.

My progress on Above the Clouds over the weekend. The central castle is now done.

The Sorting Hat Says

be sorted @ nimbo.net

September/October Stitching Goals

My September stitching goals were:

• Complete the stitching on Mermaid Queen. Then I can begin the beading next month.
• Start working on Kiwi Jo's RR once I receive it.
• Complete my Scissor Fob Cat.
• Do more work on Carnivorous Cat.
• Start the "Above the Clouds" kit by Teresa Wentzler that I've had in my stash for a couple of years, as a friend has asked me to stitch a dragon for a gift.

I did quite well on my September goals: four out of five completed anyway. The only thing I didn't do was to Complete the second Scissor Fob Cat. I've unpicked a nasty tangle which was putting me off finishing it though, so now there's no excuse.

My October Stitching Goals are:

• Complete Solo the Cat on KiwiJo's Fabric for the Stitching Blogger's Round Robin ready for the mailing date of the end of the month. (I've nearly done with this, just a few missed stitches and the backstitching to go. One stitching session max.)
• Start beading the Mermaid Queen. I bought a crafter's box from Lakeland in Truro on Saturday, it has about 9 lockable compartments, the perfect thing to organise those pesky and fiddly beads.
• Complete the Cat Scissor Fob. (Again)
• Do more work on Carnivorous Cat. On my last stitching session I discovered I'd made a boo boo and one side of the cat doesn't match up with the other. So I'm unpicking as I go now, probably a good reason why I've not stitched on it for weeks.
• Stitch the Dragon's head on Above the Clouds. This is tending to be my focus piece at the moment, - I stitched soley on it this past weekend. Mainly because it's my current purse project and I wasn't at home for much of the time this past weekend.
• Await the arrival of the next Cattitudes RR material. (I'm not sure who's sending to me this round - I need to check the board, but Ellene has already posted that she's received Nicole's fabric that I sent her so at last things are finally starting to move again.)

Word Verification

Those darn spammers have been at this weekend, I've just got back to my computer at work on Monday to find no less than 5 spam comments on this blog. I've deleted them all now, and have enabled the Word Verification feature which will hopefully stop some of these auto-posting spams.

I've been stitching on "Above the Clouds" a lot this weekend. The castle is now complete and I've started on the Dragon's head. All those blends are a bit of a pain though. I'm not sure I've stitched the Turrets correctly. The pattern seemed to indicate doing a double height half stitch - how are you supposed to stitch that? There was no additional notes of explanation in the chart and information that came with the kit, so I started out doing just normal fractional half stitches, but they didn't look right either, so I ended up stitching the grey of the turrets over the half stitch of the stone. It doesn't look too bad, only one or two of the Turrets look a bit bulky from the double stitching.