Quick and Easy Mini Rant

I picked up the latest copy of Quick and Easy Magazine last week. Because other members of the Margaret Sherry Cross Stitch Group are on subscription, they had already received their copy and forewarned others that the magazine cocked up when they printed the charts for the MS Ballerina Hedgehogs. There's three ballerinas but only two charts printed (one is duplicated twice in the mag).

So over the weekend and for the best part of the week we've had a rant war going on the MSCSG about who has actually managed to get in touch with the magazine to tell them they've cocked up and to request a copy of the missing chart in the post. You can read more about this on San's Blog.

It seems that phoning the magazine is the best option - everyone who did so seems to get straight through, but I resorted to email solely. The email address printed in the magazine is wrong (another mistake) and bounces straight away, another address that we found just times out with delivery and you get the message back 3 days later as a bounce, on my third attempt I found the correct notify address of q&eproduction@futurenet.co.uk after another member posted this on the group and now I got a real response back and I may just get a copy of the missing chart after all. What a palava!

Stash Alert!

Been doing loads of extra hours at work this week, trying to bing the accounts up to date as April 30 is the end of our financial year. Starting work at 7:30 in the morning and not leaving till 6:30 severely curtails into your stitching time, but before I left the office this evening, I did an online order with Sew and So.

Goods purchased and order totals
****************************************************
Code Name Quantity Price/Ea. Total
-------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------
9213 014 Very Fine (#4) Braid 1.00 £2.60 £2.60
12898 085 Very Fine (#4) Braid 2.00 £2.60 £5.20
9241 102 Very Fine (#4) Braid 1.00 £2.60 £2.60
6221 00150 - Grey 1.00 £0.98 £0.98
6213 02001 - Pearl 1.00 £0.98 £0.98
6278 03022 - Royal Tea 1.00 £1.06 £1.06
6245 03034 - Royal Amethyst 1.00 £1.06 £1.06
6225 03041 - White Opal 1.00 £1.06 £1.06
9779 MH13002 - Margarita Amethyst 1.00 £1.69 £1.69
9829 MH13052 - Very Small Teardrop Amethyst 3.00 £1.69 £5.07
9830 MH13053 - Very Small Teardrop Emerald 3.00 £1.69 £5.07

So far..... that's a total of nearly £30 and that's just the stuff I need for the Mermaid Queen....

16847 Standard Bulb: 75 Watt: Edison Screw 1.00 £2.29 £2.29
10050 14" x 14" Plastic Snap Frame 1.00 £11.02 £11.02
35097 Bee My Friend 1.00 £11.11
14388 Size 28 Gold Cross Stitch Needles(3) 1.00 £1.41 £1.41
19688 Beading Sizes 10 - 13 1.00 £0.64 £0.64
Sales Tax: £9.42
Shipping: First Class Recorded Post: £2.24
-------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------
Total: £65.50

Whoops!

But still no choice - have to buy all those Kreiniks and Mill Hill things online, I don't even know if there is a supplier for them anywhere in Cornwall. I've got to go to St Ives as it is just to buy and odd strand of DMC... and I can just imagine the look on the proprieter's face of Cornish Stitch Designs if I asked him about buying Mill Hill Treasures - evenweave is a new and big deal to them!

The Bee My Friend kit is a Margaret Sherry design. It's the one that AngelSan stitched recently. I just loved it so much that I couldn't resist any longer - got to keep my Margaret Sherry Cat Stitch collection complete - haven't I?

Interestingly enough, I had a bit of trouble finding Bee My Friend on the Heritage website, he's not listed under "Margaret Sherry Cats" - but under Millie, the little girl instead. Do you see Millie on this chart? He's clearly a cattitude!

The dance of light and shadows...

A weekend's worth of stitching on Venice produced this...

Biggest Waves Ever Seen

After staying in all day yesterday and having a massive stitching session on Venice while I watched The Osbournes, Con Air and season 9 of the X-Files. At least I achieved something: Venice is nearly done - just the sky and cloud patterns to stitch now. I'll take a pic and post it later on tonight.

So after feeling a little cabin fever after staying in all day I decided to venture out today so I left about 8 this morning, stopping off at MacDonalds for Breakfast before I drove to Newquay. It's about an hour away from Penzance. There was this bus riding my tail most of the way there. It's bad enough when it's a string of cars - but a bus - honestly! Still I made it in one piece and found a place to park.

Even though I've been in Cornwall a year already (yes it's a year now and counting), I've not visited Newquay in this time and have never explored it before. To say that I have never been there is not true, for Sean drove me there in August 1999 (eclipse week). We drove there, drove through the town, he got pissed off cause he couldn't find anywhere to park and then we left. So much for Newquay.

I started exploring my going around the top of the headland near the harbour and eventually found my way down on Fistral Beach.

Fistral Beach Webcam

I can clearly see why Newquay is the surfing mecca of the UK. The waves today must have been about 6 or 7 feet high. I've never seen bigger waves, even the ones hitting St Ives last July during a storm weren't this big! I sat in the downstairs beach cafe bar and read the paper before walking back to the town, and getting slightly lost coming back through the golf course - I kept my head down! FORE! lol

Newquay town center is not as bad as I expected - I've been told that it's the "Margate" of Cornwall, it's a little bit more upmarket than Margate. But the amusement arcades are the same. I had not been there more than 10 minutes when I was lured into an arcade with 2p shove machines - my one gambling curse! lol. I spent £3 in 2ps over the course of the next half an hour or so, but I did manage to get 2 bagpuss keyrings and a pig key ring out of them so the £3 wasn't completely lost.

Then I walked past a Somerfield supermarket. The first one I've seen in over a year. I went in there and stocked up on three multipack bags of Golden Wonder Salt and Vinegar crisps - I love the taste of them and most shops don't sell Golden Wonder crisps anymore. So I went to Newquay and bought: Crisps! How strange. lol

I then searched for somewhere to eat lunch and eventually found a Shark Bar cafe that was doing Sunday lunches. They were doing roast beef so I had that. The meat was a bit tough - but the potatoes and vegetables were nice and there was plenty of everything - too much really because I couldn't eat it all and had to save room for my carrot cake pudding!

After I had eaten I walked back down to Fistral beach - this time finding the road which makes getting there so much easier. I did intend to sit and do a bit of stitching on Venice - but it was a little windy - and I just couldn't take my eyes off those huge waves.

I'd love to be able to surf myself - one of my favourite movies is Point Break with Keanu Reeves and Patrick Swayze, and after watching that I "get" the whole surfing ethos and the thrill of the ultimate ride - but I can't do it myself, and even trying is probably going to mean I drown myself!!!

• first of all I'm extremely unfit
• a poor swimmer
• I have a phobia about my head going underwater (probably because I nearly downed as a toddler in a paddling pool).

I think I might try body boarding when it gets a bit warmer. This is just floating in on half sized surf boards in the shallows - much less energetic and dangerous.

The Fixation with Digital Cams

Ooops.... I confess to raiding Ursh's webshots (a pic took during our weekend away)

Nigerian Scammers

My boss the Twat nearly got money scammed this week by a Nigerian money scammer. The story is that he lets out a holiday apartment in Marazion during the summer and this guy had applied to rent it out for 3 weeks in May. Nothing dodgy about that right? And the guy who wanted to rent it out was supposed to be a Reverand of Nigerian decent, born in Australia? Starting to get strange here isn't it?

Well truth is stranger than fiction, for then the payment for the rent on the apartment was made via a cheque from his "sponsor" and the cheque was for over and above the rental on the apartment, 50% over in fact. Then the scammer wanted a Western Union cash transfer for the balance. It was at this point that the alarm bells started going off. It sounded so suspect. But if I hadn't heard about this sort of thing happening to other people on Watchdog and told my boss about it I think the dopey twat would have handed over the cash, then the dodgy cheque would have been returned as being fraudulent and he would have been £1600 out of pocket.

I had great fun last Friday with the Nigerian Scammer kept phoning up. I demanded that he provide a landline so we could call him back, he claimed he was staying in a hotel in Japan, but seemed to have an awful memory recall problem trying to remember where he was staying. Even when he did manage to provide a name of a Japanese Hotel (which he probably got off the net) and a number, the number still proved bogus.

You'd think that at that point he'd realise that we were on to him, cut his losses and do a runner? No, of course not - the scammer continued to phone the office at least 10 times during Friday morning and lunchtime, so I took great pleasure just cutting him off, or leaving him permanently on hold.

My boss phoned the bank and explained the situation to them. They said that the cheque wasn't due to clear until Wednesday anyway, and then surprise, surprise on Tuesday it bounced!!!! lol

On Wednesday, we got the following message from the Scammer after we'd told him that we would not pay him a penny until the cheque was proved not to be rubber:

IF THIS IS YOUR CONCLUSION COULD YOU PLEASE KINDLY RETURN OUR CHECK AND CANCEL THE BOOKING AS I AM NOT COMFORTABLE WITH THIS TRANSACTION WITH YOU ANY LONGER.
SEND THE CHEQUE BACK TO MAXWELL WITH THE ADDRESS PROVIDED EARLIER.

THANKS AND GOD BLESS.

REV GEORGE CRAIG



My colleage took great pleasure sending the below:

Look, you dopey TWAT, the cheque has already bounced. Now f*** off and leave us alone!

God Bless

Got to love that final touch!

;-)

Invisible Gulls

Just found a bloody spam auto-posted on this blog! What a cheek. Have had to disable the email-posting option now.

Anyway, the reason for this post: Tuesday night, I was just walking home when there was a white splat about 3 metres ahead of me on the path. I immediately looked up but there wasn't a bird in the sky. Do we have invisible seagulls now in Penzance I wonder.......

Stitching Blogger's Question of the Week: Model Stitching

Have you ever been asked to do model stitching? Did you do it? If so, what was your compensation? (money, stash, etc.) If not, why not?

If you haven't done it, if you were asked would you? Why or why not?

I’ve never been asked personally to do model stitching, and I think that even if I was asked there would have to be a very large incentive to do it because it would cut into my own limited stitching time.

Lowery Stand

Here's a picture of my new Lowery Stand which I got from Jayne's Attic. Jayne was very helpful in helping me to choose which one I wanted, and didn't pressurise me into getting any attachments for it, even though I wanted one - her advice was, try it out first.

It was very easy to fit together, almost instinctual even, and it is so easy to use. It is great being able to flip your work over at to get at the back to fasten off a thread at the turn of a screw.

The design I'm working on that is attached to the stand is "Sparkling Waters" a Sheila Hudson design of the Venice canals.

I'm amazed that so many people have already commented on this post, before I even managed to come back and edit the original photo post myself. Thank you for all your lovely comments. If you are thinking about buying a lowery yourself, don't hesitate, they really help you with your stitching.

My Working Week - or my Boss the Twat?

The beginning of the week was OK. My Boss (for the rest of this post known as the Twat!) was off Wednesday and Thursday = AGAIN!!!! He's had about 5-6 foreign trips abroad already this year since January.

This time he went to Italy to watch that football match to support Liverpool, the match where all the riots were supposed to take place because of a 20-year grudge since the two teams last played together. Everyone warned him about going there - but he just ignored the warnings, which was very irresponsible as he had his seven year old son in tow to see the match too. Apparently the Twat turned up at the football ground's carpark, with face painted in the England Colours and his son decked out in the England kit and they were going to go and watch the game dressed like that!!! However, they passed someone who already had a face full of bruises and gashes and he finally saw sence, went back to the car, washed his face and changed his son's clothes.

With him being away at least the phones were quiet (but they absolutely exploded yesterday again with all of Twat's idiot clients wanting to talk to him and him continually avoiding them) and for the most part I was able to get quite a bit done. But one of the other IFAs is leaving the office and now he's in a flap to get the final things finished off - dotting the i's and crossing the t's on his finance reports before he goes. That's not a problem: the problem is that he shows up to the office in the middle of the afternoon with a full day's work ahead of him, expecting the admin support (i.e. me) to do the same when I've already been there for the best of full day already.

I ended up staying till 6:00 pm on Wednesday and 6:00 on Thursday because of this, I made it clear on Thursday that I just wanted to go home (I'm supposed to leave at 5:30).

Yesterday he didn't turn up in the office till 4:50!!! He came in plonked some folders on my desk that contained information for some letters he wanted to dictate. Then he went upstairs to his office and then started talking to one of the other IFAs. I thought "great" while he's destracted, I'm sneaking out! So I managed to leave at 5:30 yesterday - folders and undone letters still on my desk! Serves him right for not organising his time better. Bill's great fun to work with, but his time-keeping is most enfuriating!

Wednesday and Thursday evening Bill was in the office till 10pm. There have been workmen in the main street digging it up all week and making a hellova racket all the time (when I walk past them in the mornings on my way to work, I give them the fithiest of looks), and they turned the water off on Thursday night, so Bill told Norm on the phone today that he was there working that late and he couldn't even have a cup of tea.... then Norm just asked Bill why he didn't use the water from the water cooler???? DOH!

I have been considering booking a holiday this summer (describing the above, you can see why I need one): Cornwall is lovely, but I'm finding that it's usually a bit breezy for serious sunbathing unless you can find a sheltered spot out of the wind. How much I appreciated my grassy knoll in Marazion last year!

I'll be travelling alone - (no choice - there's no one else to go with me and I need a serious holiday), I want to make sure that I go to a place that I'd feel comfortable. There's quite a few places in the world that I want to go to - Egypt for example - but I don't think I'd have the courage to tackle that one by myself because of all of the arabic men hassling single white women. Tunisia gave me an idea what it will be like there.

I made some online enquiries this week and finally found a place that I've wanted to go to for ages the: Papagayo Arena Resort in Lanzarote. I've wanted to go here from some years to see the Volcanic Landscape. From the pictures I've seen some of it looks like the Lunar surface and other parts look like the deserts of Mars. Fancy riding a camel across the martian landscape? well you can here. Maybe this can be the first stop on my "Volcano world tour" as I'm fascinated by them.

As I've already been to Spain a couple of times (ok this is the Canaries - but the culture is the same) I feel comfortable to go it alone. It's a new resort that's opened up, all inclusive, there's even supposed to be a cinema there. I wanted to go here with Sean and he agreed to go in principal until he saw the prices, and that's after he promised me another holiday to make up for putting up with his spawn-of-satan kids in Spain in 2003. After the events of last year though, that never came to pass. However, the only flight I could find in June going from Exeter is 2nd June.

They won't let me go at work. I'm absolutely steaming about it (Look at how many holiday's my boss has already had this year!!) and because while it doesn't conflict with Hayley's holiday, aparently my Boss (or the aforementioned Twat) has agreed that I'm supposed to go up to Ray's Office and cover Linzi's holiday - without telling me!!! We've yet to have words about it, but I'm seriously pissed off.

I'm still toying with the idea though: fly out from Gatwick (via Newquay) later in June and go for two weeks instead of one and make it even more inconvenient for the office with me being away (I know what happened when I went away for that long weekend), the difference in the holiday cost is only about an extra 400 for the extra week, plus of course the Newquay flight costs which are actually cheaper than I anticipated. But can I leave Jade for two whole weeks???

And also my first WIP shot of the Mermaid Queen.

Took this photo this morning. It's my fourth WIP shot of Sparkling Waters by Sheila hudson.

Stitching Bloggers Question of the Week: Seasonal Stitching

Do you "stitch with the seasons?" (This could be reflected by the colors that you stitch with, the themes that you choose, or even that during your favorite season you stitch more (or less) than in others.)

I definitely stitch more in the warmer summer months. I think this is due to the availability of good light conditions. I noticed this so much when the clock's changed a few weeks ago, suddenly I wasn't coming home from work in the dark anymore, and instead of just pouring myself a drink and plopping down in front of the telly for the evening, I seem now to have more energy to want to do something else before I kick back and relax.

Of course, during the summer, I just love sitting out in the garden and stitching in the sun. This year I've already bought myself a big floppy hat adorned with a string of shells to protect my face and head from truly toasting. And now living here in Cornwall, I've got the option of doing this by the sea instead. I whiled away quite a few hours on the cliffs above Gwithian beach with a picnic and a portable radio and my Amalfi Coast project last summer.

In fact, even last week I was sitting on the Promenade this very Sunday stitching on my Venice project while the water lapped below me. I was really surprised when I looked down into the water as there were large 2" fish in the shallows. Someone later said they might have been mullet.

Reading back through my first stitching diary (now archived on Geocities) you might like to read about the lovely sunny day that my Paradise Island project went for a swim on August 23 2003.

Who is your inner european?

Your Inner European is Irish!

Sprited and boisterous! You drink everyone under the table.

Who's Your Inner European?

Thanks to Renee who posted this on her own blog. I'm not surprised at the result, I am after all half irish on my Dad's side.

Naughty Naughty!

What started out as a browse through my stash this morning resulted in a new start. Oooops....

I decided to have a look though my Silkweaver stuff for a piece of fabric big enough to stitch the Queen Mermaid on.... I did have a large piece of pale blue reflections which I put to one side, then I discovered a piece of Ocean (Reflections). Which is absolutely perfect for a Mermaid... wouldn't you agree?

The piece is only just big enough though 13" x 18" and the Mermaid's stitching area is 11.5" x 15" on 32 count, so it's going to be a little tight, but as the material is already serged at the edges they'll be no fraying to worry about.

Anyway after finding this piece, I had a dig under my sofa and found my two disassembled stitching frames - only to discover that one frame has a bar missing. I don't know what happened to it - I think it may be lurking around somewhere, I'm not sure - moving can be really chaotic to your stitching supplies, so be warned.

The next thing I know I'm reassembling the first frame with an allen key and tacking the "Ocean" fabric to it. Then without any conscious thought I started working on the Queen Mermaid.... the hands just did it all on their own! I swear!

I've only done about an hour and a half's stitching on the Queen so far as I was in St Ives most of the day and bought a nice windcharm to hang in the window.

I feel really guilty now about starting this piece as I still have so many other WIPs to finish off first, Venice, the Embroidery and Hardanger pieces and so many other things, not to mention that I'm due to start stitching the next Cattitude for the RR about now too.

Downturn in the Weather

Yesterday morning I went out wearing a summer skirt, top and cardigan, and came home v. v. cold. Tonight it's hailing ice particles..... what gives with the weather???

Stitching Bloggers Question of the Week: Speciality Stitches

What is your next speciality stitch?

It's probably going to be finishing off the Satin Stitch Needlework Bag that I started at Judy Dixon's Stitching Weekend Workshop. I also have the Lavender Spray hardanger piece to finish too. But Venice is taking all my stitching time at the moment.

I'll be forced to stitch Venice again in a few minutes. Battery is dying on the laptop now and there's no power outlet in the conservatory. Adaptor is inside anyway and I'm still locked out!

lol

Garden Surfin!

It's my afternoon off and I'm at home enjoying the sun in the garden. This wireless thing is really great when I can blog from the garden in the sun.

The Weather this morning looked pretty dismal, it was raining overnight, and just as I was about to leave this morning the heavens let loose again. It stopped raining pretty quickly though, but I still wore my cagual too work
for fear of another shower, but by mid-morning, the sky was blue again and
it has turned into a simply glorious day. In fact - what am I doing here
sitting here wearing thick black tights??? I'll get them off when I finish
this post and start working on the tan of my legs for the summer.

I went for a bit of a walk - just a detour really, on my way home along the sea front - it's a bit windy down there, but at least some parts of the garden are sheltered a bit from the wind. I bought some compost on Monday
and I'm going to repot my two fushias, they are only in 5cm pots and they
are now about 6 inches high.

On the stitching front, I'm still working on Venice. Made quite a bit of progress on it over the long Easter Weekend and I'll probably do some more work on it this afternoon - in fact I've got it in a bag on the ground
beside me. I might post a picture of my progress later on tonight.

Traffic Cones

From an episode of Red Dwarf -The Last Day:

KRYTEN: Is it just me, or is that cockroach shuffling too loudly?
RIMMER: Kryten, it's called a hangover. Don't panic.
LISTER: On a mining ship, 3 million years into deep space, can someone explain to me where the smeg I got this traffic cone?
CAT: Hey, it's not a good night unless you get a traffic cone.

Well, I must have had a good night - because I came home from the nightclub at 2:00 am carrying two!

lol

Stitching Bloggers' Question of the Week: Stitching Evolution

How has your stitching evolved since you first started stitching?

When I think back to when I was stitching my first kit, I look back in time and shudder. I was doing so many things wrong!

But as time went past, my stitches got neater - they started going all the same way for one thing - and I got better at following charts and patterns. Then I started to learn about the advantages that certain items of stash could give you - like gold needles that don't go rusty on day one of using them. I think the biggest evolutionary change was trying evenweave for the first time. Provided you have good eyesight, you don't want to go back to Aida after trying it out for the first time. And now, several years on from now, I know that there are so many types of special hand-dyed linens and evenweaves that make stitching on it a real treat and pleasure.

ABCs of Me

I originally tried to post this on Wednesday, but Blogger ate it:

Animals: Jade, my cat.
Best Friend(s): None really, I guess if I had had any true friends I wouldn't have ended up in Cornwall.
Car: Blue Rover Metro
Desire(s): To own my own home again.
Eye Color: Blue
Favorite Foods: Hagan Daas Icecream, Salt and Vinegar Crisps
Garden Stuff: Don't have a garden anymore but I have a bizzy lizzy that I've managed to keep alive for nearly a year, rubber plant, umbrella plant and some sort of spiky thing on my toilet.
Hometown: Gillingham, Kent.
Ice cream: Hagan Daas Pralines and Cream and Ben & Jerry's Cherry Garcia
Job: Admin Assistant for a Financial Advisor
Keepsake Favorite: Cross Stitch Stash
Languages: English and I did do Japanese twice, forgotten it all again now though
Manias : Cross stitching, web design, sf reading
Name: Mel
Outfit I love: Flowery summery dresses
Phobia: Maggots
Quality I value the most: Intelligence
Relationship: Single
Suspicious of: GW Bush
Television Show(s): Holby City, Eastenders
Unsavory Characteristic: Tactless, Hey! a spade's a spade!
Volunteer: Used to do the web design for www.larryniven.org on a voluntary basis
Webpage: http://www.knownspace.co.uk
Xylophone (or other instrument): Still got my electronic keyboard, and I
played the recorder in school
Year Born: 1971
Zodiac Sign: Cancer

Reposting manually cause blogger ate the last post!!!

My Stupid Cat and Blogs

Did the Stitching Blogger's Question this morning via email - but it still hasn't been posted. Got a bounce back from blogger just now it said:

(expanded from
): Command died with status 1: "IFS=' '&&exec
/home/bloggermail/processmail2||exit 75 #bloggermail"

What the **** does that mean??

And now my silly cat is sitting outside the door wanting "in" but instead of just doing the sensible thing and pushing it open, he's sitting outside occasionally complaining and then a foot comes in and pulls the door towards him, in the process trapping his paw in the door.....

Oh he's just figured it out now. He finally pushed it open......

ROFLAMAO

The Dark One...

Nope - we're not talking Episode III here - we're talking of a pint and a
half of some very dark Cornish beer that I drank last night. It was about
7% which is quite strong. My friends thought it was strange going to a Beer
Festival and drinking wine - but I was ok and not getting too silly until
I'd drank that dark stuff - which was the colour of Guinness.

I started getting silly when I noticed one of my friend's new companions was
wearing his american football mock cardigan inside out - I kept whispering
to people about it. In the end I challenged him about it - but it turned
out it wasn't inside out at all - it was meant to be that way!! Fashion
victim or what?

When we left the pub I went to go skipping along the street and then skipped
straight out of my new shoe - leaving it behind. Of course I collapsed in a
heap in fits of giggles over this. Then one of my friends decided to go for
a swing around a lamp post. I tried to imitate him, but didn't even get to
the lamp post - I found the edge of the curb first and went straight down on
my face.

Now I have another skinned (and bruised) knee!

Cross Stitcher Issue 159

Just read San's Comment on my last entry. I'm still blogging and emailing
away. Got a massive backlog that I'm working through about 400 down 700
still to go! Phew!

Speaking of Winnie the Pooh, what did you think of that cover kit in the
current issue - the Sketched Pooh one - I took one look at it and thought
"YUK"! I can't stand Winnie the Pooh anyway because I've got about 10 of
the sodding free cover kits I've accumulated in the past already to stitch
but this is the first time I've seriously considered just binning a freebie.
It's not even worthy of stash hoarding. Free to a good home? Any Pooh fans
out there that want it?

Fortunately the rest of the magazine by far made up for their poor choice of
freebie.

There's a Margaret Sherry design of a fawn and squirrel called "Woodland
Friends". The squirrel is really cute, good enough to stitch on his own.
It's quite a large design for Margaret too.

There's a Sheila Hudson design of Cornwall - it could be St Ives - the
palm trees certainly make it look as if it's in this area. Sheila! stop
making so many georgeous designs, I'm stitching Venice at the moment and I'm
falling way behind keeping up with you, there's at least three more that
have been published of yours in various mags since then that I will now have
to stitch, and this one is going to be added to that list.

The tiger cub cushion - although I probably won't stitch this has got
the most gorgeous blue eyes and finally the Medieval Lady is lovely
too.

The only design in this issue that is a little disappointing is the All
Our Yesterdays one. I love Faye Whittaker's stuff, but this design just
seems a bit.... I don't know, Bland?

Overall an excellent issue... if you just ignore Pooh!

Cross Stitcher & Catterflies

I arrived home yesterday to find a Thank You for subscribing letter from
Future publishing and a jiffy bag with my free subscription gift in it which
was the Margaret Sherry kit "Catterflies".

Considering that I queried what was happening to my subscription on the 23rd
of February (a month ago) and didn't get a response for over a week so I
told them to forget about the subscription - I'm really quite annoyed that
it's taken them two months to find it and still actually process it -
against my most recent instructions.

To annoy me even further I had asked if I could have the Margaret Sherry
Hedgehog's design which was available as well instead of the Catterflies
(I've already got the chart for this), but they still sent the Catterflies.

I'm not sure what to do. Shall I contact them and have a moan at them for
cocking up not once, not twice, not thrice, but an incredible four times?
Or just live with it, stick Catterflies in my stash and enjoy the next Cross
Sticher issue which will hit my door mat in April?

Stitching Blogger's Question of the Week: Needlework Shows

What are your thoughts on craft and/or needlework shows? Have you been to one or are you planning on going to one this year?

When I was back in Kent, they used to hold craft shows quite a few times a year. There was a good one at Penshurst Place outside of Tonbridge. They were always interesting to attend, but there was rarely any dedicated cross stitch stalls there, mainly woodcrafts and other kinds of needlework. I think the main reason I liked going to these was to raid all the free samples in the food tent. lol

I've only been to one dedicated cross stitch show, and that was Stitch 2003 at Olympia. I was a bit disappointed with the show really. It was kits, kits and more kits - and I'm not really a kit person. While the prices were discounted, they still couldn't match the prices being offered on the internet even then. Especially the American Kit Suppliers. I think I went there hoping to pick up "Too Pooped" for a reasonable price, and while the kit was certainly cheaper than it's RRP, I still knew I could get get it much cheaper (nearly half price) if I ordered it from the US via the internet. I was expecting more stalls selling Stash. Here's a link to an archived page of my first stitching diary of what happened on the day and what I bought.

The best thing about going to the show though was finally meeting Piwi in the flesh. Apart from my family, she was the first real life stitcher I'd met in the flesh. Piwi had been at the show the day previously too, so she had already recognoitered all the interesting things. She opened my eyes to a few things, I remember her showing me one of the stalls had small cuts of Silkweaver's Reflections fabric, and whilst I didn't buy any that day, the gleam of that beautiful fabric (which you can't see properly in any web photos) finally tempted me to join their Stash club. I still get Reflections sent to me regularly in Silkweaver's Fabric of the Month club, although I probably have most of the colours now already. lol

I don't have any plans to attend any cross stitch shows for the remainder of this year, for two reasons:

• Living in Cornwall is like being at the ass-end of nowhere. There are plenty of local "craft fayres" but they are shake and bake events organised at a local church hall and are usually just for the artist types who are drawn to this area. There aren't any locally organised stitching events to attend, and you know how long it takes to get to and from Cornwall after my stitching retreat weekend journey - so I really can't be bothered with another 5 and a half hour train journey to get to Stitch 2005, although I would really love to meet Margaret Sherry in the flesh. I hope San meets her.
• I've got too much stash now and want to stitch some of it before I buy any more...... I'm on the "Stash Wagon". Attending these events without spending any money is showing true forces of restraint.

Haloscan

Just added Haloscan's commenting system to this blog to allow me to do Trackback Pings.... and now... whoops! I've got two lots of comments. The trouble is, if I delete Blogspot's own comment link, then I will lose all the old comments which have previously been made on this blog - at least I think I will anyway?

Anyone got any ideas?

Stitching Blogger's Questions: How many hours do you stitch each week?

On average, how many hours a week (7 days) do you think that you spend cross stitching?

The honest answer to that is "not enough".

I used to stitch at least 2-3 hours a day - sometimes more. But since moving to Cornwall, real life and a full time job has severely curtailed my stitching time - so in reality - unless I grab the odd stitch at lunchtimes, or travelling (which I don't do very often) I only really get real stitching time at the weekends. So I guess I probably stitch less than 5 hours a week at the moment - so 20 hours down to 5 - no wonder my UFO's aren't disappearing.

Maybe in the long summer evenings I'll find more time to stitch - it should soon start being light enough and warm enough to sit out in the garden in the evening for an hour or two. Perhaps I'll get more stitching done then.

I think that's what I enjoyed about last weekend so much - dedicated guilt-free stitching time.

St Patrick's Day

Yeah! My (sorely won) hat:
[Maybe it's sacreledge to take a picture of it stuck on my egyptian lady statue's head, I think she's supposed to be Cleopatra - did Cleopatra ever go out on pub crawls? She probably never got up to my antics anyway.]

Many of the pubs in Penzance were doing a promotion on Guinness today, including the Weatherspoons. So that's where me and my friends met up. I started off the night with an Irish Stew, and then started with the real juice.

You had to drink 5 pints before you got a hat and 4 badges. We were pooling our tokens by the time we left the Weatherspoons we had two hats and loads of tokens, because the Weatherspoons had run out of them.

We cleared out The Star pub too of Hats and then went down to the Crown. You should have seen the look on people's faces when we all walked in wearing those ridiculous hats - they had them behind the bar too, but no one was wearing them in there!

In the end we ended up in The Longboat Hotel doing Kareoke with Hats:

Apologies for the bad picture quality, but this is from a movie file taken on one of our friends' phones. I didn't think it had sound at first.... but unfortunately this morning I discovered differently.... [shudder]

After leaving the Longboat the last few of us went night clubbing..... I can remember one of my friends falling over twice, and I was spinning around (a 'la Kylie Minogue?) like a 10 year old on the poles on the dancefloor! lol

I didn't get home till three.... and ouch! the headache the next day.

Damn that Guinness !

Stitching Blogger's Question of the Week: Favourite Designer(s)?

Do you have a favorite designer (or designers)? If so, who is it and why is
he or she your favorite?

This is an easy one to answer for me: Margaret Sherry. I simply love her
cattitudes. She's recently branched out into doing some strange barnyard
animals, including purple chickens, lol. Which are a bit strange to say the
least. Bring back the cats!

I also like Pamela Kellog and her Cats in Hats series. I like her other
designs too, but the cats simply win it for me.

And of course, I don't think anyone could answer this favourite designer
question and forget Teresa Wentzler? TW's designs are very challenging but
very rewarding once you've stitched them.

Stitching Retreat Weekend

Got back late last night (I'm posting this Monday afternoon) from the Stitching Retreat Weekend in Milton Keynes which was organised by Jayne Hall of Jayne's Attic and Stitching and Stash.

I'm having a day at home to recouperate from the 8 hour journey back home - so I thought I'd do a little retro-blog posting (with pics) about the weekend.

The Journey Home

Judy Dixon's daughter, Louisa kindly gave Jane Fielding and myself a lift back to Milton Keynes station in her car. I'm glad that I arrived early because the trains back to London were running askew because of engineering works. If I had caught the 4:37, which probably wouldn't have turned up until 5 o clock, I seriously doubt that I would have made the 18:30 Paddington train out of London.

Jane was also pleased to have left earlier as she was able to catch an earlier train too. My journey back to London was without incident, although I nearly did fall asleep - I guess that the weekend was starting to catch up with me.

I arrived back in Euston and lumbered down with heavy bags was astonished to see how many people were milling around in the capital on a Sunday afternoon. I had to take the long route back to Paddington on the Underground. I looked for the walkway to the pink Hammersmith and City Line (which only means a few stops to Paddington on the tube), but couldn't find it anywhere so I took the longer route back via the Northern and Central line. The underground was completely packed, another reason why I hate london. I was getting a bit anxious about getting back to Paddington by 6:30 (because believe it or not - it's the last train to Penzance on a Sunday) because of the queues, but I made it with 10 minutes to spare - so I grabbed another Burger King Whopper Meal. Two in one weekend - I guess I was priviledged! lol

The train was on time and I scooted along the platform along with everyone else to get ahead of the crowd to grab an unreserved seat with a table. I got on the first available carriage - sat down and then noticed that I was in a Family carriage... ooops. screaming kids all the way? By then it was too late to find another table in another carriage as the train was starting to fill up.

I stitched some of the satin bag on the way home and then gave up with that. I got my gameboy out then got tired of that too. Then I noticed that the interconnecting door at the end of the carriage had been propped open and there were people milling about in there in huge green hats. They seemed to be enjoying themselves immensely. Pre-St Patrick's Day Celebrations for they got out an accordion and started doing an Irish Jig outside the toilet. Yes, a party outside the loo! lol Unfortunatley they got off at Taunton or I might have gone and joined them ;-)

The train was on time and pulled into Penzance at 0:05. What a long journey! But well worth it for a great weekend.

Masterclass 2: Satin Stitch Needlework Bag

On the second day we stitched this:

I had done some embroidery a very long time ago - my mother taught me to do some when I was about 10 but I've not touched it since - it was like I was relearning the whole thing again.

I think I got on better with this design, than that of the first day. I seemed to make quite a lot of progress on it:

As I'm posting this retro-spectively (it's actually Sunday 20th March), several of the others have now finished their embroidery. Debbie Mariotti has now finished her Spray and the bag.

Public Service Announcements

This was Jayne Hall on the return bus doing another one of her "Public Service Announcement" speeches to keep us all in line..... unfortunately after a bottle of wine I think it was Jayne who needed to keep herself in line, inflicting us to a drunken rendition of Old MacDonald's Farm. That was a very unusual farm, I've never heard of a farmer who farms Sea Bass, Lobsters, Lamb and lollypops before!

Jane f

For more pics, please see my Webshots album

Ursh

sandra and dawn

Kam Tong Garden

For Saturday's evening meal we went to the Kam Tong Garden Chinese Restaurant in Milton Keynes. Our journey there was somewhat eventful - or at least catching a ride there.

Jayne had booked an 16-seater mini bus to take us to the Restaurant from the Hotel - but the first transport to arrive was an 8-seater taxi - there were nine of us - but we started to cram in anyway. Then Jayne said to the aisan driver "I don't believe that you are insured to carry 9 people in there" so we all started to pile out. Then it turned out that this taxi guy wasn't the guy that she had booked after all, so some other guests took this taxi instead.

Then another multi-seater taxi showed up and the driver says 6 in here and another 3 in the car following. But Jayne was insistent that she had booked a mini bus so everyone got in and out of the cars again.

Then finally the mini bus turned up and we all got in and were off. Why all the other taxis and the mess? Well these other taxi companies were companies that Jayne had contacted for quotes, but they had never got back and confirmed the details with her. Their loss I guess - but as they weren't able to supply our exact requirements, then fool on them.

Our Menu:

Hors D'oeuvres

Satay Chicken
Tiger King Prawns
Capital Ribs
Prawn Toast
Spring Roll
Seaweed
Squid

*****************************

Szechuan Aromatic Duck with Mongolian Lamb served with salad, pancakes and Hoi-Sin Sauce

*****************************

Baked Lobster and King Prawns (in shell) in peppercorn salt

*****************************

The Main Course:

Yum Yum Bird's Nest (stir-fried spicy beef with vegetables)
Steamed Sea Bass with Spring Onion and Ginger
Chili Pork Peking Style
Sizzling Beef and Chicken fillet in Black Bean Sauce
Sweet and Sour King Prawns
Special Lotus Leaf wrapped Rice
Fillet Chicken with Lemon Sauce

*****************************

Ice cream or fresh fruit salad

*****************************

Coffee and mints

PHEW!!!!!

Jayne serving up our first course:

The Country Cross Stitcher - Stash Experience

Just down the road from the hotel was a needlework shop called The Country Cross Stitcher.


Jayne had given us all tempting £7.50 vouchers to spend in the shop and also had arranged late opening and a 10% discount with the owners. I was very good. I only bought what I needed, a packet of needles (I can't believe that I'd only brought one needle with me on this trip) a new pair or scissors (the kitchen scissors I were using didn't have a fine enough point for cutting the embroidery threads), a daylight bulb (I've lost my own lamp), a square clasp frame and my only little excess and a treat I allowed myself was a Mirabilia Chart of The Mermaid Queen (left).

I was mildly amused by watching the staff in the shop - the poor lady was literally run off her feet - kitting up this design for one person - kitting up that design for another person, and her husband just stood there watching, unable to help. He said he helped out in the shop by doing a little hoovering and cleaning - but he was a complete novice to cross stitch and stitching so didn't know what any of the stocks were or were located. After admiring all the stitched models hanging on the walls of the shop, I left the shop early with my new stash to give the others a little more space.

Lavender Spray (c) Judy Dixon

This is called Lavender Spray and it was the design that we worked on during the first masterclass:

It was the first time I've attempted anything like this. I was a complete newbie to Hardanger work and this type of embroidery as well. Judy Dixon and all the other's scoffed because I was going to use a wooden hoop to hold my stitching taught, claiming it marks the material - and they quickly lent me a square plastic frame instead - but just what is wrong with the hoops, I've used them all my stitching life!

I had to be shown the basics, like even how to cast on - only one thread so can't use the loop method. It was very strange stitching will all the different kinds of threads. Some of the variegated ones were quite nice and produced a neat effect, but I don't think they liked me calling them "wool", but that's what they looked like. lol

Anyway after a day's worth of stitching, and my first attempt at Hardanger, my Lavender Spay looks like this:

Haven't found time to work on it since. I probably wouldn't ever have tried stitching anything like this on my own, so it was good to try new things in a supportive teaching environment.

I really don't want it to become another UFO or WIP but I have other stitching that I want to finish first.

Masterclass 1: Lavender Spray

Saturday Morning - and we made our way to MK station in a convoy to pick up Jane Fielding who had come from Manchester on the train. From the station we all followed Jayne and Ursh to Judy Dixon's house in Mursley for the first of our weekend stitching classes.....

And then 40 minutes later and ... we are all still following Jayne and Ursh on a magical mystery tour, of the outskirts of Milton Keynes. It's supposed to take about 15 minutes to Judy's house from the station, but we saw lots of dual carriageways, roundabouts and country lanes. I think the biggest problem with MK is that it all looks the same - it's really easy to get lost there. Housing estates interspersed with retail parks followed by more housing estates... it was most disconcerting. Sandra - who was driving me and Jayne remarked that she felt that she'd driven half way back home again - (she lives in Wales). lol

Here's a picture of the girls on the other table who are just to undertake the first of the classes - Lavender Spray.


From left to Right: Gina, Rebecca, Sandra, Dawn, Jane (F) and Debbie

Jayne, Ursh and I were sitting on another table.

Breakfast in Bed

Well, I had to order Breakfast in Bed - didn't I? What's the point of spoiling yourself if you can't partake in everything?

The breakfast was lovely, and before you ask, no - I couldn't eat it all. It was delicious though. The sausage was strange. It has been years since I had a sausage that tasted like that - halfway through the sausage I worked out why - it was a real "meaty sausage" and made with proper meat, not all the fat and fillers and goodness knows what fills most modern supermarket-bought sausages.

Friday Evening

After meeting up with Jayne, Ursh and Sandra in Jayne and Ursh's room, I learned what had happened with the phones. The Inn at Woburn has no mobile phone reception. It's a complete dead zone. Messages that I sent hours ago were gradually creeping through one by one. In fact, one message that I sent from MK station saying that I was waiting in the coffee shop only came through at about 6:30 - two hours late! lol. Just as well I had got that taxi or I would still have been sitting there. Jayne gave me loads of stick about all the text's that I had sent her! lol

Jayne ordered some coffee from Room Service and we sat to have a good natter. It's really strange meeting people who you've known online for several years for the first time. They are never how you imagine them to be.

I've known Jayne from the groups for a few years and I've spoken to her on the phone a few times about ordering stuff from her online shop - but she was not quite what I was expecting in the flesh, I'd seen pictures of her online, but she was a blonde in those pictures. Apparently she's been a red head for over a year now, so those photos are now well out of date. I didn't imagine that she was shorter than me either, she's such a petite lady. When we "met" she remarked that she was pleased that I didn't tower over her too much .

Urszula was probably the biggest shock though, I've known Urszula for about 2 and a half years on the groups and she's also a member of the Cattitudes RR - in fact she passed Nicole's fabric to me when we met! On the groups, Urszula comes across as being quite quiet and reserved, I didn't expect her to form the second half of the Jayne Hall/Urszula Pitt double act comedy routine! ;-)

Sandra was also very nice, she comes across as being quite empowered in emails, but after meeting her in the flesh, I think that she's quite quiet - like me - when she's surrounded by groups of strange people.

Debbie was dropped off by her husband at the hotel earlier in the evening. I've read some of her postings on the groups, and remember her talking about her daughter's illness, but I've not really had any private correspondence with her, so I didn't know her very well, so I didn't really have any preconceptions about her.

I'm amazed at how much I have in common with these women. That's the beauty of the internet - it pulls together groups of people with similar interest who would otherwise never have met.

Jayne did the fateful thing then and got her stitching out - so everybody retreated to their rooms to get their to stitching too, bring out all their latest projects, have them admired and then chat, stitch and watch Comic Relief.

We had a table booked at the hotel's restauant for 8 - so we went down there and ordered our evening meals. I chose Venison steak. The food took a long time to come - over half an hour -but it gave us a chance to have a real good chin-wag. Although it took such a long time - the food was really worth the wait - it really tasted good - I didn't even think of putting ketchup or horseradish on my venison steak! And for people who know me well - you know how much I love my condiments ;-)

My Room

After having worked in a hotel myself (when I first got to Cornwall last year) I could really appreciate staying somewhere this luxurious. It was a question of having the tables turned! From making up the beds in someone else's posh hotel room and cleaning their loos, here I was in a posh room of my own. ;-)

Jayne's idea of having a weekend when we really spoiled ourselves paid off big time with this choice of venue.

The Inn at Woburn

This is a postcard which I picked up in my hotel room's welcome book. It shows the hotel that we all stayed at. The hotel has a website http://www.theinnatwoburn.co.uk.

It's a very posh hotel, there was a wedding being held there when I arrived on Friday Night, that explained the lady walking around in a wedding dress at 5:30 in the evening. I telephoned Jayne's room from reception - she was there!! - and checked into my room.

The Journey out of Cornwall - Devon to Milton Keynes

I stopped taking pics after Dawlish. The train line leaves the sea there and becomes a lot less interesting. Considering how far it travels, the train stops at very few places, I think there's only about 15 stops. After it leaves Devon it's basically an express service that only stops at the main city stations like Exeter, Taunton and Reading. From Reading it doesn't stop until it reaches Paddington Station, which this train did at 14:20. Yes 2:20, it left Penzance at 9:04 - what a long journey, but great if you are a stitcher. I always make a bee-line for the seats with the tables so I can spread out all my stitching, project folders etc.

At Paddington, I made my way via the underground to Euston to catch the Milton Keynes train. I got on the Circle Line - (well thought I'd got on a Circle Line train - but it was actually a District Line train - so I had to get off again at Notting Hill Gate and wait for the next Circle Line train to show up - which took quite a few minutes to come in - I toyed with the idea of leaving the underground and going up to Notting Hill market to see if I could find that house with the Blue door and see if Hugh Grant was home, LOL), and then the Victoria line to Euston.

According to the timetables I printed off the First Great Western website there should have been a Virgin train at 3:18 - there was no listing for this on the station boards, the next Milton Keynes train left at 3:34, so I had just enough time to pop to the loo in the station - 20 PENCE FOR A PEE!!! WHAT A CHEEK! - and get a Texan Whopper Meal from the Burger King in the station before getting on the Milton Keynes train. It wasn't a Virgin train - the Milton Keynes train service was being run by a company called Silverlink. That was a contrast from the First Great Western trains - quite a comedown. Reminds me of the shoddy Connex South East service that I used to put up with back in Kent.

I sat down on the train to eat my Whopper - two women sitting opposite me looked at me with disgust. I didn't care, it was 3:30 in the afternoon and apart from half a tube of pringles which I'd munched on the journey to Paddington, this was the first real food (if you could call Burger King real food?) I'd had that day. Thinking that the journey to Milton Keynes (hereafter referred to a MK) would take the same duration as on the Virgin Train, I sent a text to Jayne saying I'd arrive about 4:10.

But this Silverlink train was no Virgin train, in fact, a superfast modern Virgin train capable of 125 mile an hour travel actually cruised past the one I was on while my train was going flat out. It was also stopping at every station, so instead of the 4:10 eta I'd sent Jayne, it was actually more like 4:40 when it arrived at MK. I texted Jayne with an updated ETA, but still received no response - so I tried calling her a few times because she was going to arrange a lift from the Station to the Hotel that we were staying. I couldn't get through on the phone, it was either coming up as busy or going straight to voicemail. Very strange.

I arrived at the station and sent Jayne another message saying I was going to wait in a cafe until I heard from her. I sat for about 20 minutes, but still not a word. In the end, I jumped into a taxi and went to the Inn at Woburn by myself. £16 later I arrived.

The Journey out of Cornwall: Dawlish

My last en route picture: Dawlish (just over 2 hours into the journey)

The first time I left Cornwall on the train, I was amazed when I went on this section of the line, the line runs parallel to the sea for several miles. The sand is red here - I think it comes from the red rock cliffs.

The Journey out of Cornwall: Teignmouth

The Journey out of Cornwall: Over two and a half hours en route.Teignmouth in Devon.

I just love all those little multi-coloured cottages. ;-)

I actually drove across this causeway when I first came down here. Would have loved to have stopped and taken a picture from the bridge of the pretty houses, but

1. I couldn't stop on the bridge, and
2. I hadn't taken my camera with me.

Plymouth pub - photo taken from Tamar Bridge.

I don't know what this pub is called - but you've got to admit it's quite distinctive. The wall on the right of the pub has a two story high piece of artwork on it.

All the white things on the ground next to the boat are Geese! I tried to take a picture earlier - when I was closer to the geese, but a strut of the bridge got in the way.

The Journey out of Cornwall: Tamar Bridge

Nearly 2 hours en route: The Tamar Bridge marks the county's boundary with neighbouring Devon.

The Journey out of Cornwall: Bodmin

The journey out of Cornwall: 1 hour en route: Bodmin

Cornwall has some of the most amazing geography, from long clean empty beaches, to the desolate moors and cliffs of the Pendeen Peninsular to the amazing landscapes (and treescapes) around Bodmin.

Here's a picture that I took from the train of some of the depth of the geography in the Bodmin area. I'm always amazed at the tree-filled valleys and grass covered fields. It doesn't look as if it belongs to a part of the UK at all.... maybe somewhere like Switzerland or Austria, lol. There's supposed to be a big cat (black panther) lurking somewhere around in this area. You must have heard of the notorious "beast of Bodmin" news reports. Well, these wooods and hills and could hide just about anything.....

Exeter

Went up to Exeter on the train on Monday night. There was a training course which started at 9:30 in the morning which I needed to attend for work. It was a choice of either going up the night before, or getting up at silly-o-clock in the morning to catch the 5:10 train out of Penzance in the morning. I chose the former.

I left work early to catch the train to Exeter, even though Exeter is just over in the neighbouring county of Devon, it's still nearly three hours away on the train. Unbelieveable! I did intend to do a bit of stitching on the train on the journey up there, but I felt really tired (cold was still getting me down) and not at all up to the concentration needed. I had woken up at 2:00 am the night before and didn't get back to sleep till about 6:00 am so I really didn't want to get up on Monday morning. By the evening I was feeling the effects of the lack of sleep, so I just sat through the journey and tried to relax.

I was a little nervous about leaving Cornwall. I've not been anywhere since I returned last August with Jade and after what I went through back then, I had vowed never to leave it again. Would I have a panic-attack crossing the Tamar Bridge? Well I didn't. I guess it was reassuring in some ways as it was a dry run of this weekend's travels to the Stitching Retreat Weekend in Milton Keynes. I was getting nervous about being so far away from home and leaving Jade even though it was only for 2/3 days.

I arrived at Exeter about 8:30 pm and dropped off my bag at the hotel. Well, I say Hotel, it was only a B&B in reality but it was clean and warm and that's just about all you need for an overnight stay. I went into the town centre of Exeter to find something to eat. I spotted a Burger King and headed to it (my nearest Burger King in Penzance is 20 miles away in Truro) and was most disconcerted to find that it had closed over 2 hours ago. Similarly I missed the closing of Macdonalds by 10 minutes. I walked past a closed M&S and made lost puppy noises because I couldn't go in and buy anything as it was shut (again, the nearest Marks and Spencers to Penzance is Truro!).

In the end I gave up and walked back to the hotel, stopping at the fish and chip shop on the corner and getting a portion of overcooked plaice and undercooked chips. Hmmmm not that appetising - but I had no choice. I decided to look forward to my breakfast instead.

The next morning, I got up and went down to breakfast and found that I wasn't really hungry!! What a shame. I consoled myself by reading the paper instead. At 9:10 I got a taxi to the Buckerell Lodge where the training was being held. I was really shocked by the amount of traffic in Exeter. The traffic jams, the queues..... the night before I was standing at a pedestrian crossing on a corner waiting to cross the road and this guy on a bicycle nearly knocked me over! Can 11 months of being in Cornwall change me so much that I view a big city with the eyes of a country bumpkin?

The training course was good. It was definitely worth me attending, I learned what I was doing wrong with our database software, and also more importantly how to fix my errors. I also learned how the reporting side of it works. Which will be very useful.

The course finished really early, so I went back to Exeter St David's Station to get the train back. I did toy with the idea of doing a little shopping (Marks and Spencers was still calling to me), but I had a heavy overnight bag to lug around the town center, and there was no left luggace facility at Exeter Station. So I got my stitching out to while away the hour till the next train. The next train only went as far as Plymouth, so I caught that and again was faced with another hours wait to get the train back to Penzance. I walked outside Plymouth Station to see if there was any shops or any pubs worth exploring, but all there seemed to be within easy reach was a bus station and taxi rank, so I gave up and went back and sat in the Station Buffet for the next hour. One of the Buffet staff admired the stitching that I was doing (Sparkling Waters).

The train came on time and I got on the crowded commuter train back to Penzance. I stitched Sparkling Waters all the way home.

Here's the progress I made on it:

Click the Image (left) to View it properly in my Webshots

The train soon emptied enough to give me elbow room. That's the good thing about living all the way down at the ass end of nowhere in Penzance, you know that practically everyone is going to get off the train before you. I do think that it is a relaxing journey, though. I got home about 7:00.

The Cat who has the Cream

Jade is definitely one spoilt pet: I treated myself to some cream over a sticky toffee pudding for lunch. There was some cream left over so I decided to give Jade a little treat.

This is the picture I took of him after he'd drank his fill. Look at the little drip on his chin! lol

Future Publishing - Not a Good Advert!

I blogged back on the 28th January about the Cross Stitcher Margaret Sherry Subscription Offer. Anyway, the new issue was going to be in the shops about 2 weeks ago, so I emailed Future Publishing's subscription department to find out what was happening with the subscription:

----- Original Message -----
From: vash@knownspace.co.uk
Date: 23 February 2005
Subject: Cross Stitcher Subscription

Hi,
I completed a form out of your magazine to subscribe and get the free hedgehog kit as a free gift. This was several weeks ago, and I've not heard anything yet. The new Cross Stitcher is out in the shops tomorrow. So, should I buy it, or will you be able to sort my subscription out?

~ Melanie ~ Gandalf, trying to light his pipe in Moria: "Naur an adriat ammin! Naur an adriat ammin! Oh, damn it, _that_ spell is for waking Balrogs. Now, for the pipe..."

Last week, they finally answered with:

From: Future Publishing [mailto:future@subscription.co.uk]
Sent: 02 March 2005 14:20
To: vash@knownspace.co.uk
Subject: Future Publishing - Subscriber Number: Em Ref: TPS373439A

Thank you for your recent email.

Unfortunately I have been unable to locate your subscription from the information provided. May I request you please provide as much information as possible on the following to enable me to investigate further:

Your subscription number (if known)
Name and address of the Payer:
Name and address of the Recipient: (if a gift subscription)

INSTANT ONLINE CUSTOMER SERVICE Should you require any further assistance, to check the status of a subscription or amend your details, simply go to www.myfavouritemagazines.co.uk/youraccount You may also contact us at future@subscription.co.uk quoting email reference TPS373439A.
For and on behalf of Future Publishing.

Angela Sturgess
Email Customer Services

Should you require any further assistance, to check the status of a subscription or amend your details, simply go to www.myfavouritemagazines.co.uk/youraccount You may also contact us at future@subscription.co.uk quoting email reference TPS373439A.
For and on behalf of Future Publishing.

I love the "INSTANT ONLINE CUSTOMER SERVICE" bit!!

So yesterday I answered with:

Well, it took you a week to answer that query.

I've since bought the next issue of Cross Stitcher, with customer service
that poor, I guess you can forget about the subscription.

~ Melanie ~
Gandalf, trying to light his pipe in Moria: "Naur an adriat ammin! Naur
an adriat ammin! Oh, damn it, _that_ spell is for waking Balrogs. Now,
for the pipe..."

Watermelon Carvings

Interesting water melon carving of a dragon:

Here's More: http://www.americade.info/melons.htm

Obnoxious Children: The Family from Hell?

I went out this morning and got breakfast in Littlewoods. I thought I would treat myself to a leisurely breakfast while I sat looking out over at St Michael's Mount in the Bay while reading the paper. It is a little treat for me, primarily because I've not been out of the house since I finished work on Wednesday due to this damn cold - unless you count a 10 minute outing to the local Co-op in a quest for butter!

Anyway, I'm sitting there starting to enjoy my breakfast, when I happen to glance up at the family sprawled across the next table. There's a father sitting there along with 5 kids, all the kids seem to be aged between 7 and 10. Anyway, the father tell's off the daughter sitting next to him, and what does the little cow do? Sits there slapping her father back at the breakfast table, and having a major tantrum and paddy. I couldn't believe it - slapping her father back in public???

Then the mother returns, I return to my breakfast and the paper and try to ignore the bespeckled 7 year old boy, who now decides it's his turn to act up, and gets into a shouting match with his brother.

In about 20 minutes, most of the children have finished, but the mother is still eating toast, so instead of sitting at the table like a nice little girl, the obnoxious child gets up, gets behind my chair and starts climbing on the chair and table behind me, leaning over the balcony and watching the escalator going up below her. I was going to say something about her sitting down like a nice little girl and waiting politely at the table until her mother had finished eathing.... but in the end I just really wished she'd just lean a little too far over and plop down on the stairs below. Then all the other kids get up and start occupying all the other free tables near their own instead of sitting there nicely!

By this time the mother has eventually finished her toast; the family get up to leave and half of them are already half out the shop and heading for the stairs - I look up to study the ruinous mess that was once their table and I'm shocked to see they've left one of the kids behind. Yes, the poor little tike is hurriedly finishing off his last couple of mouthfuls, which he abandons in the end for fear of being left behind in Littlewoods.

What a family!!!

Stitching Bloggers Question of the Week: Charts

Which do you prefer and why? "Old-fashioned" black and white symbol-only charts, charts with colored blocks, or charts with a combination of colored blocks and symbols?

I like the coloured charts with the embedded symbols which most magazines seem to favour now. I still can make working copies of these using a combination of scanner and coloured printer.

In fact, I really like making duplicates of charts because you can do enlarged sections of portions of the chart where needed - like in areas of fine detail like the face.

With Paradise Island, I'm working from scanned chart sections, which is why my work is building up in a series of blocks - this is not to do with the gridding, although I'm finding this a real help with avoiding mistakes.

Stitching Update

I posted some pictures today of what I've been stitching lately.

Made some progress on Venice today while I watched the Special Features disk of X Files Series 4 and also made some progress on the Island the other day when I was off sick from work.

Paradise Island WIP 10

Sparkling Waters

Stitching Bloggers Question of the Week: Round Robins

Do you participate in round robins? If so, how many have you participated in? Do you participate in more than one at a time? Summarize your experiences (good and/or bad).

If not, have you thought about it?

I've been involved in five Round Robins so far:

The first was organised by the A Noble Needle Yahoo Group. It's theme was a beginners RR - but as it was leading up to Christmas - the other three members picked a Christmas theme for their designs. I stuck to the Bears from Around the World. If you look back at my Completed in 2001 page, there's some images there from it. My own piece of material can be seen on my Yahoo Photo Pages, it's Theme was Teddy Bears. This robin ran smoothly without a hitch.

The second RR was also through ANN. It was called Fantasy 4. It's theme was Fantasy and we stitched dragons and fantastic creatures. This robin also ran smoothly without a hitch, although some of the fabric did take a while to make it home. I met my friend Piwi though this Robin. I picked fairies as theme for my robin. Here's a picture of the finished piece (although I still have to add a few more embelishments and frame it. There are other pictures of the pieces I stitched for Jennifer, Katt and Piwi here. On Piwi's piece, I did Teresa Wenzler's Tempest in a Teacup. Loved stitching him, may do him again at some point in the future - he turned me into a real TW fan.

The third RR actually completed before the second one - it was a Christmas themed RR which I stitched with My Mother, My Aunt and my aunt's friend Karen. You can see this in my 2002 Finishes.

The fourth RR is the Cattitudes RR and this is still ongoing. This has become quite a saga, people have left, new members have joined to replace them and at the moment were still at about 8 members (we started off with about 14 at one point) the intention was to stitch all 12 cats from the November 2002 Margaret Sherry Catalog. The last cat I stitched was Cautious. I dropped out of this myself for about 6 months while I tried to sort out my life down here in Cornwall.

The fifth RR was an Easter Themed RR which I organised myself on my UKCSF Yahoo Group. The RR went OK to start with until all the problems happened with Sean! Curse him! So I sort of missed the end of it, only stitched 3 designs. Petra was OK about it though (I still had to stitch on her piece when I dropped out), which was a real shame because her ring of dancing bunnies looked like a fun stitch. I got my fabric back from Sandra, who was looking after it for me. The fabric turned out really good. It makes it all the more poingnant now because the design I stitched of the RSPCA bunny looked I lot like my old bunny Jessica. I still don't know what Sean did with her.

The Mapping of the Cat Brain

Borrowed from: http://www.xmission.com/~emailbox/mapping.htm

Who's Your Inner Sexy Cartoon Chick?

Tinkerbell


Who 's Your Inner Sexy Cartoon Chick ?
brought to you by Quizilla

Stitching Bloggers Question of the Week: Favourite Fabrics

What is your favourite fabric to stitch on?

Silkweaver's 28 Count reflection range.

I hardly ever stitch on Aida now, any new projects that I start which I kit up from scratch are all done on evenweave by choice.

Not a Litterbox!

Jade...... as much as I love you - the gravel path is not a litter box.

You know the landlady has been moaning about finding cat crap on the path, and now I know it's you cause I saw you digging in the path this morning!!!!

B3ta Link Roundup

More of those bizarre, interesting and funny links:

• Scared of Santa - pictures of screaming todlers who really didn't want to be sitting on some stranger's knee.
• Foreign Chicken Mince Advert - at least I think that's what it is - completely bizarre!
• This is actually part of a promo for a new game - but it does make you think: http://www.how-safe-are-we.com/
• Ever bought stuff from Tesco's Value range? I used to buy their cheap baked beans all the time 9p a tin they were. How much does other stuff cost though - here's a little game to play if you're bored. Tesco Guess the Price Game

And now for some funny videos:

• Not My Phone
• The Running of the Squirrels
• Singing in the Rain Remix

Dirty Den in Venice

Anyone remember that old episode of Eastenders?

Anyway, stayed in last night watching the demise of Dirty Den on Eastenders (I just just imagine the cluedo version now - "...and it was Miss Scarlet in the Pub with the stone dog!..." ) while I prepped and gridded the fabric that I'm going to stitch the Sheila Hudson Venice project on.

I do confess to shedding a tear when Sharon came in and heard just how dispicable her adopted father was - and while he did deserve what he got in the end - I also felt some remorse, because whatever bad deeds Dirty Den did throughout his life and the women who's lives that he destroyed - he did have some redeeming things about him - quirky sense of humour and of course his idolisation of Sharon above all else. I know for a fact that he still didn't treat half of the women in his life as bad as Sean treated me. I guess that shows you the sort of man that Sean truly was. The very sad fact that that realisation hit me about a year ago, back in January/February 2004 - before any of the real troubles started in March. It just went downhill from there.

Anyway..... I had car troubles today - flat battery!! I haven't used it for over a month, so yesterday when I went to get in it it was totally dead - even the central locking wasn't working. I got some friends to help me jump-start it and then took it on a 40-mile jolt to the Truro roundabout and back - that should have given it a little charge or so!

I did a little food shopping - and after I got back I started stitching on the bottom of the design which is the bottom of one of the gondolas. 5 lines of black isn't much of a start - but it's a start nevertheless.

As I stitched I watched "Two Brothers" it's a film about Tigers in the vein of Born Free. Quite a good film. I still remember Guy Pearce (who starred in it) from Neighbours, his career certainly went up in the world. Probably the only one of the cast who is now internationally known - with the exception of Miss Minogue of course. Those Tigers were so cute though - and when they got older, beautiful too - they stole the show - fortunately I had my own "Tiger Cub", Jade to cuddle during most of the film - he's about the same size!!

My Next Project: Venice

I printed off a copy of the chart of my next project today. It is called "Sparkling Waters" and it is a design picturing the Venice canals. It is the next in the series after the Amalfi Coast and Mount Fuji designed by Sheila Hudson and printed in Cross Stitch Collection.

I sorted out my threads for the project because I need to do an order for some extra threads for Paradise Island as I'm running out of a couple, I also need DMC 920 for this Venice design too.

Craftaholics Anonymous

Craftaholics Anonymous
12 Step Program
Newly Revised to 13 Steps

1. I will not stuff craft supplies in every corner of my house.
2. I will not keep nine projects going at one time.
3. I will not pick up more buttons, lace or fabric when I have a ton at home.
4. I will not let my crafting area look like a condemned area.
5. I will not relegate the kitchen table to crafts.
6. I will not attend craft shows just to pick up more ideas.
7. I will not stock up on more craft supplies just because they are on sale.
8. I will not go off on a tangent when anyone mentions that little word "import ".
9. I will not let my crafting distract me from fixing dinner.
10. I will not stay up all night crafting.
11. I will not save dryer lint, empty cereal boxes, detergent scoops, etc.
12. I will not buy every craft magazine I see.
13. I will not make promises I cannot keep. See you at the craft show.

Don't think it's gonna work though - do you?

Stitching Bloggers Question of the Week: Crafty Hobbies

Is cross stitch your only crafty hobby or do you have others?

When I was younger I used to like doing art, occasionally knitting (but I wasn't very good at it because I couldn't cast on) but at the moment Cross Stitch is all I have time for.

Windswept Mount

I took this while I was waiting for the bus back into Penzance, I didn't fancy the three mile hike back along the coast in the wind.

A very windswept view of the Mount, there's a virtual sandstorm blowing all over the beach and you can see the waves whipping up over the causeway path to the Mount, but then, it is Freezing February.

My Grassy Knoll

St Michael's Mount from my grassy knoll. This is where I sat in the sand dunes, admiring the view during the early summer months last year and got quite a reasonable tan.

Penzance Prom in February

Went for a walk today. took my camera with me. Here's Penzance Promenade at low tide. Even though it's February - look how blue the water is!

Weird Wax

Put my lava lamp on last night, and after about 15 minutes, the ghostly figure below appeared in the melting hot wax. lol

Paradise Progress

Stitched some of Paradise Island during my afternoon off, and now I have - a leaf!

What Age Do You Act?

You Are 20 Years Old

20 Under 12: You are a kid at heart. You still have an optimistic life view - and you look at the world with awe. 13-19: You are a teenager at heart. You question authority and are still trying to find your place in this world. 20-29: You are a twentysomething at heart. You feel excited about what's to come... love, work, and new experiences. 30-39: You are a thirtysomething at heart. You've had a taste of success and true love, but you want more! 40+: You are a mature adult. You've been through most of the ups and downs of life already. Now you get to sit back and relax.

What Age Do You Act?

A Fairy Finish

Finished my Flower Fairies Canterbury Bell Fairy today.

I've been working on this since September as my purse project - but I was approaching the point where a couple of hours stitching would see it done, so this morning I went hell for leather and stitched it to completion while I was listening to the commentary on Armageddon.

It was supposed to be stitched in one stand, but I didn't read the instructions to start with and used two. In fact I only realised what I'd done when I started running out of pink. lol. Still one strand on 16 count doesn't provide enough coverage.

This design was a freebie giveaway cover kit on the World of Cross Stitching. I always loved Flower Fairies as a child - I had intricate colouring books full of them. I quite like this design, except the fairies face, fortunately you can't really see the odd expression from this picture.

The Cream Dusters

It's 4:00 am, woke up at 2:30, couldn't sleep again because of this damn blocked nose and sore throat. It's generally ok during the day - not really a cold at all - hardly produces a sniffle, but overnight the catarrah sort of builds up in my nose then trickles down the back into my throat and then I wake up all bunged up. Hate that sort of feeling.

Anyway, gave up trying to sleep about half an hour ago and put this on instead - at least doing something productive is better than just laying there tossing and turning? Is blogging productive?

Oh well - I'm going to go to work tomorrow with a confession: I did a good deed on Wednesday and took all the towels and tea towels home from the office to wash them. They sure needed it, talk about grease - I blame Norm (single guy from the office - needs a lesson or two in personal hygiene.... I'm not going any further with this - he might read it! But you get the idea!) for most of the filfth, so I made sure I put them all on a boil wash..... but I also stuck a couple of the office's dusters in there as well and well... the formerly bright yellow dusters are now cream and the towels are a sort of yelllowy cream too.... ooops!

Stitching Bloggers Question of the Week: Colour Changing

On a scale of 1 to 5 with 1 being the lowest and 5 being the highest, how comfortable do you feel changing a design's colors or the entire color scheme? Elaborate if you wish.

I think I'm about a 2. I've not tried changing colours on any project I've yet stitched. I seem to be to regimented in following the instructions to experiment!! But I think I might like to try doing this sometime.

Although, I have seen that some people change the colours on Teresa Wentzler projects - I really admire them for having the courage for doing that. TW designs are usually very difficult anyway - why make the project harder by changing the colours. Lorna (I follow her stitching blog quite a bit) is stitching Tempest in a Teacup in green and purple, he looks really good. I stitched my Tempest for a Fantasy RR in his boring straight old salmon pink colour.

What Planet Are You From?

You Are From Neptune

You are dreamy and mystical, with a natural psychic ability. You love music, poetry, dance, and (most of all) the open sea. Your soul is filled with possibilities, and your heart overflows with compassion. You can be in a room full of friendly people and feel all alone. If you don't get carried away with one idea, your spiritual nature will see you through anything.

What Planet Are You From?