Cat Buckaroo

Cat Buckaroo is a game played with a sleeping cat. The idea stems back to the old Bucking Bronco game with the plastic horse that was popular when I was a kid in the 70s and 80s, hey, they are still probably making it today.

So the cat sits there or sleeps there while you pile things on top of him or her. I played with Jade the other day:


Of course Jade shook all the trash off, but he kept his "crown on". lol

Priscilla, Queen of the Handbag

I watched the movie "Priscilla, Queen of the Desert" on Saturday:



For those that haven't heard of it, or seen it it's about 3 drag queens going on a bus tour of Oz.

Almost every boyfriend I've had in the past always refused to watch it - why? I guess they are homophobic.

Why I mention this on here is that that very evening I scored a tranny's handbag in a piece of drunken thievery at 2 am on the back stairs of a nightclub. It had to be done. I don't think he was a real transvestite, just a guy dressed in a blonde curly wig with a red and gold dress on. In fact I know that he wasn't a real tranny is that the fact that he left his handbag behind was that he'd pulled and left the nightclub with another woman.

So.... I'm sitting on the exit stairs waiting to go, and this bag is just sitting there too..... so I took it home with me. lol

Probably the most disturbing thing about it's contents - which I must now post back to him (as I've now inherited his driving licence which he probably needs) was a birthday card stuffed full of Gummy Bears saying have a good night out in drag - Love Vik!

All in all a much better haul than that damn chair leg. ;-)

What Book Are You?

I did another Book Meme this morning on my Reading and Review Blog, which SCI FI author are you - as it turned out I was A C Clarke. So I figured I'd post this one on here instead.

You're The Lion, the Witch and the Wardrobe!

by C.S. Lewis

You were just looking for some decent clothes when everything changed quite dramatically. For the better or for the worse, it is still hard to tell. Now it seems like winter will never end and you feel cursed. Soon there will be an epic
struggle between two forces in your life and you are very concerned about a betrayal
that could turn the balance. If this makes it sound like you're re-enacting Christian
theological events, that may or may not be coincidence. When in doubt, put your trust
in zoo animals.


Take the Book Quiz
at the Blue Pyramid.

I'm quite pleased with this, I loved this book as a child, it was the first real series of books that I got into reading aged about 9. How many 9 year olds go out and bought books in the 80s? Well thanks to Narnia I caught the reading bug at a very early age.

Stitching Blogger's Question of the Week: Large and Small

What's the largest project you've ever done? What's the smallest?

My largest and most ambitious project is probably the Cattitudes RR which is still only about three quarters complete. The last progress shot I took of it (this was Nicole's fabric) - but most of the fabrics are now at the same stage - is below. We started out in January 2003 with the goal of stitching all 12 cats from the original Margaret Sherry Cattitudes Calender.



The smallest project is ironically probably another Margaret Sherry Cat which I intend to turn into a scissor fob, (which I still need to do - and as I put this on my monthly goal list at the beginning of the month I'd better get this sorted over this coming Bank Holiday weekend).

I guess my other stitching news this week is that I mailed out my Stitching Blogger's Round Robin material to Dawn in the US this week. I hope it arrives safely.

Stitching Blogger's Question of the Week: Fabric Care?

How often do you wash your fabric for each project? Do you wait until the very end until to wash it or do you wash it more than once?

I usually wait until I've finished stitching everything before washing the fabric, I do this at the end as it is usually an automatic prelude to framing anyway.

I'm not sure how I'm going to be completing the Mermaid Queen. If she were dirty I would wash the fabric before I attached the beads which is the last step, but I think she's amazingly managed to miss any spills or drips.

The only time I've ever washed a piece of incomplete stitching was when I left it on the table and my soggy and somewhat muddy cat, Jasmine decided to come in an go to sleep on it! That was the Sunflower Girl that I did several years ago - but you'd never know until this day about her little mishap.

Hand Dyed Problem

I moved my q-snap frame on Sunday night so that I start stitching the 4 border areas for the Stitching Blogger's Round Robin. Small problem: the sun has faded the material (my lowery stands next to the window) over the course of 3-4 weeks so now the material that was protected under the frame edges is a different colour from the rest of it. I've got a lilac/pink theme going here. I'm hoping that on exposure to more light during the course of it's stitching journey around the world that the material will all fade to the same colour.

Has anyone else experienced colour fading like this with hand-dyeds?

Stitching Blogger's Question of the Week: Another Framing Question

What do you do with the framed stitching that you keep? Do you hang it up and leave it in one place, never to move it? Or do you have a rotation, where you have one place for stitched pieces and switch them out according to mood or season? Maybe a mixture of both?

Before I moved, all of my stitching, apart from a few pieces that I gave away as gifts were all framed and mounted on the living room wall of my old house. I had nearly filled up one wall by the time I moved (and I had a large lounge). Now that I don't have much space to display them, a lot of those old pieces of work are stored away in a storage box. I still have a few pieces on display in the hallway, including my Aunt's Elephants and the Cats in the Hats RR that I previously did. I also have the Sheila Hudson horse-shoe shaped designs hanging above the stairway so they are on your eye level when you go down the stairs.

I've still got some space to hang a few more framed pieces of work in the hall, of which the Mermaid Queen will certainly feature when she's complete, but after I've run out.... well I'll have to rethink, but I don't really regard my little flat as a permanent home anyway, more a sort of holiday apartment where I sleep. By the time that wall-hanging space becomes and issue I'm sure that I will have moved on again elsewhere.

Stitching Blogger's RR - Leg one Finished

It's my afternoon off and I acutally got to do some stitching for once, and I finished Daffodil. He's the first leg of a 5-person Round Robin that I've joined with other stitching Bloggers. You can see links to the other girl's blogs on the panel on the right.

Daffodil used to be a freebie on the www.kittyandme.com website which houses Pamela Kellogg's designs. But I don't think the free pattern is available now there anymore.

The cat is stitched on Silkweaver's Reflections range of fabric. This one is 28 count Lavender Diamonds.

I've still got to backstitch the borders, but apart from that the fabric is now ready to go off to be stitched for leg two.

Daft in Dawlish

Last week one of my friends from Kent texted me to say that she was down in Devon on holiday. So the next day I jumped on the train to go up and meet her. Despite being the next county over it's still a three hour ride, but I don't mind so much as it gives me a bit of stitching time.

It was great to meet Sue again, she met me at the station and we went back to the camping ground where she was staying with her nephew and some other friends they'd made there.



We went back into town in the afternoon to get a bite of lunch, then ended up walking into this village fete full of charity stalls. Sue started looking through some clothes that were hanging up and found a huge bra. I immediately grabbed it off her and and tried it on over my clothes in full view of the fete. I next added a large pair of knickers! lol



All the people behind the stall were having a good old laugh, but this snooty old woman walked past shaking her head and tutting, so Sue said, "You've got to try before you buy, love!". ;-)

Sue bought the bra in the end. It was only 50p. When we got back to the campsite she snuck around the back of her cousin's caravan and stuck it on her washing line.



We then sat back for Alison to get her washing in! lol Alison did swear when she saw it, but then put it back on the line after trying it out for a hat.



Then it came down to the question of who's bra it really was - which resulted in everyone trying it on for a laugh. My favourite modeller was the welshman who put the bra on and then walked the entire length of the campsite and wore it in the gents.

Stitching Blogger's Question of the Week: Hand Dyed Fabric?

Have you hand-dyed your own fabric? Why or why not? Would you like to try to do so?

I've not tried hand-dying fabric, although I do love using it. I don't think I would like to attempt it in fear of what a mess it might turn out to be and when companies like Silkweaver do such good ranges of hand-dyeds why would you want to bother?

What the?

This was the state of the backside of my formerly white jeans this morning.

How did they get like this? I have no idea.
I obviously fell down on the dirty nightclub dance floor and possibly sat in someone's beer?

Stitching Blogger's Question of the Week: Stitching Quirks?

What is your most unique/interesting stitching quirk? (This could be something concerning the way you stitch, how you organize your stash, etc.)

I'm not really sure what this question meant - I mean what is a quirk? A quark is a sub-atomic particle and a Star Trek: Deep Space Nine character - but a quirk and what has it got to do with stitching?

After reading a couple of other stitching blogger's answers to this question, then I guess that I do have stitching quirks too.

• I only stitch with DMC - unless the threads are from a kit with other threads supplied.
• Given the choice I nearly always stitch on nothing but silkweaver's reflections fabric now.
• I only stitch with gold plated needles - unless needles are supplied with said aforementioned kit
• I am naughty and knot when I am backstitching, but generally use the loop method to cast on most of the time when I am doing normal stitching.

August Stitching Goals

Since everyone seems to be jumping on the "Monthly Goal" bandwagon - I figured I'd have a goal list too.

• Finish stitching on Daffodil's hat and prepare the border ready to post off for the Stitching Blogger's Round Robin on 1st September.
• Finish the second cat scissor fob and make the fobs up.
• Do more work on Mermaid Queen's bottom half. Hopefully finishing her tail off.
• Do more work on Carnivorous Cat - this isn't a priority though as it's going to be a Christmas present so I've got months to go yet.