Hello!

Well... things have been crazy. At the end of March my girlfriend got ridiculously sick and I spent two weeks looking after her. We were quite worried, because the first week in April we were booked to go on a trip to New Zealand, which we'd had to cancel last October because I got ridiculously sick and needed surgery the week before we were due to leave.

But thankfully she got well enough to be cleared to fly, and we left for a lovely stress-free holiday, right? WRONG.

Driving through the beautiful, winding Rai Valley we witnessed a car drive into a logging truck. The driver was terrified and in a lot of pain. Being the first ones there my girlfriend and I did what we could to help, with our little first aid kit. There was a rescue chopper there within fifteen minutes through, and we learnt from the news that the driver was stable and expected to make a good recovery.

Then two days later we ended up in the trail of Cyclone Ita, driving into an area (unbeknown to us) with no power or running water and debris everywhere. We spent a rather terrifying night amid the wind and noise at Cape Foulwind (quite aptly named, it seems) before moving on to find somewhere safer to stay. We had some luck for a time, with power being restored and road re-opening just as we were moving south towards Glacier Country. We thought we'd be okay. We'd booked a $~1000 guided helicopter scenic flight and glacier hike months in advance and were so thrilled we'd be able to make it. But, literally five minutes before we were due to get on the helicopter the tour is cancelled due to weather. ... Sigh.

But I'm home now, and drafting up some posts to show you all what I've been up to craft wise. I hope everyone had a lovely Easter. :)

The year marches on

How on earth is it March already? I feel like it was November just yesterday! I've been stitching a little on this guy lately. It's hard to tell what he is at the moment, but he's a tropical fish of some manner. I can't remember what exactly. :P Progress is a little slow, as the chart is difficult to follow. I think it was made by hand on a computer using Wingdings. The symbols are things like glasses, book, telephone... They're challenging to read at a glance and I'm constantly checking and double checking.

I'm not looking forward to the beads and metallic thread. Those do not frog so easily. :S

Enlighten has just started. It's a light-based festival in the heart of the city, where the major attractions are lit at night with beautiful, dynamic designs. Below is Questacon, the national science museum, in beautiful blue crystals.

And this is the National Portrait Gallery, in a lovely ruins style slowly being overgrown by greenery.

There's also lots of performances, live music, food and general frivolity. :)

No nothing

Ah, it's been a while and still not much is happening. It's still way too hot. My city's had a record number of days over 35C/95F this summer. Work turned off the air con over the weekend and my lovely peace lily suffered. 



It's come right back after a day of careful watering, which makes me happy. :)

 I'm in the process of moving this blog to Blogger. Wordpress is a far better system, but all the stitchy bloggers are over on Blogger, and the system's no-reply comments thing is getting annoying.

I hope you're all keeping cool (if you're Australian), warm (if you're American), dry (if you're British) and sane (if you're human :P).

Goodbye January

My goodness, it's the end of January, how did that even happen?! So far this year I have:

• Worked on two WIPocalypse pieces (The Lookout and The Witching Hour)
• Started three new stitches (all smalls)
• Worked on six projects all up
• Had one finish (but it's a secret!)

Not too bad. I would've liked to stitch more on The Lookout, but it's been way too hot for serious stitching. I swear, as soon as it gets above 35C/95F I loose all mental capacity.

Ha, I'm sorry, I'm not a very good stitching blogger at the moment. I can't even show you pictures! :P

In the bin

I've given up on my new secret project start. The chart was just... bleh. If you want me to do over one backstitch, please make the backstitch lines different to the chart lines. *grrr* I also really didn't like the focus beads supplied. And I think I was in a huff in general, due to the heat. So the project is shelved.

Which is interesting, because I've had it for years and it's been in and out of my 'to sell' pile for a while.

So.. I'm stitching something else with the fabric, floss and some of the beads and I'm much happier. Still can't show you though. :P

So here's a photo from the archives. I finished this early this year and I'm contempating putting it in a show this weekend, if I can manage the iron the creases out of this rather stubborn linen.

Red walk

I haven't had much time to stitch lately. I'm not especially busy, I just lost my routine and things keep piling up (like dishes, cleaning... everything).

But I did go for quite a nice walk the other day on Red Hill. It's called Red Hill because, well...

It's a red hill.



Very red.




I saw a few birds, a blue tongue lizard and these lovely fellas.



I hope to get some stitching done tonight, so look out for a progress pic soon! :)

And so this is Christmas...

The silly season begins. I've already had my girlfriend on the phone in tears. This is such a stressful time of year, everyone is so frazzled.

I hope you and yours stay safe and sane during the holiday period. I'll see you on the flipside.

I should post a picture of a christmas ornie here, but I haven't even dragged mine (yes, all two of them) out of storage this year. It's been that kind of month.

Stitching slump

I've hit a stitching slump, and I don't like it. :( I've been stitching on my own design as it's one of my December goals to finish it this month. But I just don't find stitching on my own design as relaxing as stitching someone else's. While I'm stitching my brain is going 'should that be there, I think this might be in the wrong place, that wasn't positioned very well, maybe you should add this...'. It's quite frustrating! Not the zen-like stitching experience I'm used to.

I tried to suck it up and finish the design, but now I'm just feeling flat. Sigh...

Welcome

Hello! Welcome to my new blog. I’m a stitcher, sewer, crocheter and general craft-mucker-abouterer. Here I will post pics of my crafting, and maybe the odd bit of fluff about life, the universe and everything.