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And it's Monday again! Good-oh! I'm not very well today, but it seems to be only a 24 hour thing and I should be OK for my new Chinese classes 2nd session tomorrow tea-time. I've got loads of fun activities planned, so I'm quite looking forward to it. I would never have thought it, but perhaps teaching is for me after all.=)
So, here's the long over-due kitchen update photo. It still needs a window dressing (and the glosswork will be re-done when it's all done over the winter hols) and I plan to stitch that lovely blue tit and bird table design to go just above the cooker too. So, things to look out for the in the first half of next year, all being well. Hope you like progress thus far - it's certainly a lot brighter and less bottom heavy than it was, now that it's painted a nice lemon colour and has 2 shelves to house all my machinery.
Here's the doggie at present as well. I'm kinda enjoying doing him, but will be very pleased when he's done and I can get on with other things. Might do something on his this afternoon actually as I have an unexpected free afti owing to it being a good idea to rest up as much as poss. That's certainly true as I'm going to the Knitting and Stitching Show in Harrogate on Friday and it would be an awful shame to mess that up, no?Streuth! The new beta Blogger version might be quicker etc, but it adds in even more blank lines with photos than the old one did! Heavy use of 'preview' function recommended, and it's about time that was adapted to actually reflect what will appear too!
Good morning one and each!!!
Here we are home again. We came home about 18 hours earlier than planned, but we were both ready for home and would have just stayed one more night for the sake of it, so I'm glad we went with our feelings and drove home yesterday tea time instead of this morning. Slept better and more comfortably in my own bed anyway.=)Had a nice trip though. We saw some lovely scenery and met some nice people too. I also got quite a bit of my dog portrait done and here's the latest update shot of him:
Click on it to get a full sized version, which looks a bit better than always this shrunk photo. You can see the stitches much better etc, (if it works, of course, which it didn't for me when I tried it, grrrrr). Anyway, I got quite into it and found it much easier going when I was enjoying it more. I'd hoped to have the 2nd cheek completed by the time we got home, but as I didn't stitch any of it for the last 2 days and we're home early anyway, I'm not slapping myself about it. Good news is that I should indeed be able to have it completed this month and that feels GOOD!=)
Here's the card I made for my little friend who lost her daddy this week. All our congregation are going to sign it as they met her just last week. I know she'll like to hear from them a lot too, although it's hardly a real consolation for losing Daddy.=( Hope everyone likes it. It's a Mary Hickmott design from her 'Moving on in Hardanger' booklet. I just changed it in that I put a spider's web right in the middle instead of square filet in the 4 squares around it and used silvery threads for much of the stitching to make it a bit more special.I'm not very well at the moment - got a dreadful throat and so on. DH has had a bit of cold too, so I guess this is how it's coming out in me. Nothing sinister though and we're looking forward to our holidays from next Saturday.Not much done on the dog as yet - just one more section last w/e, but I have today and tomorrow pretty much free as I can't really go out and about infecting people left, right and centre, so I hope to press on with the Woofer a bit. Oh joy!
So, here's what the rebel blue tit looks like at the mo. I haven't had time to do any of it today and it was taken in non-natural light and adjusted this evening, (in case it looks a bit odd in any way, i.e. rather yellow).
Today I was given a great illustration to think seriously about when it comes to stuff like getting that pesky mutt (the dog portrait) finished. I was told it was like 'sitting on a pin'. Suppose that just before you sat down, someone put a drawing pin on the chair and you sat right on it. You have 2 choices, you can either get up, remove the pin and sit back down in relative comfort, (supposing you haven't damaged your behind too grievously, that is!!!!), or you can stay on it, pretending the discomfort isn't there, you're not really squirming away from the pin and so on. When we put things off, knowing that they're bugging us, but we just won't get on with them anyway, it's like sitting on this pin and staying there. We know what to do to remove the discomfort, but we choose to say 'I don't mind' and keep on letting it jab at us. I suppose that we can get kinda used to the pricking sensation and even grow a bit numb to it over time.
So, I must get on with that dog, even if a little at a time and then I might actually begin to feel the tension I suffer from release a bit. Seems a bit too simple to be the root of the tension, but it's worth a try and, if it doesn't actually work to get rid of all of it, then it will at least be one irritation out of the way. I'll feel able to get on with other projects that I'm looking forward to without feeling that I shouldn't do them as I haven't finished the dog yet, and that's just got to be great. Von, what you said about taking care of one's sanity is just too true. It was pointed out to me that I needed to get this project that was bugging my big style off my mind and thus free up my hobby for genuine relaxation. This is what doggy looks like just now:
Here's the progress on my bluetit so far. I have loads of bluetit designs, kits and so forth in both XS and freestyle and have been wondering what to do with them all. Today the idea came to me - make them into a quilt/throw to put around me when it's cool in the evenings and I don't want to put the heating on with electicity prices being stratospheric these days..... I'll put plain panels in between the stitched ones and fill it with some lightweight batting. Sounds good!
I've been having a very slobby day stitching today, but I think I'd better get on with something productive now. Sigh, how dull!!!
Well, I finally did it. I rebelled and got on with a bluetit I've been wanting to stitch for almost as long as the dog's been underway, so about 2½ years! You know when you really should be getting on with a long overdue WIP, but you just need to do something else for the sake of your own sanity? Well, that was about the size of it.So, why no photo? 'Cos I started doing it on that printed fabric that looks like sky and realised that I'd got it the wrong way 'round. It only looks right one way and not at right angles, which is where I started. Rats! So, as DH said, 'It was meant to be a bird, but turned out to be a frog!'. Oddly enough, I didn't even mind that! It was the fact of making a start on it that made me feel a lot better.=) No headache today, in fact it disappeared 'ahead of time' yesterday evening!
We were in Ireland over the weekend, (Thurs - Mon), and I haven't done any stitching for about 2 weeks now! I know, sacrelige! Just no time at the mo, so much going on and things don't look like getting much calmer for a little while, but we at least plan to have a lazy week in the upper Dales in November. I know it'll be cold, but it'll be a break and that's really what matters.=)
The other week, someone I stitched a picture for sent me a photo of the framed thing, so I thought I would share it with you here. She said she'd prefer a gold frame, but this one looks nice too, don't you think?
So, here's the long over-due kitchen update photo. It still needs a window dressing (and the glosswork will be re-done when it's all done over the winter hols) and I plan to stitch that lovely blue tit and bird table design to go just above the cooker too. So, things to look out for the in the first half of next year, all being well. Hope you like progress thus far - it's certainly a lot brighter and less bottom heavy than it was, now that it's painted a nice lemon colour and has 2 shelves to house all my machinery.
Here's the doggie at present as well. I'm kinda enjoying doing him, but will be very pleased when he's done and I can get on with other things. Might do something on his this afternoon actually as I have an unexpected free afti owing to it being a good idea to rest up as much as poss. That's certainly true as I'm going to the Knitting and Stitching Show in Harrogate on Friday and it would be an awful shame to mess that up, no?
