Halloween Blog Hop

... I am taking part in Jo from Serendipitous Stitching's Halloween Blog Hop.

My letter is

E

and here is my Halloween pic:

Now, please go visit Stitching in Sunny Cal for your next letter.

Blessings, 

A happy dance and finally some progress on Cut Thru Castle....

Yay!  Medusa Lavender Fairy is finally finished!  As you know I struggled so much to stitch her.  She seemed to take forever or maybe it is just that with my family situation there was just no real time to get into it (she is definitely too high maintenance to be Train Stitching).  But now she is done, I love her!

.... and, drumroll please, I actually got back to my Cut Thru Castle for my Cut Thru SAL which I do with loads of other people.  You can check out Debbie's SAL page for pics of everyone's work if you click here.

Before photo:

After photo:

Lots of background going on here, although there is something funny going on with it - it might have something to do with the fact that I was scared witless watching the new season of "The Walking Dead" with TraderVic and DS2 and his girlfriend while I was stitching.  It is a bit hard to be accurate when stitching with your eyes shut!

Just to let you know, the situation with my parents continues to be a great worry.  There is a lot to organise, Mum's health is still precarious although she is not in hospital and my Dad is deteriorating as each day passes - he is losing his memory daily.  It is so sad to see.  (On top of all that, my DFIL who has lived with us for the past 15 years (87 years old on Thursday) is so jealous that my parents are getting so much of our time that he has been playing up to get attention - it is like having a toddler again!)

The company which I work for are being marvellous!  They are so supportive.  Every week for the past  five or so weeks I have had to take at least one sometimes two Carer's Leave days and there has been no questions asked.  They have also asked one of the other publishers to help me with my workload.  I am incredibly lucky as in dealing with nursing homes and all the other institutes you need to,  it all needs to be done during the week.  So, I am very grateful.

I am also so grateful for the wonderful support I have been getting from my friends - online, at work and everyone really - it has really helped.

Anyway, enough rambling,

Blessings on you all,

Beautiful Biscornu....

...... and this one is certainly beautiful, stitched by the wonderful Kerry of Ramblings of a Biscornu Addict ... ... I won it in her Giveaway a while back but I have been so busy with my parents that I just have not had time to blog about it.  I am a lucky lady!  Thank you, Kerry.

Blessings on you all, 

One Lucky Blogger....

.... that is me!  The lovely Parsley from Seasons of my mind sent me these fabulous gifts for a Halloween Exchange we shared:

This witchy cat is definitely my favourite:

Oooh, look a thimble all the way from Oklahoma to add to my thimble collection:

A very useful stitchy tool:

These didn't last long!

Thank you so much dear Parsley, I love, love, love everything.

My gifts to Parsley are on their way.  I will post about them when she receives them!

Be Blessed,

P.S. Oh, so nice to have time to post on my blog!

Film reviews....

.... I have seen a couple of good films lately.

The first TraderVic and I downloaded from Foxtel as we had missed seeing it at the cinema.  It is a documentary called "Searching for Sugarman".

Rodriguez was an American singer-songwriter who was on the cusp of making it big in the U.S. in the early1970s but he never quite did.  Fast forward 25 years or so and it is revealed that he had been bigger than Elvis in South Africa during the Apartheid years. In 1997, two South African men set out to find out what every happened to Rodriguez.  An amazing story with fabulous songs - well worth watching.

There is an interesting Rolling Stone article as well - "Rodriguez: 10 Things You Don't Know About the 'Searching for Sugar Man' Star" - and his music is beautiful, so well worth buying his albums. I have.

The second film I saw with my dear friend, Kim, was "Gravity".  As a birthday treat we went to Gold Class.

Now, the cinematography in this film was amazing.  It stars Sandra Bullock and George Clooney as two astronauts who are marooned in space by a catastrophe.  It is so worth seeing on the big screen as it is quite awesome.

It even has the tick of approval from people who know what it is really like to be in space as this article tells us.

So, if you are looking for a couple of good movies, these are two I can recommend.

Did anyone go to see The Best Offer after my last film review?  I would be interested to know.

Blessed Be, 

Songs of wreck and ruin....

...... as part of my ongoing birthday treats, TraderVic took me to a gig last night - :Songs of Wreck and ruin" with great songs being performed by Megan Washington, Tim Rogers and Paul Capsis.

You can read all about it in this article here, there is an accompanying clip but I couldn't work out how to get it onto the blog (so that is why there are clips of each individual performer.  We didn't see the film, just the concert.  It was really good, great music and great performers.  This event was part of the Melbourne Festival - next we are seeing "Brief Encounter" being performed on Saturday night.

I must admit it is pretty cool to be living in "The most liveable city in the world".

Blessed Be,

Late October TUSAL and a Happy Dance

Oh dear, I am late again with my TUSAL update but anyway, here it is!

Home ORTs on the left, Train ORTs on the right.

I have had to swap to a a crystal bowl I was given as a wedding guest, over 31 years ago now.

Here is my progress on Medusa Lavender Fairy - nearly there, just a few stitches missing, the glittery backstitch and a few more beads and I am done. (Unfortunately she is too precious and it is too hard to bead on the train or whilst hospital visiting otherwise she would be well and truly finished by now!)

.... and a Happy Dance - now this is going to a stitchy friend so I have tried not to give away the other initial.

I really, really love stitching this design - I can feel a giveaway coming along!

Blessed Be,

Just to prove some stitching has been happening....

Yes, despite the many long hospital visits to my Mum, looking after my 94 year old father, endless phone calls/emails/texts/FB chats to family and friends about what is happening with my mother and the many crying jags I have (it is very hard to see your mother in pain like this and she is not herself with it - yesterday as I was trying to feed her lunch (which she must eat to get her strength back up) she accused me of torturing her, being very cruel and told me that she wished I had never been born! Very hard to take with any equanimity.)  BUT I HAVE BEEN STITCHING!

Would you like to see?

The last time you saw Medusa the Lavender Fairy she looked like this:

Now, she has wings, a neck and one shoulder:

I don't know why but I am really struggling with this piece.  Maybe it is the three shades of flesh-coloured thread which are really difficult to distinguish?


Now for my train stitching.....  I have started a second version of FRIENDS, I am enjoying this so much - it is such a great piece to stitch on the train.  I am changing some of the colours around,  as you can see.  I can see several more of these in my future.

Still on Train stitching, I had a Happy Dance, I finished Bienvenue....

I am actually pretty chuffed by this one - everyone was so supportive of my colour choices and I do think that is has come up pretty well.

Have to dash now - train to catch, stitching to do!

Blessed Be,