Weekend Round up ....

[Sorry, this is now a rather belated weekend round up as it is now Wednesday, but time seemed to run out on Monday, when I started writing this post and who knows what happened to Tuesday? - lol!  Anyway, here goes......]

Thursday evening:

I started my weekend stitching early this weekend (on Thursday evening) as I knew that TraderVic and I were going to a House concert on Friday night, so this week for Friday Frolics ... a languishing Chrissie Ornament came out to play....

Before:

                               

After:

                               

JBW Designs

Santa's Sleigh Ride

28 ct white linen

Mixture of DMC and WDW floss

This piece was started (and never touched again until now) on 6 January last year as one of my pieces for Debbie's Ultimate Crazy January/February Challenge (DUCJFC), you can read about it all on this post.

However, other WIPs were calling my name, so after just one evening of stitching, Santa and his sleigh have been put aside for other projects.

Friday evening:

The artist at the House concert was Scott Cook, an amazing Canadian folk singer and balladeer who gave us an amazing evening of great music.

If you ever get the chance to hear him play, I can highly recommend it.

Saturday:

I thought that I had better get on with stitching my Christmas Ornie SAL piece for Feb's theme of "Snow".  

Last month the lovely Loretta, stitched a great freebie from Plum Pudding Needleart (unfortunately, the link to the freebie seems to have been suspended) for the January Music theme, luckily for me it also fitted in nicely with the Snow theme for February. You can see Loretta's great finish here.

So, this is where I am up to today (after stitching on it both Saturday, Sunday, Monday and Tuesday) - nearly done!

                              

... and, of course, this is a DUCJFC stitching piece as well.

Saturday night, TraderVic and I went to dinner in Prahran and then a movie with DD.  We saw "Brooklyn", which we all loved.  Such a beautiful film and Saoirse Ronan was excellent in the main role.

                                  

Sunday:

Well, Sunday was Valentine's Day, of course. So TradeVic and I went on a double date with our best friends, Kim and Gino, to a lovely Italian restaurant, La Camera,  next to the Yarra River at Southgate.  We sat out on the terrace on a perfect Melbourne's summer evening and then had a lovely walk along the riverside afterwards and then found one of Melbourne's many, many cafes for a coffee.

                                                    

                                                     

                                                     

Tuesday:

Well, not much happened on Monday, so let's skip to Tuesday (work during the day) but then lots of fun in the evening, as I went out on a girl's night with my dear friends, Heather and Franca for dinner at The European and then to see the marvellous Dawn French in Thirty Million Minutes.

The food at the restaurant was absolutely delicious, this is lamb ravioli, with sides of heirloom carrots with dukkah and labne and a witlof, pear and walnut salad - yummo!

                              

                              

                             

Dessert was Peach Eton Mess......

                              

Waiting for Dawn!

                                           

                                    

So, I would have to say, this past weekend was a corker! 

Wishing you all a great rest of the week.

hugs, 

Weekend roundup....

Well, the weekend started poorly, with my back playing up.  I had some compression in my lower back which was affecting the sciatic nerve on my left hand side - so I was experiencing strange pains down my left leg - no fun at all!

However, a trip to my Osteopath and an order to rest my back - no big walks - left me with no choice but to stitch on Saturday afternoon!  What a hardship - lol!

So, I worked on a few projects but those progress pics will be next time. I want to tell you about the social aspect of my weekend.

Firstly, on Saturday night, we went out to dinner with our dearest friends, Kim and Gino.  Now, Kim had suggested a pizza restaurant, Mulatta, in Chapel St, Windsor. But when we arrived it had closed down.

Now, this left us with where to go for dinner?  Now, Chapel St, Windsor/Prahran is one of the premier shopping and restaurant precincts in Melbourne - so eateries abounded.  However, it is also one of the busiest on a Saturday night for the Twentysomething crowd.

So, we wandered up and down, all the really fancy looking places were full to the brim and then we discovered a quirky bar up some stairs, the Hoo Haa bar.  I  kid you not, we were the oldest people there by 30 years!

The menu was an interesting mix of Americana and Asian.  So we supped on such delights as Cheeseburger dumplings - what the ????  As I said, interesting!

After dinner, we went for a wander down Chapel Street, observing the wildlife (the twentysomethings) and then found Chocolateria San Churro to finish off the evening with some yummy churros and hot chocolate.  In all, it was a fun night because it was all so unexpected in the end.


On Sunday, I stitched some more (still resting my back), on my Santa SAL (which I reported on last post) and then my girlfriend, Heather and I took my other girlfriend, Franca, out to see a show at the Melbourne International Comedy Festival and then out to dinner.

We had the best time.  We saw funny lady, Denise Scott's new show "Mother Bare".

This is the description:

DENISE SCOTT- Mother Bare
 
From giving birth to empty nester, Scotty is ready to lay it all bare. 
 
Having just won the prestigious Barry award at the 2014 Melbourne International Comedy Festival, Mother Bare is a hilarious, intimate and rivetingly honest show about motherhood, told by one of Australia’s favourite comedians, Denise Scott. 

This was just spot on for me, as TraderVic are newly emptynesters and I must admit are struggling a little bit with the suddenness of it all!

We laughed and laughed all of the way through - it was just hilarious!

We saw the afternoon show so then we went for an early dinner at The European.  As it was Franca's birthday we had a slap up dinner.

Beautiful trout and stuffed calmari:

We had the sommelier choose us a delicious French wine to complement the dish.

Then we went all out and ordered three different desserts to share: a gingerbread souffle, a bombe alaska and a Mont blanc.

We had such a good time and I was still home by 9pm to spend some time with TraderVic before getting ready for work the next day.  I can tell you, I slept like a log!


So, in all, a great weekend, despite the lack of long walks (which I love to do). How was your weekend?

hugs,