October TUSAL report...

Here is my TUSAL (Totally Useless Stitch A Long) report for October....

Home ORTs (Old Raggedy Threads) on the left, Train ORTs on the right:

If you want to see what everyone else's ORTs look like, check out Daffycat's blog.

So far behind....

....  that it is ridiculous....

Oh my goodness, my life is so very, very busy at the moment.  As I may have mentioned before I have a number of very big presentation to give to the Senior Management team to try to get some new projects over the line at work plus I have been a bit of a social butterfly, too!

And now, I have realised that I only have two months before I go away on our big trip (Taiwain/Borneo/Singapore) and I have so much to do!   aaaghhhh!

Honestly, I need longer days!  I work full time, I try to visit my Dad regularly and catch up with friends and family, run the house, manage five  six blogs, cross stitch, slave to two kitty cats and try to keep up a fitness regime - double aaaggghh!

Anyway, enough whinging, Kaye!  Deep Breath, you can do it!

Here is a rather belated Friday Night with Friends and Friday Frolics update....


Anyway, Friday before last , I pulled out Cherry Tea,  which I had last stitched on way back in December, 2013!

Now, I didn't get a super amount done but I did progress....

I just hope that it is not another nearly two years before I pick this piece up again! lol!

So, tune back in later for my TUSAL post and I have so much to tell you about my weekend away!

hugs, Kaye

"C" is for "Carn"....

Today is my "C" post for The Alphabet Club. 

What is the Alphabet Club, I hear you ask?  Well, it is the brainchild of Chiara from The Grey Tail and Jo from Serendipitous Stitching and is loosely based on the premise of the movie "The Breakfast Club" - you can see the button for The Alphabet Club on my right sidebar.

On the first Saturday of each month, members of the club have "detention" and have to post about something that will enlighten others about their culture (as blogland is so diverse).  Of course, there should be something stitchy in there, if possible. Each month will be a different letter of the alphabet - hence the club's name - and, of course, we started with "A" and now we are up to "C"

So, "C" is for ....

.... .... "Carn", no, not cairn (as in a pile of stones to mark a significant spot) but "Carn" as in "Come on" when you are cheering on a sporting team.
For example, TraderVic, will call out "Carn the Tigers" when he is at a Richmond Football match (in the AFL, every team has a mascot name as well, Richmond are the Richmond Tigers).

I know, I know, we Aussies love to mangle the Queen's English!

One of our great 20th century Aussie poets, Bruce Dawe, even wrote a poem that epitomises our Aussie love of Australian Rules Footy and the word "Carn"

"Life Cycle"

When children are born in Victoria*
they are wrapped in club-colours, laid in beribboned cots,
having already begun a lifetime’s barracking.

Carn, they cry, Carn … feebly at first
while parents playfully tussle with them
for possession of a rusk: Ah, he’s a little Tiger! **(And they are …)

Hoisted shoulder-high at their first League game
they are like innocent monsters who have been years swimming
towards the daylight’s roaring empyrean

Until, now, hearts shrapnelled with rapture,
they break surface and are forever lost,
their minds rippling out like streamers

In the pure flood of sound, they are scarfed with light, a voice
like the voice of God booms from the stands
Ooohh you bludger*** and the covenant is sealed.

Hot pies and potato-crisps they will eat,
they will forswear the Demons****, cling to the Saints*****
and behold their team going up the ladder into Heaven,

And the tides of life will be the tides of the home-team’s fortunes
– the reckless proposal after the one-point win,
the wedding and honeymoon after the grand final …

They will not grow old as those from the more northern states grow old,
for them it will always be three-quarter time
with the scores level and the wind advantage in the final term,

That passion persisting, like a race-memory, through the welter of seasons,
enabling old-timers by boundary fences to dream of resurgent lions
and centaur-figures from the past to replenish continually the present,

So that mythology may be perpetually renewed
and Chicken Smallhorn return like the maize-god
in a thousand shapes, the dancers changing

But the dance forever the same – the elderly still
loyally crying Carn … Carn … (if feebly) unto the very end,
having seen in the six-foot recruit from Eaglehawk******* their hope of salvation.

* A state in south east Australia

** Richmond Tigers Football Club

*** a derogatory term

**** Melbourne Demons Football Club

*****St Kilda Saints Football Club

******a small goldrush town in country Victoria

So, there you go, a new slang word for your vocabulary!  Did you know that Aussie slang is called Strine?  Check out this fun website if you want to know more.

To finish off, here is my "C for Crochet" from Brooks Books A stitcher's alphabet....

Don't forget to check out what the other detainees have done as their penance this month at Chiara's blog, The Greytail.

Off to earn some moula so that I can buy more stash!

Have a great day everyone,

hugs,

September Smalls SAL update....

Well, I have a couple of Smalls finishes to show you this month for my Smalls SAL, if you are not sure what I am talking about then please follow the link.

First up is "Chimney Disasters" by Sue Hillis Designs ....

Ta da!  Santa is all stuck down that chimney!

Such a fun design!

Next up is my Prairie Schooler finish, "Summer" from Book #138 "Measure of a year"

I am very pleased as to how this turned out, now I just need to work out how to best Finish it.

So, feeling pretty pleased with myself re my Smalls this month, please check out everyone else's Smalls update here.

Now, it is the inaugural (and probably only ever) Grand Final eve public holiday today - yay! - and it is both Friday Frolics and Friday Night with Friends - double yay! - so three days of stitching coming up - triple yay!

Have fun everyone, 

hugs, 

Friday Frolics update .....

As TraderVic and I were going to be out on Friday night attending the "David Bowie is" at ACMI (the Australian Centre for the Moving Image) - which, while lots of people have been raving about, I was, in fact, rather disappointed by it - although I did love, love, love all of his costumes - I decided to shift my Friday Frolics to Thursday night.

I randomly picked up one of my "Bah Humbug" designs which I had abandoned after last Christmas.

Before I started, my WIP looked like this:

... and this morning it looks like this....

"Chimney Disaster" by Sue Hillis Designs

I am hoping to finish it today!  That will be so cool!

I wonder how everyone else's Friday Frolics went this week?

Have a great weekend everyone, 

lots of hugs, 

Weekend Roundup.....

.... and what a good stitchy weekend it turned out to be for FNSI, FF and IHSW!

FNSI = Friday Night Sew In, hosted by Wendy from Sugarlane Quilts
FF = Kitten Stitching and the Friday Frolics, hosted by moi!
IHSW - International Hermit and Stitch Weekend

Please click on any of the links on above to find out more.

Firstly, I stitched for my Prairie Schooler SAL blog. The piece I started is for an exchange (shhh!), it is the Summer piece from Book #138 "Measure of a year".

I am just stitching the block with the word "Summer" and the block next to it with the beehive.  Not sure how I am going to finish it yet but I am surely open to suggestion.

Then I stitched some more on my latest Americana start. It is called "Liberty Starburst" by Summer House stitche workes ... 

At the start of the weekend, I was here:

by last night, I was here:

While I am finding the fine count of linen a bit tricky to stitch on at times (I know, I know, I am being a wimp complaining about 32 ct linen when so many of you stitch on far higher counts but you must remember that I often stitch smalls like this on the train during my commute to and from work!) I am loving the way it is stitching up.  I am over three-quarters done and I hope to have it finished over next weekend.

Then, I thought I had better get my act together for the Christmas Ornie SAL, this is my post from this morning for the blog:
.. oh dear, as I have been a little busy (setting up another new SAL blog plus work has been horrendously busy), it has taken me a little bit of time to decide upon a design to stitch for this month.  I couldn't make up my mind between a tree or presents, so I was happy when I found a design which incorporated both!  (and a Santa and a snowman!)

"Wee Santa 2015" by Heart in Hand designs... and here is Furio's "hand" holding it out to you...

... not a lot of progress on it this weekend, I am afraid (I did only decide upon it late yesterday afternoon), as I ended up frogging that pink Christmas tree, twice!  Oh, how I hate it when the Frog Prince visits me!

So, hoping to work on it some more during the week,

This design is the prize for September.  To win, all you need to do is post a finish on the SAL blog by September 30th.

(And no, Furio does not come as part of the prize - lol!)

And last but not least, for my FNSI and FF piece, I randomly picked up this WIP:

ABC Christmas by Lizzie Kate.

This is what it looked like when I picked it up early Friday evening...

By the end of the evening I had finished the word "Poinsettia" and started on the "S" for "Snowman"....

I then worked on it intermittently over the weekend (interspersed with other SAL stitching) and I finished quite a bit more.

Psst!  Do you want to know a secret?  Of course you do!  See the three "snowflakes" under the snowman?  Well, that are not meant to be there at all!  Just above the "W" there was a tiny reddish-brown mark (possibly blood from a pricked finger) which I could not remove (as the floss is overdyed I didn't want to try washing the piece), so I came up with the bright idea (well, I hope it is a bright idea) of adding three snowflakes like the one at the end of the word.  What do you think?  Does it work okay?  I am pretty happy with my solution.

So, lots and lots of stitching and I also, managed to take my Dad out for lunch on Saturday, hit the gym twice, catch up on my loads and loads of washing, catch up on my blog reading a little bit, post on my four other SAL blogs and bake a cake!

Spice cake with Lime icing

Have a great week, everyone, I am off to work to have a rest - lol!

hugs,

How are all my new SAL blogs going?

Quite well, on the whole, thank you for asking - lol!

Here is a breakdown of their popularity - the Christmas Ornie SAL (despite the angle of the pie graph) is the most popular.

Christmas Ornie SAL	39*
Prairie Schooler SAL	31
Americana SAL	14
Tudor Tuesdays SAL	5
Friday Frolics SAL	13**

*Number of members
** Not bad numbers considering I only started the blog 9 days ago!

And here is a snippet of my latest posts on each blog, just to whet your appetite (just click on any of the links to see what each blog is all about):

Christmas Ornie SAL blog - I stitched a second Santa for the month of August, with my American Santa.

Prairie Schooler SAL blog - I blogged about my progress on Day 11 of Santa's 12 Days of Christmas

Americana SAL blog - I showed off my Americana Santa finish

Tudor Tuesdays SAL blog - I blogged about The Case of the Disappearing Wives mug

Friday Frolics SAL blog - I welcomed everyone to the new blog

Of course, there are lots of lovely posts from my fellow members but I did not feel that I could share their posts, you need to click on the links to find out all about the exciting stitching going on by everyone.

I am so thrilled by how much everyone seems to be enjoying these new SAL blogs, it has been lots of fun, so far.

Remember, if you want to join any or all of the blogs, just comment on this post but please do give me your email and blog address or else you can email me at kayedep@gmail.com

Have a great weekend everyone, I intend to do so!

hugs,