Tuesday, March 23, 2004
Worn out....
I'm tired! We set up the exhibition today, loads of lovely stuff, I'm looking forward to stewarding tomorrow, so I can have a good look round! Three of us have done seahorses, and while basically the same shape, they are all completely different. One lady has done the original from the Classic Stitches magazine and the other is done in Blackwork (which I want to have a go at.)
Found this quiz on Ginas (Sheepish Stitcher) blog. I'm mainly a coffee drinker but when I do drink tea, it's herbal, so it's rather appropriate!
you are camomile tea......you are very calm, and
you like to be warm, relaxed, and cozy. You
tend to have a calming effect on people, and
your friends often come to you with problems.
(with pics) what tea are you?
brought to you by Quizilla
Don't think my family will agree with this!
A couple of weeks ago I got a pile of tapestries from the charity shop. I've chosen a few I'd like to do, so have started a small one with a pair of ducks. As it didn't have a list of colours (one other has, so I've ordered the wools for that) I've matched as best I can from odds I had and an 'odd box' that our Monday group has. It's quite relaxing to have something I can do without thinking about it, as it's all printed. I'm doing it the traditonal way, but the other one is a cottage garden, so I want to do knots and other stitches for the flowers. (Can't help myself, got to be different!)
Haven't made my mind up yet what I'll do next, although I'm leaning towards the arch through to the garden. It's done in layers, so makes up as a 3-D picture. I've made a 'stone' arch that will be the front layer, so you look through it to the garden beyond. My s-i-l got me some of that water soluble 'fabric' (it looks like plastic) so I want to experiment with some wisteria.
Moo
Found this quiz on Ginas (Sheepish Stitcher) blog. I'm mainly a coffee drinker but when I do drink tea, it's herbal, so it's rather appropriate!
you are camomile tea......you are very calm, and
you like to be warm, relaxed, and cozy. You
tend to have a calming effect on people, and
your friends often come to you with problems.
(with pics) what tea are you?
brought to you by Quizilla
Don't think my family will agree with this!
A couple of weeks ago I got a pile of tapestries from the charity shop. I've chosen a few I'd like to do, so have started a small one with a pair of ducks. As it didn't have a list of colours (one other has, so I've ordered the wools for that) I've matched as best I can from odds I had and an 'odd box' that our Monday group has. It's quite relaxing to have something I can do without thinking about it, as it's all printed. I'm doing it the traditonal way, but the other one is a cottage garden, so I want to do knots and other stitches for the flowers. (Can't help myself, got to be different!)
Haven't made my mind up yet what I'll do next, although I'm leaning towards the arch through to the garden. It's done in layers, so makes up as a 3-D picture. I've made a 'stone' arch that will be the front layer, so you look through it to the garden beyond. My s-i-l got me some of that water soluble 'fabric' (it looks like plastic) so I want to experiment with some wisteria.
Moo
Friday, March 19, 2004
Bits and Pieces
We woke up to 'a winter wonderland' today! Snow everywhere. Very picturesque, smooth white snow, dark green conifers, black road and the best part was .... we were safe and warm inside! Only trouble was, we had to go out today, so couldn't indulge in the feeling for long. By the time we actually left, we were having a torrential downpour, which quickly cleared the snow, but was far worse to walk in!
I've been making a banner over the last week, the weekly embroidery group that I belong to are having an exhibition next Wednesday. (Basement of the Guide Headquarters, 5 Elmbank Street, if you happen to be in Glasgow .... £1 entrance, but that includes refreshments, all proceeds to go to the Childrens' Hospice Association Scotland.) I happily volunteered to do it, I've made banners for school fetes etc before (in my youth) and as I'm still not completely au fait with where to get things here, I found that I was the only committee member without a job! It's taken longer than I thought to get done though and today the search was on for eyelets, the sort you get in tarpaulins, which don't seem to be readily available here. Of course, after I found some bright green plastic ones, which don't really go with my beautiful blue lettering DB had the brilliant idea of trying chandlers! Grrrrrrrrrrrrr
The mail order for the Sadi worked brilliantly. There's a shop called Nifty Needles in Linlithgow that apparently is really well stocked, especially for goldwork. (I really need to have a day out and go and see for myself) I phoned the shop last Thursday, spoke to a very nice lady, who was really helpful and spent quite a while explaining what she had. I then sent her a postal order and on Saturday my sadi was here. She literally must have received my mail and put the order straight into the post. I'm very impressed.
I've found that framing here is really expensive and so now collect old frames and then plan my embroidery to fit, rather than doing the embroidery and choosing a frame to suit as I did in SA. (Framing is expensive there too, but I knew a retired psychiatrist who did it as a hobby, he only charged costs.) Humbrol paints are super for repainting frames as you don't end up with large tins of weird colours and for the seahorse I also decided to experiment with gilding. I bought some stuff called Treasure Gold, which was surprisingly easy to use, so I'm feeling rather proud of 'my' frame! I've now just got to cut out the mounts. I have invested in a proper mount cutter, but haven't yet used it, so the air might just turn blue around here this weekend!!
As to the on-going saga of the camera/computer. We took the camera back to where we bought it, as it's still under guarantee. Very predictably the bleeping thing spoke to their computer without any trouble! We (the brilliant wee teenager who helped us that is) came to the conclusion that it must be the lead, it's got damaged in some way (with the fiddly fingers around here, it's not hard to imagine how) and so now have a new one on order. Failing that, I'll have to go cap in hand to my least favourite b-i-l and ask him if he will take photos for me! I will get a photo of the completed seahorse here, by hook or by crook!
Moo
I've been making a banner over the last week, the weekly embroidery group that I belong to are having an exhibition next Wednesday. (Basement of the Guide Headquarters, 5 Elmbank Street, if you happen to be in Glasgow .... £1 entrance, but that includes refreshments, all proceeds to go to the Childrens' Hospice Association Scotland.) I happily volunteered to do it, I've made banners for school fetes etc before (in my youth) and as I'm still not completely au fait with where to get things here, I found that I was the only committee member without a job! It's taken longer than I thought to get done though and today the search was on for eyelets, the sort you get in tarpaulins, which don't seem to be readily available here. Of course, after I found some bright green plastic ones, which don't really go with my beautiful blue lettering DB had the brilliant idea of trying chandlers! Grrrrrrrrrrrrr
The mail order for the Sadi worked brilliantly. There's a shop called Nifty Needles in Linlithgow that apparently is really well stocked, especially for goldwork. (I really need to have a day out and go and see for myself) I phoned the shop last Thursday, spoke to a very nice lady, who was really helpful and spent quite a while explaining what she had. I then sent her a postal order and on Saturday my sadi was here. She literally must have received my mail and put the order straight into the post. I'm very impressed.
I've found that framing here is really expensive and so now collect old frames and then plan my embroidery to fit, rather than doing the embroidery and choosing a frame to suit as I did in SA. (Framing is expensive there too, but I knew a retired psychiatrist who did it as a hobby, he only charged costs.) Humbrol paints are super for repainting frames as you don't end up with large tins of weird colours and for the seahorse I also decided to experiment with gilding. I bought some stuff called Treasure Gold, which was surprisingly easy to use, so I'm feeling rather proud of 'my' frame! I've now just got to cut out the mounts. I have invested in a proper mount cutter, but haven't yet used it, so the air might just turn blue around here this weekend!!
As to the on-going saga of the camera/computer. We took the camera back to where we bought it, as it's still under guarantee. Very predictably the bleeping thing spoke to their computer without any trouble! We (the brilliant wee teenager who helped us that is) came to the conclusion that it must be the lead, it's got damaged in some way (with the fiddly fingers around here, it's not hard to imagine how) and so now have a new one on order. Failing that, I'll have to go cap in hand to my least favourite b-i-l and ask him if he will take photos for me! I will get a photo of the completed seahorse here, by hook or by crook!
Moo
Thursday, March 11, 2004
Bugs...........
Ugh, I hate been sick! This started over a week ago (Kelly-Anne was first to succumb) with a 'naar' feeling, ..... an Afrikaans word that means nauseous but is much more descriptive! It finally progressed into full gastric flu on Tuesday and I can't shake it at all.
Yesterday Robert was sent home from school cos he was a delicate shade of grey and feeling sick. I kept an eye on him, but last night he started running a temperature and complained of a headache. This morning he started being sick, so I rang the surgery to see if I could get appointments for the pair of us.
They however run a triage service, so the doctor phones you back. Lovely (NOT) woman listened to my tale, sweetly says that she believes it's best to let these things run their course, to phone if Robert got worse and was gone in about 20 secs flat! Easy for you to say duckie, you haven't got labour pains and a leash attached to the closest bathroom!
This arrived in my inbox today. I'm not sure where it originates from, so if someone knows who I should acknowledge, please let me know, I don't want to step on anyones toes!
The seahorse is on hold. I'm waiting for some very fine pearl sadi to arrive to finish it off. I also have a swollen wrist due to RSI and too much embroidery :(
Not my week, I'm off back to bed!
Moo
Yesterday Robert was sent home from school cos he was a delicate shade of grey and feeling sick. I kept an eye on him, but last night he started running a temperature and complained of a headache. This morning he started being sick, so I rang the surgery to see if I could get appointments for the pair of us.
They however run a triage service, so the doctor phones you back. Lovely (NOT) woman listened to my tale, sweetly says that she believes it's best to let these things run their course, to phone if Robert got worse and was gone in about 20 secs flat! Easy for you to say duckie, you haven't got labour pains and a leash attached to the closest bathroom!
This arrived in my inbox today. I'm not sure where it originates from, so if someone knows who I should acknowledge, please let me know, I don't want to step on anyones toes!
The seahorse is on hold. I'm waiting for some very fine pearl sadi to arrive to finish it off. I also have a swollen wrist due to RSI and too much embroidery :(
Not my week, I'm off back to bed!
Moo
Friday, March 05, 2004
Nearly finished ...........
Having had a brainwave the last time I wrote about the seahorse, I unpicked the piece of lace I had made for the middle, used it as a pattern, sewed in a piece of silver kid and then reworked the half stitch lace piece over that. I'm a lot happier with the result now.
I've finished the side fin, am busy on the back fin and trying to source (locally) very fine gold and silver purl sadi. There's a needlework and hobbies show at the SECC this weekend. I was going to go to it, but Kelly-Anne was sick yesterday and so I didn't make it. Now I can no longer get there. I was hoping to buy it there, but will now try mail order instead.
Unfortunately it's not a very clear picture, the saga continues, so I scanned it in the library, but it was then too big to save to a floppy! I tried resizing it, but then it wouldn't save, so I ended up by printing it and snail-mailing it off to my s-i-l (Through the Gates) so she could scan it for me. It didn't occur to me to attach it to an email so I could get it when I got home!!
Moo
I've finished the side fin, am busy on the back fin and trying to source (locally) very fine gold and silver purl sadi. There's a needlework and hobbies show at the SECC this weekend. I was going to go to it, but Kelly-Anne was sick yesterday and so I didn't make it. Now I can no longer get there. I was hoping to buy it there, but will now try mail order instead.
Unfortunately it's not a very clear picture, the saga continues, so I scanned it in the library, but it was then too big to save to a floppy! I tried resizing it, but then it wouldn't save, so I ended up by printing it and snail-mailing it off to my s-i-l (Through the Gates) so she could scan it for me. It didn't occur to me to attach it to an email so I could get it when I got home!!
Moo
Monday, March 01, 2004
Like riding a bike ..........
I dug out my pillows and bobbins at the weekend and was very glad to find that despite not making lace in any form over the last few years, I haven't forgotten how to do it!
I decided to use Mez Reflecta 300 to do the middle section, which I have done in half stitch. I used more bobbins than was necessary so it's a fairly dense piece as I didn't really want the turquoise background shining through. It's only dawned on me now that I could have put a piece of silver kid behind it .....
Since I still haven't solved the camera/computer saga, I went to the library to use their scanner. Unfortunately, that's not working, but as soon as I can I will put up a progress picture .... it's looking good, even if I do say so myself!
Sat up watching the Oscars last night, didn't manage to see it all, but my brain's still turned to mush and keeps wanting to switch off if I stay still too long!
Moo
I decided to use Mez Reflecta 300 to do the middle section, which I have done in half stitch. I used more bobbins than was necessary so it's a fairly dense piece as I didn't really want the turquoise background shining through. It's only dawned on me now that I could have put a piece of silver kid behind it .....
Since I still haven't solved the camera/computer saga, I went to the library to use their scanner. Unfortunately, that's not working, but as soon as I can I will put up a progress picture .... it's looking good, even if I do say so myself!
Sat up watching the Oscars last night, didn't manage to see it all, but my brain's still turned to mush and keeps wanting to switch off if I stay still too long!
Moo
