Blah

I'm not sure that it feels like it, but my health has made some progress. I had the most awful anxiety as a side-effect of the anti-depressants. After I tried to tough it out until it went away, the doctor and I eventually agreed I needed some anti-anxiety medication to get me through it. Now I have a mild, annoying but not incapacitating anxiety sitting at the bottom of my stomach.

The only possible upside to the anxiety was that since I couldn't relax, I was keeping up with keeping the house tidy and various jobs around the place. Now the anxiety is reduced, I've calmed down a lot and now I'm just tired and flat and blah from the depression. Sadly, that means the laundry pile has got bigger and Marcus' mess is starting to accumulate. I guess there are positives and negatives to everything.

I'm not stitching at all. I've been putting the odd stitch into The Bookshelf from Little House Needleworks but it doesn't really count of stitching at all in my book. I've altered some of the authors' names to ones that are more familiar to me than in the original and I'm going to change one of the book titles. I have never been able to read Wuthering Heights and after some comments I've heard about it, I don't think I ever will. So the scene of a house beside a wild sea will be changed to something else. I know what, I just have figured out how I'm going to do the wording (feel free to guess, but no prize for a correct answer I'm afraid).

Speaking of Little House Needleworks, I see the designer has started up a blog and is revealing snippets of her new release to be called The Library. I'm being suitably teased and have just added her to my feed reader so I don't miss out of anything. It's here for anyone wanting to take a look.

I am doing some reading, although not with as much enthusiasm as I would like. Back in March, a friend gave me the book Do Polar Bears Get Lonely? for my birthday. It's a compilation of answers to questions posed in New Scientist's Last Word column where readers ask strange and/or interesting questions and other readers answer them. I thoroughly enjoyed the book - even if I didn't understand all of it and probably forgot most of it. Dave picked up the other two from the library, Does Anything Eat Wasps? and Why Don't Penguins' Feet Freeze? and I am enjoying those, having already finished the first one and started on the second. (For the record: No, polar bears don't get lonely being solitary animals and all sorts of things eat wasps including fish, frogs, many types of birds and other wasps.)

I have also stared Silent on the Moor by Deanna Raybourn. I wasn't blowled over by the first two in the series, but I did enjoy reading them, so I shall give it a go.

Sticking with books, I updated two of the widgets on my sidebar today, to use the provided GoodReads versions for "Current Books" and "Recently Read". Using GoodReads means I don't have to manually update either. Especially, I don't have to constantly find and upload book covers of my current reads. GoodReads does it for me and that makes my life a lot easier.

I've been in a Doctor Who phase as I work through the anxiety, and have been listening to a lot of podcasts (I'm especially enjoying Cadmium2's story by story casts from the beginning, although I'm only up to The Space Museum, while they are about thirteen episodes ahead of me). I've also listened to a few Big Finish audio plays, mostly from the Eight Doctor range, as Paul McGann remains my favourite doctor, despite his very short time in the role.

I've been very slowly watching Torchwood: Children of Earth over about the last 10 days. I watched episode four today and I hope to finish it tomorrow, although that will depend on just how my day goes. I had been warned about the bad thing that happens in episode four, so at least I wasn't shocked and could just appreciate the way they played it all out. I thought it was a lovely ending in a very-sad-lovely kind of way. Now just one more hour to watch.

So all in all, I'm no longer terribly anxious, but remain flat and blah with a general feeling of not-rightness. Still the specialist told me it took me 14 months to stabalise last time, so I just hope it doesn't take that long this time, as it's only been a bit over four.

Okay, time for me to head for bed. Early nights and the best sleep possible are my friends right now.

Half way along

I’ve been stitching steadily on Illuminated Medieval Samper – I guess one of the few upsides to stabilising on new antidepressants is a need to keep myself busy (or I’d climb in bed by about 7.30pm and hide there for the rest of the night) so I’ve been stitching. I find myself a little intimidated by just how MUCH border there is to this design, but I must say that what I’ve done so far is looking very nice. The photos aren’t great, but here’s my progress for this week.

For all that there’s still an awful lot of empty fabric, I’m starting to feel like I’m making my mark on the project and so long as I don’t focus on the enormity of the border, I’m enjoying myself.

Of course, Chatelaines tend to breed and now that I’ve started this one, I’ve gone and ordered the materials pack for Pompeji Garden. It won’t be started before this is finished, so we’re talking a few years ahead, but I have some money to spend on it now and it’s always nice to have the next project stashed away in a cupboard waiting for its time to come.

More IMS

Here’s my first scroll corner. It looks very impressive, doesn’t it…

 

… at least until you see it in context.

Latest on IMS

Here’s my latest on Illuminated Medieval Sampler. The square-ish border has been filled in and I’m onto the swirly filigree border next.

I also put it on the scanner to do a close up of all the Rhodes stitches and the sparkly backstitching. The actual colour, IRL, is probably somewhere between the two pictures, but the bottom picture is definitely a little washed. Given scanners, cameras and the differences between everyone’s monitors it is so hard to get an accurate image.

I’m still enjoying myself stitching this, so I shall carry on with it while I am. It’s also been good as I deal with the whole depression medication thing as when I’m feeling less than relaxed, I can usually still manage to sit down and stitch a few stitches in a relatively calm manner.

Regarding the depression, it came roaring back Saturday and I immediately decided against toughing it out any longer. I’m now on a new medication and waiting for it to get up to full strength. Hopefully it won’t be too long. Right now, I’m feeling okay, but I also know that everything is a bit “off”. I figure when I forget to ask myself if I’m feeling better, that’s when I will be.

IMS – second line of border done

I’ve completed the inner line of the border for Illuminated Medieval Sampler.

While watching Doctor Who with a friend this evening (Planet of the Dead – yes, I’m running behind as always) I got started with the rhodes stitches and gold metallic back stitching that fill in the space between these two lines of the border. It looks really pretty, so when I get that done I’ll make sure to include a close up photo as well as the one of the whole thing.

I know it isn’t very exciting to look at so far, but to me it feels fantastic. My enthusiasm for my stitching was just fading away and so to be enjoying myself doing this even (or perhaps especially) when it is just border, it' feels fabulous.

It joined up!

I finished the first border on Illuminated Medieval Sampler tonight. To my great delight (and relief) it all joined up like it was supposed to do.

It’s not particularly exciting to look at right now, but it is satisfying that everything is in the right place. I get to use on of the variegated colours next. Yay.

Beautiful new pattern

It was a good mail day today. I got a second hand copy of Dorothy Dunnett’s To Lie with Lions from Trade Me (now I only need to find the last book, Gemini, to have the whole Niccolo series) and an envelope from Colours Down Under in Australia. Inside was this beautiful pattern:

Jeannie-Maree (aka Fudgey) sent me a gift certificate for my birthday and as soon as I saw this one on the front page of the site, I loved it. I spent at least another half an hour checking out other things in case I saw something I wanted more, but I think I knew all along that this is what I would be buying. Wonderfully helpful lady that she is, Jeannie-Maree is now converting the DMC colours it uses to Vicki Clayton’s beautiful silks for me.

I have to finish Second Chances at the very least before starting, so it won’t be worked on immediately, but I love it and I’m so glad to have it in the drawer waiting for me to get to it.

Thank you ever so much, Jeannie-Maree.

Second Chances

My progress on Second Chances when I stopped to take a break and have a chance. I love how it is coming together, but the stitches are very small, and I think I’ll just work on small amounts of it at a time.

I’m now working slowly on Dawn Star and I’m delighted with how she’s going. She now has a face and when I’ve finished the current page I will happily show her off.

MIA

Health and generally keeping up with life (getting a five year old to and from school each day, getting homework done and having him home in the afternoon is doing me in) have got me pretty run down.

I’m behind with book reviews, although I still hope to get caught up again. I have Promises in Death by J. D. Robb, Dewey by Vicki Myron and Mothstorm by Philip Reeve to catch up with. I’m reading a long SF book now (Ties of Power by Julie E. Czerneda) and have an even longer one to read after that (Lear’s Daughters by Marjorie B. Kellogg) so that should at least give me some breathing time to get caught up.

I’ve done a little bit of stitching. I’ve been working on the next page of Dawn Star and since that includes her face, I got kind of obsessed about getting the face done and being sure it came out right. It is done and (IMHO) it looks just lovely. However, the exhaustion has stopped the stitching for now too, so I’ll take a break before finishing up the rest of the page.

I have about 40 minutes to go in my audiobook (The Grey King by Susan Cooper), but it’s all about the head into the book’s climax and I’ve been putting it off in the hope I’ll be a bit more “with it” soon and be able to take it in better.

So all in all, things have ground to something of a halt as I do my best to get through each day and not much else. Hopefully things will start to pick up again soon.

Book of Ink Circles Completed

Tracy released the final part of Book of Ink Circles on her site today – or more accurately, Barfy the corner cat took over the site and did it for her. Check it out.

But Tracy and Barfy were very kind and let up-to-date stitchers have the last part early. So I finished mine a few days ago, even if I couldn’t share pictures until now, when the final part was released.

In all it’s glory, here’s my Book of Ink Circles. It’s stitched 1 over 1 on 28-ct Quaker cloth (sorry, I don’t know the colour as it was an off-cut, but I think it is either Desert Sand or Biscuit) using “Tracy’s Colors” from Carrie’s Creation Threads.

And a close up of the last square:

Progress on Second Chances

I’ve been making some slow progress on Second Chances, but I’ve been slack about posting photos, so here are a few. This is so pretty – the photos don’t begin to do it justice. Once I’ve finished the first page I’ll actually scan it and see if that gives a better picture.

  

Two pretty designs

I can across these while browsing today. I do rather like them both – although I acknowledge I am unlikely to stitch either.

Beach Cottage – Country Cottage Needlecrafts

 

Traveling Stitcher – Little House Needleworks

Oh pah!

In line with my plan to start listening to The Grey King, I pulled out my cross stitch tonight and settled down to get some done.

It was going along very nicely – I was enjoying the book (even if I did side-track to buy it as an ebook so I could add notes to it as I listened) and getting back into the swing of the stitching.

But I’ve just found that the section I’ve been working on doesn’t join up properly with the bit before.  Darn it, I’ve got myself a single stitch out – and quite a way back too. I’ve now got a whole lot of red (of course it had to be red) thread to pull out that has been stitched 1-over-1 on 32-ct lugana.

Excuse me while I go and curse and use lots of rude words.

I am totally not going to try to do it tonight. I’m going to bed. Hopefully I’ll feel up to frogging it tomorrow. If not, it can wait until I’m good and ready.

Sigh. And it was looking so pretty too. In fact, it still looks pretty, but since it’s a symmetric and circular design it has to be right or it won’t meet up at the end. I have no choice but to pull it out.

Tomorrow.

The only good news is that I got about an hour into my book so hopefully I’ll be able to keep up with Sue and Nymeth.

Next part for Book of Ink Circles

We got a lovely little bird to stitch this time around. I got it stitched in a day and now I’ve only got one part left. It comes out on the 24th February. I can’t believe this is nearly finished.

Weekly Geeks 2009-04

I’m afraid I skipped Weekly Geeks last week. I had a really busy week getting ready for Marcus’ birthday and all our visitors and I wasn’t quite sure what I was going to say about Classic books. They’re something I don’t read a lot of – more out of some vague fear than anything else – and I couldn’t form a coherent post. But this week is much more my thing. Here are the instructions from the Weekly Geeks site:

#1. What are you passionate about besides reading and blogging? For example, are you crafty (knitting, woodworking, scrapbooking, model building)? Do you cook? Into gaming (computer or board)? Sports (player or spectator)? Photography? Maybe you like geocaching, rock climbing? Or love attending events like renaissance fairs, concerts? Music? Dancing? You get the idea.

Tell us why you're passionate about it. Post photos of what you've made or of yourself doing whatever it is you love doing.

#2. Get us involved. Link to tutorials, recipes, Youtube videos, websites, fan sites, etc, anything that will help us learn more about your interest or how to do your hobby. Maybe you'd like to link to another hobbyist whose work you admire or tell us about a book or magazine related to your interest.

#3. Visit other Weekly Geeks. Link in your post to other Geeks who've peaked your interest in their passion. Or maybe you might find a fellow afincionado among us, link to them.

1. Other Passions

As anyone who has ever browsed this blog (or even just read my little “About Me” profile) will know, I’m an obsessed cross stitcher. I started stitching when I was about 17 and now, over 20 years later I’m still going strong. Between my health and a small child I don’t get as much done as I would like, but I don’t think I’ll ever stop completely. Right now, I’m working on a design called Second Chances by designer Tracy Horner from Ink Circles. I’m stitching it with very small stitches – 32 of them to an inch – so it’s a bit of a challenge, but I’m really enjoying it. Fortunately, my eyes can cope fine. In fact, I need to take my glasses off to see most clearly. When finished, it should look like this, but I haven’t done a lot yet. Here’s my current progress:

 

I run a small home business called Character Creations, where I convert artwork into cross stitch designs. I generally don’t stitch my own designs – all my creativity goes into the designing and I don’t have a lot left to consider actually stitching the piece. One picture I did like was the art for the cover of The Dawn Star by Catherine Asaro (who is also a favourite author). Stephanie Law (the artist) is one of the artists whose work I chart, but unfortunately she didn’t own the rights to this one. In the end, I managed to get permission from Harlequin to do it just for myself. It’s a really huge project (know as a ‘BAP’ among cross stitchers, which stands for ‘'Big A** Project’) and I’ll be doing it for years, but I love how it is turning out. Here’s my current progress on this one:

Other crafty things I do include some patchwork (I learned out of self-preservation when I got a job in an embroidery and patchwork store) isn’t a major hobby, but one I enjoy when I get in the mood for it. It makes a pleasant change from cross stitch when I still want to be creative and crafty, but need to do something a little different.

I’m currently working on a Triple Irish Chain quilt that has been many years in the preparation (and the making), but I’ll get it finished in the end. You can see some of my quilts here (the gallery is out of date now, but the pictures are all still there to see – oh, and the thumbnail of Dawn of the Third Age is wrong because it is actually a Babylon 5 quilt). This one below resides on Dave and my bed and is a bit faded these days from repeated use and washing, but it is still a favourite:

Last year, I got into digital scrapbooking. My enthusiasm has faded a bit since then and I only do some now and then. I have an album of layouts that doesn’t include the most recent ones as lately I’ve just been doing them for myself rather than sharing them online. We recently brought a new printer that will print them at excellent quality, so my current goal is to (very slowly) print them out and make a physical album I can go through myself. Marcus also really enjoys seeing all the pictures of himself, so it will be good when he can just pick up the album and take a look as the mood strikes him, rather than me having to pull up the appropriate directory on the laptop. This one was done to commemorate the first Christmas Santa came to give Marcus presents.

(Frames by Nancy Comlab; everything else by Kate Hadfield and Kaye Winiecki.)

I’ve flirted with a few other things like stamping and Hardanger, but these three are the ones that have stuck. I’ve also tried knitting, but it just won’t click in my brain. When I was pregnant I imagined I would knit something for the baby, but when I couldn’t even follow the instructions in the book to let me cast on, I faced up to the fact that knitting isn’t for me and I’ve never tried again. What with the reading, stitching, patchwork and scrapbooking, when would I have time anyway?

2. Online Resources

Hmm. In terms of cross stitch, I don’t really visit “resource” sites. My travels around the web mostly include shops – it’s always nice to drool over some pretty stuff one can’t afford to buy and doesn’t have the time to stitch – and blogs to keep an eye on other people’s works in progress.

There is a very good set of starter FAQs written by Kathy Dyer which cover all the basics and a bit more.

What about some of my favourite designers? There’s a core of them who consistently create beautiful things that tempt me, and here’s a list of some of them with links to their websites.

• Chatelaine
• Mirabilia
• Teresa Wentzler
• Little House Needleworks
• Ink Circles
• Heaven and Earth Designs

I went exploring the links I’ve just typed to make sure I had everything spelled correctly and I’ve found a lovely new dragon scissors fob by Teresa Wentzler that I’d never seen before. Oh dear, something else to go on my wish list. This is proving to be a dangerous exercise!

I love looking at other stitching blogs as it is always fun to see what other stitchers are working on – even if it is something I would never consider stitching myself. For example, I love the art conversions of Heaven and Earth Designs, but I find them very fiddly to stitch (which is why my one, Defender of the Kingdom, is going very slowly). So checking out the progress of other stitchers is the perfect way to get vicarious satisfaction.

Some of my favourite stitching blogs:

• Stitching Diva
• Plush
• Obsession… Confessions of a Serial Starter
• Feather Stitching
• No Sampler Left Behind
• Crazee4books-Cross Stitch-Cats

Of course, as I’ve already said, I also browse craft shops for things I wish I could buy. If you’d like to look at my current dream list (as in ‘in my dreams’), it’s up online here.

3. Other Weekly Geeks

I’ve had a lovely time browsing through the other Weekly Geeks posts (okay, occasionally looking at the pictures more than the text as it’s getting late here and I really should go to bed). The following are the ones that attracted my eye the most.

• Fiddle-de-dee's not English: Yati shares her love of patchwork with some beautiful photos and I also loved the way her books wormed their way into her photos even when it’s a post about other things. Yati, if you see this, Niccolo Rising is a bit of work, but well worth the effort and I’ve just recently reread (or technical relistened to) The Dark is Rising but I refuse to even consider watching the film.
• Infant Biblophile: Another patchwork post, with lots of beautiful finished quilts. I especially like the last one – and the necessary book edition of The Lion in the Meadow which is a favourite in this New Zealand household too.
• Random Wonder: I loved this post about scrapbooking, especially digital scrapbooking, and the way all the whole post is decorated with scrapbook pages. But I admit, it was the layout of the bookshelves at the bottom that really won my heart.
• Crazy Comma Momma: I really admire a person who does “real” paper scrapbooking. I’d be too afraid ever to cut anything up or glue anything down. That’s why I scrap digitally. I love my ctrl-Z. Beautiful layouts in this post and some great links.

This had been a great theme for the week and even if it’s taken me several days to get my post together, I’ve really enjoyed doing it.

Up to date with Book of Ink Circles

Yay, while watching yet more tennis last night, I got all caught up with Book of Ink Circles (until the next part comes out next week). I just love how this one came out. I think it is my favourite block of all so far. I’m so close now – only two more parts to go and it will be finished. As everything else I’m working on this year is BAP size, it will be great to have a finish.

 

And still more Book of Ink Circles

I got the bottom square of swirlies finished while watching tennis last night. I just love the colours in this one. I think it is much prettier than the swirls at the top.

As I am now wearing old glasses (already broken and glued back together as a back-up pair) that don’t quite sit right, it has been a bit of an adventure, but I’m getting there. My main glasses have been taken to the optometrist, who said they could be repaired, so now I just have to wait until it is done. Thank goodness they could be fixed.

On to the pictures…

The Hanging Gardens of Semiramis

Stitchers, have you seen this?

It’s the latest offering from Chatelaine’s Martina Weber. I’m trying to be strong and resist. Really and truly, I am. But it is so pretty. And it is just tiny for a Chatelaine, only about 200 x 150stitches. Six months long and small. And isn’t it pretty? I know I already said that, but it bears repeating.

More Book of Ink Circles

I’ve finished the next part of Book of Ink Circles. Two more to go to be up to date and then two more to be finished.

(For anyone who reads this through Multiply, it seems the last update didn’t migrate over – typical, that I use Multiply to share with my stitching friends and somehow it is always the stitching posts that don’t migrate. So if you want to check that one out, it is here.)

Okay, update over and on to the pictures…

Book of Ink Circles Progress

I’m behind with my Book of Ink Circles.  I got so caught up with stitching on Dawn Star I let the releases of the new parts go by without keeping up.  Having finished my Dawn Star page, the plan is to get caught up again with Book of Ink Circles.

While watching the Australian Open (not nearly as convenient for stitching as cricket, but there’s cricket on tomorrow), I just got the bottom left hand corner finished.  However, I notice that somehow I missed posting the previous part,  So here come the pictures.

The whole thing so far

The lower shield

Bottom left knot