More Crafty Adventures

At the rate I am going, returning to work next week does not sound like a fun thing. I admit, I am feeling a bit restless and antsy being at home (and I am actively avoiding doing any work, apart from occasionally checking emails and being thankful no dramas are emerging there). What I have managed to do is a bit more sewing. I have SO many projects to do, I really need to sit down and write down everything I need to do. Perhaps in doing so I will also stop myself from buying more stuff and creating new projects for myself, thus exacerbating the problem! Although I must say, having too much craft to do is a way better problem than having too much work to do!

So anyway, a few more photo updates from my recent project, a series of stitcheries from So September (who I also mentioned last blog)                

Quite liking my French knots!

I also took my stitching to the local Gloria Jeans. 

Oh, I forgot to ask, how was everyone's Christmas? Mine was good, managed to get some nice gifts and things, as well as giving some pretty decent gifts (in my humble opinion). I also took the time to annoy Millie whilst I was at my parents.

I am not sure...

...she was too impressed...

...with the...

...tree sticker on her head

I was highly entertained though of course, which is the most important thing!
Xmas seems to come upon us faster and faster each year. A sure sign I am getting old, as much as I don't really think I am old. But it is great catching up with familiar faces and celebrating the end to another year

I also have been doing some tidying around the place.


My floss is getting a little more organised for a change...

And I also finally put up the awesome framed 311 posters one of my friends gave me for Xmas...

Despite this, I have a continuing dilemma: my book pile seems to be growing larger, rather than smaller.

And that doesn't even show all the books I have yet to read!

I just finished two books in the last couple of days. Jonathan Franzen's 'The Corrections' and Paul Auster's 'Sunset Park'.

Image from crimealwayspays.blogspot.com

Image from The Guardian website

I must say I wasn't as impressed with The Corrections as I hoped I would be. I found all of the characters REALLY annoying! I just wanted it to end. Sunset Park was good, but all too brief. It felt like such a small snapshot of the characters he presented. There was way too much missing, I was left wanting more. The next cab of the rank is Paul Theroux's 'The Family Arsenal', which I picked up at the bookstore at work before Xmas (because, you know, I needed another book to read).

Image from letsbuyit.co.uk

Today I just had to get out of the house, so I took myself into Newtown, stopped into Berkelouw Books, and shouted myself lunch in the cafe

Chicken caesar salad and a book. Double yum

Okay, I am rambling a bit, and I promised myself an early night, so I think I will end blogging now. Fingers crossed I fall asleep before 4am, unlike last night! Tomorrow morning is a trip into Ikea to scope out a craft/work desk for my spare room. Yay!

Christmas Jewellery Gifts

Along with my embroidery I have also managed to find some time for making jewellery (usually between the hours of 7pm and 2am....yes, not good for my bad sleeping patterns).

I am getting together a good stock of presents for some of my friends and colleagues

 And here are a few of my creations in closer detail...

 A necklace for my work colleague Leanne, who wears a lot of red and black

 Closer detail of the main feature of the necklace

 A bracelet that I think I will give to my friend Brooke. I really like this one. I have another to make up in blue stones.....will be so tempted to keep it for myself!

 What it looks like on

 A necklace for my work colleague Jane

 How it looks on

 A bracelet I am going to give to Eileen from work

 The bracelet has a little bell thing on it, wondering if that will be annoying!

 Some earrings. Still deciding who will get these. I made another pair with silver metal instead of this dull silver for a friend to give to another friend.

 I like these earrings too. Again, still deciding who will get them.

 Another pair that doesn't have an owner yet.

And I made this bracelet in class last Monday at The Bead Room. Was not too hard to make either. Still deciding who will get it.

As you can see from this post and the previous posting, I think the past 2 weeks is the most productive I have been in all of 2010! I hope it is a trend I can continue into 2011. Fingers crossed for a bit more free time. I am realistic though and realise I may not be quite so luck. We will see.

Before I go I will post a few piccies I took at the Muse gig a couple of weeks ago.

Stitcheries and Brown Owls

Isn't technology annoying sometimes?! I had all these grand plans to update my blog in the last week as I was making my latest creations. I have this new fancy phone, so I thought transferring images would be easy......NOT SO! For some reason the only way I can manage to transfer my files at the moment is either by emailing them from my phone to myself (probably expensive given how many pics I took) or via bluetooth to my computer. I tried to do the whole USB thing, but then my mac was trying to make me pay for some phone connection thing. Anyway, needless to say I am well and truely confused. I will have to charge my trusty old camera and just use that, this phone thing isn't worth the trouble!

Anyway, I have done a LOT in the past week or so, so I have decided to split my endeavours into a couple of blogs. This one I will document some of the stitcheries I have been doing as presents for Xmas. I am still working on others, so I will post about them when I am done, but for the time being you can see what I have gotten up to.

I will start with my absolute FAVOURITE stitchery.

I stitched here....

.....And I stitched there (there being at basketball whilst I was waiting for our game)

And I finally came up with the final product.....it's GRUG!

To be honest, this one turned out MUCH better than I was expecting. It isn't 100% finished. As much as I want to be selfish and keep this one for me, I am going to give it to my friend Christine when she has her baby (which is due tomorrow). So the plan is that in the apple I will stitch the name of the baby (or its first initial if the name is too long), and then I will stitch the DOB etc to the right of the tree.

Apart from my Grug triumph, I have completed a few other random stitcheries that have been sitting in my things-to-do pile for a while.

I can't even remember where I sourced the patterns. I think it might have been from The Red Thread at a craft show in Rosehill, but I have never seen them on her site, so maybe I am wrong. I haven't decided what I am actually going to do with them yet, but I am sure eventually I will figure something out.

I have also started doing some Xmas stitcheries to give away as gifts. I got the patterns for these from So September who has a really awesome etsy store that I only just discovered (and I may have made multiple purchases....oops). I am giving away these to some work colleagues.

I also have one more design I am working on, so will post that when it's done (it's a peace dove). I am just putting these designs in embroidery hoops (as you can see in the last couple of pics) and attaching some ribbon so they can be used as ornaments. I hope people work out that's what they are meant for.

The best thing about this project has been that I have FINALLY worked out how to do stem stitch. As a stab stitcher, I never got my head around stem stitch, but I recently came across a great tutorial by Early Bird Special when I was going through all the blogs I have missed this year (there is still a long way to go on that catch up task). Anyway, I realised that there is a cheat way of doing stem stitch! I feel like I have just entered a whole new world now that I can do the stitch. I feel like a real embroiderer now! Quite sad that this has probably been the most exciting discovery of my week haha

So, there you go, you have now seen what I have been up to the past couple of weeks in terms of my embroideries.

Before I go on to write a new post about my jewellery making adventures I will leave you with some pictures of nature from Hazelhurst Gallery gardens. We met at the gardens last weekend for the final Brown Owls Shire event for the year (and the first one I have been to in about 3 months!). I think I need to visit the gardens again with my DSLR. There were SO many dragonflies around there that I would love to chase and get some photos of.

And finally, a few lovely gifts from the Brown Owls Kris Kringle swap