Merry Christmas Sisters of the Threads

Merry Christmas to everyone on the web....if you are reading this you have probably had enough quality time with your families and need some time with your craft family.  That is certainly why I am sitting at the computer on Christmas morning......sad, sad, sad.  It seems to take so long to put Christmas together with the planning and shopping and all....and then it is gone in a few minutes in a flurry of wrapping paper and bubble wrap.....sigh!!

Memo to Self - Look carefully at things - you might miss something otherwise

You will not believe this - I started that ABC sampler some 23 years ago - and until it was pointed out to me in this blog I NEVER NOTICED that I had not done the D - Bugger Shit etc. etc.!!!!!!!!!  Thankfully there is enough room to squeeze it in down the right side....MAYBE that was why I stopped stitching it all those years ago....the reason has of course been lost (like a lot of other things) in the proverbial "Mists of Time"   I have noticed that the chart has got very small and very unreadable - thank god for the photocopier at work with the enlarging facility - probably have to enlarge each letter to an A4 page now. 

Our Hong Kong Holiday

Our Hong Kong Holiday:

UFO's from before the Dawn of Time

I have been blaming the Crafty Princess for getting me started on Golden Wood - as if somehow it is all her fault - so I say here publicly that I had a cross stitch problem from an early age.  I offer you photographic evidence. (see above)  The ABC was for the child of a friend started about 23 years ago when Lynn became pregnant.....child is now 22 and I have got up to E for Echidna.....pitiful effort.  The other the cross stitch runner on linen was started even further back into the mists of time.....when I was in my early 20's - which makes it at least 30 years ago.  At least I still have the pattern for the ABC and the threads that came in the kit.....as for the linen runner.....no pattern and no thread....so basically NO CHANCE of ever finishing it.....but it is interesting like some strange artifact dug up in an archaeological site and displayed in the British Museum.....can you image my partially completed runner sitting next to the Rosetta Stone ...... ??

Led Astray......my very best thing!!!

Of all places in the world - the internet leads me astray better than anywhere else - it is no longer libraries or bookshops or craft shops.....NO, THE BLOODY INTERNET - but it is still wonderful.  I have so many other things to be doing - Christmas is 14 days away or thereabouts - yet here I am at 830am reading blogs from Denmark and New Zealand and everywhere in between.  I have visited a number of sites where women finish huge number of projects.....but, in my defence they are all small.  What is my obsession with HUGE COMPLICATED projects.  Shining example Golden Wood.  Thinking back to other cross stitch things I have started - there was the Australian Alphabet cross stitch for a friends child - I got as far as  C (I think??) and then life intervened - the child is now about 25 years old.  Then there was the beautiful Danish cross stitch on linen with a single colour....I found it a few years ago in a bag of stuff...and moved it to the top of the pile.....one day I guess.


No Crafty Princess - it is not your fault - in any way, shape or form - that I have taken up cross stitch again.  You can't blame someone for leading you back to something you love.  Any sort of craft was always a "problem" for me....but also an escape - and I think I need a bit of an escape just at the moment.....consequently there is the quilting and the knitting and now the cross stitch.....mind you without the sort of work that I do - where we sit on our bottoms for 12 hours and can knit or stitch or read a book etc. would not get anything done.

So today is wrapping presents and posting them - starting the Christmas Pudding (which should have happened about 6 weeks ago) and hanging curtain for DD Brigid.  But none of that will happen if I do not get off the BLOODY COMPUTER.

Have done very little of Golden Wood this month so far.....Christmas is fast approaching and I have been putting up the Christmas tree, wrapping presents....if only so I can get into the walkin wardrobe and get clothes for myself each day. And Patrick had his Year 10 Formal last night and Kerry and I had to go to a Drinkie Poos Thingy at one of the parents houses last night.  The house was at Galston, on acres, and had it own private lake and the driveway went across the bridge over the lake. The house was equally palatial and had an indoor tropical rainforest just off the kitchen -just in case you felt the need to go and hunt pygmy tribesmen before brekky.  It was all a bit Dallas/Dynasty - just a bit over the top.  I would like to think I would have a different sort of house should I have that (probably inordinate) amount of money.  The lady of the house did not look too happy - so maybe money does not make you happy if you are not.....would like to give it a shot though!!!!

Anyway my little boy is now 6ft tall and very handsome in his suit.  I was pleased in a mean spirited loyal motherly sort of way, to see that there were a lot of boys in Pat's year whose skin was Much much worse than his.  This Year 10 is rather imbalanced on the gender front and there are many more boys than girls....about which I am sure, the girls are pleased.  There were some little princesses in dresses that obviously cost daddy HEAPS and they are gorgeous now.....pity help the boys I say!!

Going to do some ironing and payment for going upstairs and cross stitching......!!!

Slowly getting out of the Trees of Golden Wood

Well it is as close to December as you can get so here is the picture of my progress for this month.  Thank God I go to work wouldn't get anything done other wise.  After much effort I have completely finished the first page and took great delight in ripping up the chart for page one - all coloured out in fluro highlighter.  Tore it into a million pieces and tossed it in the bin at work.  EXCELLENT feeling it was....only 18 pages to go.  I am being more organised about how I stitch from now on...no matter how carefully you count you still make mistakes and when you come to fill in other colours they are never in the same places as they were before.  Also I have noticed no matter how carefully you check each 10x10 block of stitches for individual symbols, and no matter how sure you are that you have done all of that symbol in each square, when you thread a new colour and stitch a few stitches.....SURE ENOUGH.....there is another of the last bloody symbols you were doing.....I'm sure the chart changes itself when you are not looking.  Anyway as I am approaching one of the fairies have to be more careful now with correct stitch and colour placement, otherwise the fairies will have eyes where there noses are and ears on their chins.....not a good look. 

"Do you have a Plan!!?"

Just like the Crafty Princess I have formulated a plan ("What another one!!" I hear you all say) Yes, yet another plan. I am gradually going to go through all my pictures from England/Scotland and post them and then tell the story of them so do a travel blog thingy and record my trip, before I actually forget what they all were. I may even include my emails that I sent home....some of which were quite funny.

That is plan number one. The other plan is to record the progress of the Golden Wood cross stitch that the Crafty Princess and I have started, and hope to complete sometime in our present lifetimes.

Had taken a picture at the end of the first month of stitching but somehow when I tried to upload it to my computer the damn thing ate all the stuff on the memory stick....which I might add included pictures of Spud's 93rd Birthday (for anyone not in the know who may be reading this - Spud is my ancient father-in-law).
Anyway have taken another photo of Golden Woods progress and it looks quite good in the photo - more definition in the picture than in real life....figure that if you can

Well typically it has been months since I put anything on this blog....but have been busy. I have been to England and Scotland for the first time in my life. Sad that it took so long to get there. Never took advantage of my youth like so many did....never went on a holiday to England and then stayed to work....should have....but the maybe not....would have got caught up in Thatcher's Britain which sound grim and the time and no seem even grimmer in retrospect. Just makes me think of Eddie Izzard's piece about god creating the world and getting a bit pressed for time towards the end of the seven days and deciding to put a stone in Thatcher instead of finding a proper heart.

I love England - London especially and adored Scotland....could easily have stayed got myself and job and not come back....dreadful ting to say really, but it is true - wish I was there now.

Many pictures as seen - over a thousand if the truth be known and
that does not include the ones that were deleted on the day. Love digital cameras - can get rid of the embarrassing evidence before anyone sees it!

I wonder how much will ever get written on this page. Instead of day dreaming and having involved conversations in my head, maybe I will put them down here instead. I do things that others may be interested in ....maybe. I plan to do greater things than I have done so far - that makes my life sound very mundane - which it is not - but I am getting to the age where I am concerned about posterity - how immodest of me!! I went to a funeral once....funeral for a woman I had never met, and the most the rector could say about her was that she was a lovely knitter and had given all the members of her family beautiful knitted woollies. No wonder I cried at the funeral - I was probably crying for myself, scared that that would be all that would be said of me.

Well that is up to me isn't it.

Will this focus my mind upon my life and its doings - will I look more deeply into my motives and actions? That probably is not a really good idea....may discover things I do not wish to uncover.

Well time will tell.