TUSAL October 2015

Here we go for a very quick flyby post.... I have been trying to find time for the last 2 days to get this post written and ticked off the To-Do List all to no avail until now!  I am waiting for a visitor to come and see the boss, so thought while I am waiting I would sneak the opportunity and post!!

Just a photo of the little monthly ORT's this time (I forgot to get the suitcase out on Monday night when I took the photo!)

TUSAL Oct 2015

As it's October, and nearly Halloween, I added some cobwebs to the pic.... and you may also notice the Tardis hanging around as well - that's because Dr Who is back on the TeeVee... and also because my little ORT's tin is bigger on the inside!!

Visitor still hasn't arrived.... but that's good as I got my post done and dusted... and now I can pack up and be ready to go home as soon as the visitor is settled in - yee hah!! :o)

So that's it for my super dupper quick TUSAL update!  Shame I don't have a time machine in real life as I could go back to yesterday and pretend I posted on time!!

Til next time, happy stitching...
Hugs xx

*********************

If you don't know (or haven't heard) about the 2015 TUSAL, Daffycat is again hosting the fun Totally Useless SAL (TUSAL).  Essentially we stitch and save our ORT's (Old Raggety Threads) and every New Moon those of us participating in the TUSAL post a picture of our ORT's jar, and then leave little msgs for Daffycat on her blog to show that we have been stitching and have posted our wonderful pics.  Please head over to her sign up page and join in the fun!

New Moons - 2015
11th November
11th December

Stitching Cats and Mice!!

Happy Monday.... :o)

I have a bit of a stitching update for you today and even a very small finish!

On my last blog post I gave you an update on my "ABC Chats" afghan - which is very slowly moving along!

Kitty "B" looked like this last weekend:

"ABC Chats - Kitty B" as at 3 Oct 2015

Kitty "B" now looks like this:

"ABC Chats - Kitty B" as at 8 Oct 2015

Almost done....little bit of backstitch left on the kitty and just some filling in of the bow when I get around to ordering the missing thread.  I need to now find the time to start on "C" before the end of the month.....

Now onto my Friday Frolics stitching!  Link to my FF post is here.... but in a nutshell, I decided to stitch on a small on Friday night as I was feeling completely cream crackered after a very looonnngg week at work and I didn't want to stitch on something that I needed to think about (and stuff up) and then frog it all out next time I picked it up!!!

I picked up this cute little Christmas mouse and very nearly finished him on Friday...

Before I started stitching on Friday night....

and after a couple of Friday night wines he looked like this:

and then on Saturday afternoon I finished off the last of the backstitching:

Christmas Mouse (1) finished Oct 2015
Designer: Margaret Sherry

One more WIP ticked off that very long Crazy January start list..... :o)

While I had the trio of Christmas Mice out over the weekend I decided to stitch a bit more on another one on Saturday as well.  The last time you saw Christmas Mouse #2 was way back in January when I first started stitching on him....

He now looks like this.....

He is almost done now.....
Amazing what you can achieve when you sit up til 2am Sunday morning watching the Rugby World Cup!!! (Amazing game by the Wallabies to beat Wales.....)

I will save my Sunday stitching til later in the week as I picked up one of my GG pieces so that I would have something to show on Thursday!! :o)

So that's it for today's update.  Quite a productive week and weekend overall!  (Although some people would probably say that I have been very lazy stitching all weekend!)

Have a great week!  I will try and post tomorrow for my TUSAL update and then I will be back again on Thursday for GG, and then before we know it, it will be time for FNSI and IHSW at the end of the week!  The month of October is just flying by...

Til next time, happy stitching!
Hugs xx

The Alphabet Club - Detention for Letter "C"

"They only met online, but it changed their lives forever"

Today is the first Saturday in October.... 

which means today is posting day for

"The Alphabet Club" (TAC)

Hello Cobber!  Are you ready to get cracking on the letter "C"?  Here's some words that may or may not be unique to us Aussies, but we certainly use them quite a bit in our every day conversation!

Cactus: useless, broken
Cackle Berries: a chicken egg. (ie "Mum, I'd like two cackle berries for brekkie, please.")
Chuck a wobbly: go berserk
Chuck a sickie: take the day off sick from work when you're perfectly healthy
Clicks: kilometres (ie 10 clicks / 10 kms)
Cobber: a mate or a friend
Come a cropper: to fall heavily
Cot case: a drunk or exhausted person only fit for bed
Cracking: excellent / get cracking - start something
Crow Eater: a fun name for a person from South Australia (that's me, sort of... I was born a Crow Eater... later on in the series of letters I will tell you what I am now!)

And if that wasn't enough for you, how about some of these pretty unique sayings:

Couldn't fight his way out of a wet paper bag
Couldn't peel skin off a custard (I love this one.... most of the time it gets applied to someone's car when it doesn't really have a lot of power and gets left behind at the traffic lights!)

So now I have to talk about Aussie food.... and sorry but there really is only one food that is worth mentioning on an Aussie "C" Day and that is the Chiko Roll!!

Web image

This Australian food icon was inspired by Chinese spring rolls.  The deep-fried snack contains beef (despite its name, there’s no chicken), celery, cabbage, barley, carrot, onion, green beans and spices (and probably things we don't want to know about!!) in a battered tube.  Chiko rolls are generally eaten on the go and served at local fish 'n' chip shops or by snack vendors at train stations.  Besides the meat pie or sausage roll they are probably an Aussie's favourite footy food!!

I love Chiko Rolls...... but then again I am a child of the late 60's and 70's!!

Ok... so that's the Aussie part of the post over and done with...

So how about an update on my chosen piece that I am stitching for this monthly blog post... "ABC Chats" from Les Brodeuses Parisiennes.

I was hoping to have finished "B" before posting... but that didn't happen!  I have managed to stitch on "B" for the last couple of nights including last night (which was a Friday Frolics night)...

So the last time I showed you "B" it looked like this:

and now after last night it looks like this:

Kitty is now beginning to finally take shape...  I am going to keep stitching on this now for the weekend as I would like to get started on "C" before my next TAC post!!!

Well, that's it for today's Detention post... If you would like to join in the fun of "The Alphabet Club", pop over to Chiara's blog (The Grey Tail) to see what all the fun is about and link up your for post for the Letter "C".

See you next month when it will be Detention for the Letter "D".

Cheerio from me....
Hugs xx

Friday Frolics and Weekend Stitching....

Hello!  I have now emerged from a wonderful 3 day weekend with some stitching progress to show off!  The weather was fantastic and both Hubby and I had a very lazy, do nothing but stitching weekend!  My favourite kind of weekend :o)

As you probably read in my last post, I have recently been stitching on my "Faces of JE Mystery SAL" piece again and over the weekend I just kept on going with this one!  I am finding it hard to put it away this time....

I was supposed to take a photo on Friday night before I started stitching, and another one after my Friday night effort, so that I could do a Friday Frolics post... but I forgot!  So this post is covering my FF stitching as well as a general update on my SAL piece.

When I posted last week after IHSW & FNSI my SAL piece looked like this:

She now looks like this:

I have now started filling in her skin by stitching 1 over 1 which is taking a bit of time..... (as it does!!)  I have so enjoyed stitching on this fairy which means I have to make a decision as to whether to keep it out for another few days or swap her for another WIP that is sitting in the basket.

Before I go I must show you a couple of pics.... one is of the gorgeous roses that I picked from the front garden on Sunday.  Our roses are starting to show off their Spring colours and they look amazing...

And secondly, seeing as I showed you a picture of Oscar enjoying the sun the other day.... I really should show you the other two.... Felix and Mitzi on guard in Daddy's office.....  Have no idea what was outside that was attracting their attention but they are certainly intent on something!

Speaking of Mitzi - I have to tell you what her favourite movie is at the moment: 101 Dalmatians.

We had the telly on the other night and the 101 Dalmatians movie was on while we were doing the dishes - next thing I noticed Mitzi sitting by the couch watching the TV!  I managed to grab my phone without disturbing her and took a video of her watching all the puppies.  She even barked when the 2 baddies appeared!!!  Don't think she likes Hugh Laurie and Mark Williams anymore!!  I was amazed at how glued she was to the movie!  So cute too....  She often watches the TV but this is first time she has sat for so long...normally after 10 mins or so she loses interest but not this time.  I think she ended up watching almost the whole movie!!

So that's for today!  See you again next week when hopefully I will have some more stitching to show you!

Ta-ta for now.... happy stitching!
Hugs xx

IHSW - Sept 2015

International Hermit & Stitch Weekend (IHSW).... held on the third weekend (Fri - Sun) of every month - hosted by Joyce (Random Ramblings).

Guess what?  I have finished "Feelin' Festive".... see what a weekend of stitching can do!!

"Feelin' Festive" - Designer: Lizzie Kate
Finished Sept 2015

It is such a wonderful feeling to have another WIP ticked off the list.  And, as I always try to do these days.... I am shoe-horning him into this month's theme for Christmas Ornie SAL Blog - Christmas Trees / Presents.  While there isn't a Christmas Tree in this design there are 3 presents!!

After putting the last couple of stitches into this one on Friday evening, I then had to decided what to stitch on for Saturday and Sunday.  So after a bit of thought (and a lot of "I don't feel like tackling this one") I finally settled on the "Faces of Joan Elliott SAL" which I have had on the go for some time now....

The last time that you saw this one (back in May 2015), I was tackling the cat in the middle (as opposed to the "Cat in the Hat".... sorry couldn't resist a bit of Dr Seuss!!)

Now for some reason I still haven't finished kitty... think I might be missing some threads as I have already started the Summer Fairy next time to him... and for some reason I didn't post my start of the Summer Fairy - and I forgot to take a photo before I starting stitching on Saturday....

... so now this is what the Summer Fairy looks like as of Sunday night.  I spent the weekend stitching the right side of this square, and added the start of the leaves on the left.  As you can see I am jumping around a bit with whatever colour takes my fancy at the time!!

The three top squares look like this now:

The Fairy on the left needs her bling and the kitty needs some filling in and he will be finished.  Every time I pick this one up I wonder why I put it down again....  I have decided to keep stitching on this SAL piece for the rest of the week so stay tuned for another update over the weekend!

Well, that's it for my ISHW update....  If you are wondering what everyone else did over the weekend, drop on over to Joyce's blog and have a look at sign up post for a full list of who was participating.

See you again soon!

Enjoy your week, happy stitching
Hugs xx