15 Minute Challenge - More School Holidays

Its the final week of school holidays.  Maestro starts back at Uni in a couple of weeks fingers crossed he will enjoy it this time around.  He is working lots at the restaurant so I don't know how he is going to fit it all in, only 1 day off last week.  He said he asked for the first week of Uni off so that he could get his head round it, fingers crossed they do the right thing by him.

Mo has been doing lots of homework as well as just hanging out.  She has a quite a few social interactions planned for this week.  She has to really push herself to attend these. She has been to an 18th birthday, is going to a sleepover (though she never sleeps over) with her primary school friends, and has another 18th birthday in 2 weeks time.  

We had a successful day, formal dress shopping and we only ended up going to 2 shops.  The 2nd shop was formal wear nirvana and Mo ended up trying on lots of dresses just for the fun of it.  She figured she wouldn't get to do it again.  It was a toss up between a butter yellow strapless dress and a navy one with a high neck no sleeves.  She looked more comfortable in the navy and it was very elegant with silver glitter giving it a shimmer.  We are on the lookout for a silver belt to finish it off and some shoes but she has some that she thinks will be ok with it.   We have to go back and have the hem done but we can wait a bit and look around for shoes.  

Mo gets quite anxious in shops especially when shop attendants make a fuss but in both shops we were left alone and the attendant's only helped when we asked for it so we had a good day and we were able to have lunch in an actual cafe which we haven't been able to do for months.  

I also picked up my new Juki on Thursday.   I have had a bit of a play with it over the weekend, but I managed to hurt my arm on Thursday, loading the washing machine of all things so I was a bit limited in what I could do.  

I purchased the quilting table as well which allows the machine to be used side on and I have been playing with that over the weekend.  The table takes up a fair bit of space but it will be amazing to quilt on.  I have only been using small practice pieces but it is so easy to use.  I tried out some ruler work on the weekend, something that I struggled with with the confines of the throat space of the Bernina.  

My only complaint about the Juki is the lighting.  My Bernina has a really good light around 3 sides that the Juki doesn't have.  The Juki has a real shadow under the arm that is really noticeable at night with overhead lighting (you can see it in the picture).    I did purchase a strip of LED sewing machine lights on ebay which were pretty cheap (under $20) just to see how they go,  There are other lighting units that are up to and over $100 on other dedicated sewing websites promising the best light but I want to see how the cheap LED's work first, I don't think I have to worry about true colour etc that these are promising I think that would be more for embroidery machines ... but I could be wrong.  

I had a 7 out of 7 this week.  Last night my arm was good enough to enable me to do some more cross stitch, I'm way behind on these projects, lots of the ladies on the facebook group have finished project 3 and I'm still stitch 2 but I think it is going to be very pretty when its finished.  This one I have run out of a couple of the threads so I had to find some dmc replacements and will switch some of the greens that I have left over from project 1.  

So how did your week go, head to Kate's to find out how the rest of the gang went.  

15 Minute Challenge - School Holidays and Formal Planning

This week hasn't been so good on stitching front it was only a 4 out of 7 week.  I think I've just been a bit tired.  

Maestro went out to a party on Saturday night (we have lifted restrictions that far). The plan was that he would spend the night at a mates place as the party was way over the other side of town.  We got a phone call at 12.30 can you pick me up.... he had over done it.  So hubby went up to pick up the mess and then I didn't go back to sleep until they got back a couple of hours later.  I kept looking at the stitching last night then ended up going to sleep siting up in the chair trying to watch a movie.  

I did tidy my sewing room yesterday which I probably could have counted.  I've ordered a new sewing machine and I'm hoping to pick it up on Thursday fingers crossed that it arrives on time for my day off.  Mo and I are also going to start formal dress hunting after we pick up my machine.  

I might need a stiff drink after that as Mo doesn't cope well with shop assistants when shopping and those kind of shops I know they are going to be all over us.  I have warned her that it is going to be like that, in fact it woke me up the other day from a dead sleep when I realised that it probably was going to be an issue.  She expects to find a dress this school holidays I expect meltdowns and me having to make the dress.  I can't tell you how many times we have left a shop because a shop assistant has tried to assist.  

I haven't got very far with my cross stitch this week there is lots of details that needs to be filled and I have run out of one of the threads, I would have thought with all the threads I have I would have had the one that would match but I couldn't find one.  I'm going to unpick the top row fo the pot as the one I thought would match just stands out too much.  

So how did your week go. Hopefully it was better than mine on the stitching front.  

Head to Kate's to see how everyone else went this week. 

15 Minute Challenge and the Winter Sun has come out to play

After a couple of weeks of rain, rain and more rain we have had 5 days straight of beautiful sunny weather.  The house is freezing so I have spent as much time as possible sitting in the garden. 

It was a 6 out of 7 week this week.  One night Maestro took over the TV with his Dad to watch stuff I just couldn't stay interested in so I went to bed and read. It was the one night he had off for the whole week, he's doing another 7 day week this week with mostly double shifts so he will be a wreck by the end of the week.  I know he's loving the money but the 40 minute drive home late at night after working 12 hours is a big concern.  He wants to work as much as he can before Uni starts again.  

I got a delivery today of antique hat pins.  I'm collecting them for my Blackbird Design X stitch projects.  They are so pretty.

  

I did a fair bit of stitching non the less this week even though I missed out on one day.  I finished the project I was working on for my friend and found a ready made frame to fit.  It is all ready for when we can meet up again hopefully soon.  We are going to wait until they let you stay longer at restaurants.  

Below is my next project from Crewel Goblins Project of the Month it is a drum pincushion called In My Garden so I thought stitching it in my garden was pretty apt.  I found a nice plant stand online for my cyclamen collection where I had them on an old outdoor setting that my husband made in highschool and he was getting antsy about the fact that it might  rot with the pots on it.  So I moved them then Mo went on  a succulent planting spree and fill the table up again.  

Hubby is talking about putting in a shade house up the back which will mean no tomatoes next year. I'd wish he would get rid of the old swing seat that he did a running repair using a noodle and a rough awful plank of wood.  He is the only one that will still sit on it.  Next hard rubbish collection I might get Maestro to help me dump it.   I think I might save up for a nice outdoor setting, even the current swing seat is starting to look a bit ragged. 

Howd your week go.  

Head to Kate's to seek how everyone is going.  

15 Minute Challenge - More Rain

More rain this week, we had one day of sunshine which was luckily my non work day so I washed all day.  Maestro worked all week but got the weekend off, but it has meant that we had to wash his work gear every day.  Getting it dry has been an issue we have clothes airers up full time at the moment.  We move it in front of the heater outlets.

Mo and the beau headed out for a walk on Saturday and 10 minutes later we were hit by a huge deluge. Luckily they were able to take refuge at the local train station and I was able to rescue the 2 drowned rats.

We have been removing filing cabinets from our office, 2 really big cabinets came out during the week and it has made the office so much more spacious.  I'm going to be clearing out more files to storage over the next few weeks and making the office a bit more easy on the eye.  Plants are going to be purchased, hopefully we won't kill them, but I think I have worked out at home the type of plants that don't die too quickly. 

So on to the sewing week.  It was 7 out of 7 and I have nearly finished the centre of the appliqué whole-cloth.  Just 2 flowers to go.  

I received today  he next project from Crewel Goblin.  I am one project behind  but I will be back to cross stitch this week once the 2 flowers above are finished.  I still have that gift that has to be completed also that is first priority.   I also got some delivery of saw dust to use as filler in Project 2.  The parcels are beautifully packaged they are like a gift every month.  I also got some other pieces of linen for a couple of other projects that I want to start sometime soon.  I think I really need to sprout another set of hands to get everything done.  

So how did your week go.  Head to Kate's to see how everyone is going.  

15 Minute Challenge - Winter Has Set In

Last week though sunny it was very very cold for this time of year and we recorded our lowest June temperatures for a lot of years.  The weekend saw lots and lots of rain and the house still looks like a laundry mat but it was perfect weather to sit and stitch.  

It was a 6 out of 7 week, the one day where a work a full day I find it hard to want to sit and stitch after I've have been flat out trying to keep up with things at work even if I am doing it from home.   Only spending 2 days in the office means I can't quite get things done in there that I want to.  So I may need to do an extra day or 2 over the coming weeks to sort some of the old paper files out.  

This week I have worked more on the cross stitch piece that was started the week before last.  There is still a few hours of work but I am going to have a break for a few days to work on my liberty appliqué on linen.  I want to get the centre motive done this week.  There is still a lot of details to add so I may be pushing it a bit, but the liberty is lovely to work with the leaves are all basted, but all the flowers have multiple layers so they are going to take time to get finished. 

I will be putting in a smaller something on top and bottom of the centre design I just haven't decided what yet, maybe some birds or a scroll. There are a couple of marks on the linen thanks to Mo making some bees wax wraps with my iron that need to be covered up.    

So how did your week go.  Head to Kathy's to see how everyone has been travelling this week.  

15 Minute Challenge

Its a long weekend here this week. Nothing was planned and I had a bit of sleep in this morning and did some stitching throughout the day.  I've been basting shapes on my whole cloth linen applique quilt and sitting in the sun shine on the swing seat in the backyard as the house is too cold.

Mo went out with friends to a park and Maestro is working again, he has done more than 50 hours this week, everyone is getting the restaurant fix.

I've been working on another cross stitch (not from the Crewel Goblin projects) but from another Blackbird Design Book that I found.  Its for a gift so I'll just give you a little glimpse.

The week has been a 6 out of 7 one night I just didn't feel like stitching.  We have been watching The Terror on Amazon Prime which was a bit gruesome but had us hooked just to see what happened.  Not sure if we will watch the 2nd season.

I just managed to save my tin of fabric from being kicked off the edge off the seat someone wasn't too happy to share the seat with my sewing stuff.

So how did your stitching go this week.  Head to Kate's to see.

15 Minute Challenge - Do I Want it to Go Back to Normal

We haven't been in heavy lockdown like other states and there is only 1 active case in the state and that was an overseas traveller who was let in on compassionate grounds last week, but I'm not comfortable heading out into the big wide world.  People are complacent, if I need to be somewhere I go in and get out as quick as I can.  I am still shopping early so that I'm not in large crowds, I ventured to the shops on Sunday afternoon for a quick purchase for Maestro and there were just too many people I managed my purchase without getting near anyone and then headed straight home.

Maestro is back at work, he was spent after 3 double shifts he didn't even have a 12 hour break between one of them and slept most of Saturday and even went to bed early which is highly unusual for him.  Shows what 2 and a bit months on nothing much does to the system.  This week he has single shifts but that means heading across town and back 5 times this week.  Everyone is eager to go and eat in a restaurant apparently.... not this little black duck.

I have done lots of stitching this week.  My first Blackbird Design project is finished, I also finished marking the last of the appliqué on my piece of linen and started more stitching.  So it is a 7 out of 7 for me.









Head Office want everyone back to Pre Covid work arrangements by 1 July which may mean I need to do 3 days at work and only 1 at home but we will play it by ear and see what happens 2 and 2 is working out for us at the moment.

Mo made a cake for her boyfriend for his birthday and took it to his family dinner.  I think it was a hit.  And so was the keyboard bag, but apparently he got another keyboard for his birthday.  I said to her I wasn't up for another bag for a bit but she said that this one isn't a portable kind so no bag required. I'm sure there will be more instruments though so I am sure we will be designing something else down the track.  That kid had better get a job to feed his musical habit.



















Hows your stitching going this week.  Cant wait to sit in front of the box and do some tonight myself.