Monday, June 20, 2016

2016 June Wipocalypse

The full moon and Summer Solstice!!!! What an interesting time. The heat has come out which means I am not a happy camper. I prefer the cool/cold weather which leads to our question of the month.

Do you find yourself more productive with stitching in summer or winter?

Well I like to stitch year round and I can usually get the same amount of time to stitch. since I do not like the heat, I tend to stay indoors to keep cool. That means stitching time.


What have I been doing stitchy wise??? Well lets see.
My HAED Christmas Cottage has another page finish. This makes 20 pages done.
Disney's Beauty and the Beast is getting closer and closer to a finish. Along with Whooligan's Hangout from Glendon Place.
 Saturday I finally pulled out my canvas work JOY and got a bit of work on it. I was at my LNS with my stitching group. 
I also have a new start. One of the groups I am with on Facebook has an SAL Challenge. The theme was Treasure Stitch, you were to pick a design that  had something in it that you would find in/with a Treasure Chest....... ie; jewels, gold coin, crowns, keys, pirates, ships, islands and so on. My design has jewels in it so I am stitching her. Minerva by Nora Corbett. I have made a few changes already the black in her dress and hat are now a dark hunter green. All of the beads, so far, are changed to metallic Glissen Gloss and Rainbow 2 greens and the rust on the tree limb. The tree is 4130 DMC and the moon is Caron Collection Lemon/Lime. And on the owls eye I made them half stitches and use DMC Neon E980. The pictures will not show it well but the fabric I am using is mint green.
 I have 2 new finishes I have my owl who sets by the front door. It was a fun little stitch and the finishing was something new for me and that was to use an old wooden hoop that I got from my MIL. The second finish is for a friend. She is going through some really intense cancer therapy and I wanted to send he a gift to lift her spirits and show some support .  I finished it off as a card with some fun fabric and ribbon.
I have recently bought some new patterns both cross stitch and quilting. 
I have gotten a bit long winded with this post I hope you are still with me because I will leave you with a picture from a couple days ago. I live in the country and we have deer in the fields around use. Well they like to come in and eat the rose bushes. I got a really good picture of the doe. We also have a young buck, but he is harder capture. 
I hope you have a nice summer with lots of stitching and many fun days. See you next month.
 
 




Friday, June 3, 2016

Trip pictures and Story

 I want to show you some pictures of my trip to Australia but it is going so slow. For some reason my computer does not want to upload my pictures on to my blog. 
We arrived in Sydney to a warm and sunny day. Picked up by our friend and headed north to Scone. Yes they really do drive from the wrong side of the, on the wrong side of the road. Well it is not wrong fro them.  :-)

While we were in Scone I saw these birds just about everyday. There were about 6 to 8 0f them. Not sure what they  were but they were beautiful and had a sweet song.
 We spent 2 weeks in Scone working. We did not do alot as it is pretty rural area and when we were not working we just rested.

We then went up to Sydney and spent a few days exploring the city. Our motel room was directly across from the Opera House.We also were very close to Sydney bridge.



The park and St Mary's Cathedral

While we were in Australia they celebrated ANZAC Day.....their Veteran's Day. Because of this we visited the Memorial that is in Sydney.
 We then moved on to Melbourne to visit with friends. That is when we got to see some native animals at the Healesville Animal Sanctuary. We saw kangaroos... I was even able to pet one of the females. They are so soft. They feel like a bunny or a very soft cat. There were also koalas, tazmanian devils and a bunch of birds. I was so disappointed that we missed getting a picture of the Lyra bird. He sang beatifully but we had missed his feeding by just minutes.   


More animals on the way home. The whole hill was full of these woolies.
Then on to the Melbourne museum, what a great place. Spent two days looking around. The highlights for me. Phar Lap, sewing machines, a carved and gold wall plaque and the country symbol life size.



Now you are going to think I am crazy but all over the city they had these amazing metal ornate trellises.  I wish I could have got more. But it was hard to get them as we were driving by.


Finally the time to come home and you can read that adventure in my other post. 
Well I finally got all the pictures to attach. not sure what the issues were but here you go. Hope you enjoy the pictures.