Well...

Here I am. New blog post! And I actually have interesting things to say today.

It's been Christmas - yay! And everyone liked what I got them. Here's the list:

• Mum - olive oil sprayer and crossword book (she'd been wanting both)
• Dad - book on Shackleton's boat journeys
• Bindi - Candle that has three scents, glitter and is YUMMY
• Troy - frog and present that he doesn't have yet...
• Troy's Dad - carving magazines
• Troys Mum - Hogfather DVD
• Bronwyn (T's sister) - salad servers
• Doug (B's partner) - Bundaberg Rum hat
• Caitlin (niece) - noisy toys - a camera and telephone
• Jessica (niece #2) - beanie bears, a cat and a interesting textured bear
• Matthew (T's brother) - Optimus Prime Mr Potato Head (which he loved, YAY - buying a gift like this for a 27 year old is a gamble)

My family swapped gifts last Friday night as they left for my grandmother's on Sunday, and I got what I'd hoped for - the AG doll, Julie (1970s, and adorable), her pyjamas and her Christmas outfit. She seems to get along with the other dolls alright.

We went to Church on Christmas Eve with Jeremy, and I swear that festal Liturgies were designed to confuse catechumens...anyway, it was good even if we did get very, very lost. We got home about 3am, and slept in the next morning, then went up to Troy's parents' house for dinner and the big present swap. Presents are a big thing for them - and everyone goes mad, opening as many as possible as quick as possible. Good fun, lots of chaos and excited noises. I got a cookie recipe book and a bunch of necklaces, and a box and things to decorate it with...and some very cool furniture. See?


A wardrobe/cupboard for my doll stuff... that he made (of course)


And the girls on top - from L->R is Felicity, Amanda-Katherine, and Julie


And this is what it looks like open, with their stuff hanging up.

I am so grateful, this one is SO COOL.

Also, I got this:

Well, the table. This is what passes for an icon corner here... I will get more (and bigger) icons sometime soon but this does for now. The tabletop used to be a massive chunk of tree, but Greg sliced it then cut it in half. Now it's a table! And look what's woodburned into the centre (I have cloth over it until I get glass, so I don't drip wax on it or burn it with candles)



Now I wonder where he got a reference for that...hmmm.... *looks at Troy*

(for the non-Orthodox/non-Greek speakers, this is St Kyriaki, my patron Saint)

So I am very pleased.

As far as stitching goes, I have photos! Here is the current progress on Mystery X (my focus at the moment) I am working on part 5:

First, the whole thing


and the west house (part 5 is done)


and the south one...


and finally the east one:


It's coming together nicely, I think. If I keep working, part 5 will be done soon. I got the email that my fabric for Peaceful Paradise has shipped, too - YAY! I'm going to make myself finish part 5, and then I might work on PP for a while if I get the fabric by the time I'm finished.

2007 meme

Sorry...yes its a meme, and yes it's long. Skip it if you don't care :)

1. What did you do in 2007 that you'd never done before?
Went to an Orthodox service, became a catechumen, went to a public school, got chronic fatigue, rode in an ambulance, caught an interstate train, went on a trip with Troy on our own.

2. Did you keep your new years' resolutions, and will you make more for next year?
I don't think I actually made any. Maybe I'll make some, if I remember!

3. Did anyone close to you give birth?
Helen from Church, my future SIL

4. Did anyone close to you die?
Um. No, I dont think so?

5. What countries did you visit?
Just Australia

6. What would you like to have in 2008 that you lacked in 2007?
My health, a life!

7. What date(s) from 2007 will remain etched upon your memory, and why?
July 7. My name day, and the day I first finally gave up and went to Church.

8. What was your biggest achievement of the year?
Church stuff, I think.

9. What was your biggest failure?
Um... staying healthy.

10. Did you suffer any illness or injury?
AHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHA. Um. Yes, I got Chronic Fatigue. Why are you looking at me funny?

11. What was the best thing you bought?
I'm not sure. Probably something stitchy :)

12. Whose behaviour merited celebration?
Troy's for actually finishing the year, Jeremy's for putting up with me.

13. Whose behaviour made you appalled and depressed?
I really can't think of anyone. Is that weird?

14. Where did most of your money go?
Stitching. By far.

15. What did you get really, really, really excited about?
Church. Scarily so. And re-starting school.

16. What song will always remind you of 2007?
Um. This is where that my memory being a sieve thing is annoying, isnt it? Probably something Church-y again

17. Compared to this time last year, are you:
i. happier or sadder? happier I think
ii. thinner or fatter? the same, I got much thinner for a while
iii. richer or poorer? poorer, less money stashed in the bank

18. What do you wish you'd done more of?
Hanging out with friends, praying

19. What do you wish you'd done less of?
Wasting time on the net, moping

20. How will you be spending Christmas?
Church and with Troy's folks.

22. Did you fall in love in 2007?
Stayed in love

23. How many one-night stands?
None

24. What was your favourite TV program?
I really don't watch much. I like numb3rs, house, and aus idol though

25. Do you hate anyone now that you didn't hate this time last year?
No

26. What was the best book you read?
Too many!

27. What was your greatest musical discovery?
Byzantine chant

28. What did you want and get?
A faith that made me grow

29. What did you want and not get?
Yr 12!

30. What was your favourite film of this year?
Across the Universe, Stardust

31. What did you do on your birthday, and how old were you?
19. Had dinner with people.

32. What's one thing would have made your year immeasurably more satisfying?
Being able to do more.

33. How would you describe your personal fashion concept in 2007?
Pyjamas!

34. What kept you sane?
My faith, Troy

35. Which celebrity/public figure did you fancy the most?
Meh. Really not my thing!

36. What political issue stirred you the most?
The election, I think.

37. Who did you miss?
Fishgate people

38. Who was the best new person you met?
This ones not fair as I met way too many people with Church.

39. Tell us a valuable life lesson you learned in 2007:
It is a blessing to be able to say "glory to God for all things" and stop moping about life, getting on with things.

40. Quote a song lyric that sums up your year:
I can't do this. My memory is sieve-like, and all I can remember is liturgy...wonderful as that is, it's hard to sum up the year in it!

Still alive

I've been a bad blogger, I know. I just haven't had much happening in my life.

I sat the entrance exam thing that you can take to get into TAFE (trade college) if you didn't finish high school. I passed! So now just to see if I get a place. I hope so.

Other than that...really the interesting things have just been Church related. Services, Thursday nights (complete with laughter, teasing, and throwing of food), and my own personal catechumen-y journey. Which is good, but hard to blog about, especially for an audience which isn't coming here to primarily hear about the Church stuff...it's a different world. All that's in my other blog.

As far as stitching is concerned I have done about 200 stitches of the next row (11) of A Restful Night, but I've been working on Mystery X instead. Which is growing! I've been working on building up part 5 all the way around, and I now have the North one (was already done), and the west one has all but half the rhodes stitches done, and the east is growing. I'm alternating lengths of thread on rhodes stitches and lengths of thread on cross stitch, and it seems to be working. I haven't been working on the South house, I think I will when I get the cross stitching done on the East house, because the Q-snaps are currently positioned annoyingly for me to try and work on it. I'll fix that. And then on to part 6! (and getting the thing officially halfway done) I'll take a photo when I finish the rhodes stitches on the West house.

I've also been doing a lot of dressmaking prep work. I now have a dress cut out for my sister (a copy of the medieval gown I made my godsister a few months back) with the exception on the sash, which needs cutting and a blouse cut out for me in an adorable cherry on sky blue print. Hopefully it will turn out well. My to-do list in terms of dressmaking is as follows:

• put zip in and hem green dress for sister (been done otherwise for MONTHS)
• hem my green dress
• sew sister's medieval dress
• sew my shirt
• find out from nikki what she wants done with the girls' dresses

And while I have my sewing machine out, I can take over the floor for a while and try to get some more of the quilt-of-doom sewn together - the blocks have been done for THREE YEARS now. ARGH. It's half sewn together, all done in shades of grey with the odd jewel tone. Beautiful. I'm thinking maybe I'd give it to Troy for his bed, or maybe to Jeremy - it'd make the most awesome nameday/birthday gift EVER. I don't need a quilt, and there's no real reason to stash it for marriage. Either way, it needs to be finished. It's about half sewn up, by memory. I need to fix that. I'd also like another crack at the redandwhite quilt, which I have an incredible amount of fabric for. Enough for a queen size bed quilt. Yes, I am mad. Thankyou for noticing! The plan is to make it snowball and ninepatch. I miss quilting, I'm going to do a lot of patchwork while Hannah and I housesit (parents are going to stay with my grandmother, I'll join them after Theophany (Jan 6)) because she won't mind if i take over half the living room floor for a little while.

Mostly though, I'm tired. I am not quite sure if this is a relapse, but it's definitely not fun. It's 10:46pm and I'm lying in bed - not abnormal, except I've been doing it since 7 and wanted to since 4.

It's the feast day of the Forefathers of the Church today, so now more than ever it's appropriate to say:
Through the prayers of our most holy Fathers, may the Lord have mercy upon us and save us, Amen.

The One Book meme

This got started by Ben Myers, the entry is here and I just felt like doing it.

So here we go...

1. One book that changed your life:
The Orthodox Church, Timothy Ware (now Met. Kallistos)

2. One book that you’ve read more than once:
Willow Tree and Olive, Irini Saviddes

3. One book you’d want on a desert island:
The philokalia? *grins*

4. One book that made you laugh:
The Magician's Daughter, Justyn Walker

5. One book that made you cry:
Willow Tree and Olive (as above), lots of others

6. One book that you wish had been written:
Why Kyrie should have just given up and joined Orthodoxy when she first thought about it!

7. One book that you wish had never been written:
Oh too many. Lemme think...Eldredge, the Purpose Driven nonsense, an awful lot of Western protestant theology...

8. One book you’re currently reading:
The Orthodox Way, Bishop Kallistos (Ware) (for theology), The Brothers Karamazov, Dostoevsky (for fiction)

9. One book you’ve been meaning to read:
The Count of Monte Christo, Dumas

10. Now tag five people: Um... anyone that reads this!

A Restful Night, two pages done

I realise that I've been neglecting this blog. I guess it's been more that nothing really of interest has been happening, or that which is interesting is all Church related and most people come here for stitching and life trivia, not theology. And with the Church...theology is in everything. I'll put a link to my Orthodoxy blog in my sidebar, in case someone wants to read it. I don't just write theology, I write life-stuff there too, but most of life-stuff that isn't stitching ties in with the Church!

Here's my darling little fairykins though, and the beginning of a frog, at 15,000 stitches, and two pages done (of six, but two are partial):


She's lovely, and it's so much fun to stitch her. Amazingly, I'm almost done with her altogether! From now on it's mostly frog. Which will be nice, I love the froggy and it will be good to see her watching me, but it's kind of sad too. It's been fun working on her.

I have the dilemma of whether to switch off and work on something else, but I'm still wanting to work on her so I think I will, for the time being. Until I get sick of her and run off to work on Dance of the Graces or something :)

December goals

Hm, goals. I'm starting to hate these things, as life seems to interfere.

Last month:
Stitchy goals:

• Finish North house on Mystery X Nope. Discovered that I needed to put it on a scroll frame. THEN discovered I need to tension the frame on the sides...
  
• Make progress on West house Yes, I think.
  
• Make significant progress on another WIP QS A Restful Night. Yes!
  
• Join back in with Tash on JOB SAL Yes, but I won't count it as a completed goal. I did, but I keep forgetting! I'm horrible at remembering that it's Monday.
  

Life goals:

• Finish Nikki's nieces' dresses No, because she's uncertain about some things and I don't want to make the dresses only for the girls to grow out of them first.
  
• Make damask skirt No...not this one either.
  
• Finish green dresses More or less finished one, but it needs hemming.
  
• Attend church as often as possible Yes yes YES!
  
• Read and note The Orthodox Way Ahahahahahahahahaha. Um. *cough* I started. It's taking me much longer this time around.
  

This month:
Stitchy goals:

• Finish row 10 of A Restful Night, and achieve my HAED half year goal
• Finish row 11 of above
• Sort out tensioning stuff for Mystery X, make progress (and take photos every day I work on it)
• Remember to SAL with Tash

Life goals:

• Read and note TOW to the end of chapter 5
• Attend Church as often as possible
• Get my paws on an icon of St Kyriaki if at all possible
• Work on sorting out my room
• Make a pattern for a skirt like my white&gold one that the rats ate, and make one
• Enjoy Christmas
• Try not to spend too much on gifts, or get caught up in commercialisation
• Remember the *real* meaning of Christmas
  

I cans drive? I can!!

Yep, I've got my Ls again. For non-Aussies, that means I've passed the first test on the way to getting my full license. I get to drive, now, as long as there's a driver with their full license in the car, and I don't go above 80km/hr. Oh and I can't have been drinking, but that's really not an issue most of the time! Now when I've passed certain competence-y things and done 50hours of driving, they'll let me have the next stage, where I get to drive on my own and drive up to 100km/hr, but still can't drink, and stuff.

Yay, it's nice to be working towards a bit more independence. I can't afford a car of my own, but the parents will probably let me borrow theirs sometimes, and it'd be easier than having to steal lifts off of people to get everywhere.

Stitching progresses, slowly. It's been hot, and I've been tired. All the work recently has been on the fairy'n'frog, and the left mushroom actually looks like a mushroom now (has the cap done, so the stalk is begun) and she's got another sleeve and the beginning of a hand now. I'm just starting work on the bodice for the row, which will be nice - lots of block stitching, much less confetti! It's been confetti city recently. I've also been contemplating the Historic Countries sampler, which I think I need to get out again. I miss it. I just got so fed up with the Germany part, those motifs were starting to get to me. Some over-two work will be a nice change, and the specialty stitches in part 2 sound like fun!

I'm off to church on Sunday...with my family, and with my old pastor and his son Tait (a good friend of mine) which will be FUN. I'll probably get a bunch of the questions on why we kiss *everything* and stuff...but it'll be good. I need to cook something to take with me for Sunday night, too - we're having a 'fasting dinner'. Basically, us fellowship group (we can't call it a youth group, I'm one of the youngest there and the oldest is 50 or so) decided that we needed to get together for a meal again, but it's the Nativity fast so no pizza. So, us enterprising young folks decided we'd each bring something we *can* eat, and it'll be potluck style. Yum, Greek food. No complaints here, especially if someone brings dolmades. I love dolmades!

I feel bad for neglecting this blog, but I guess these things happen. Forgive me, folks :)

Row Nine

...is done! My fairy no longer looks quite so...nude, and I'm getting so close to starting the froggy. I can't wait!
Here she is:

13,500 stitches done so far. The next row of blocks goes over the page, so when I get it done I can say that I've got 2 pages done (and met my half-yearly goal, woohoo) which will be good, to say the least. Not working on it now though, Dance of the Graces is calling my name instead. So Im off to immerse myself in yummy browns.

Turning Nocturnal

Or at least that's what I want to do! It was 35*C today and too hot. We don't have air conditioning, and I don't have a car. Well, technically we do have air conditioning. It doesn't currently work. So I slept as late as I could, and then lay on my bed being a pancake a lá my rats until the hotness went away. Their attitude seemed to be something like that - I am going to be a furry puddle and sleep until it GOES AWAY. So I filled their water bowl, and added ice cubes. Which lead to much curiosity, and squeaking at the cold! Champagne hoarded ice cubes down the bottom of the cage, and kept nibbling at them and then being surprised by the coldness. Intelligence was never exactly her forte - she's blonde in colour and in the proverbial intelligence factor. We love her to bits, but she has the attention span of a goldfish! She was so upset when they all melted too...

That was the cuteness for today. Once it got cooler I migrated to the living room, to watch tv and then eat dinner (smoked salmon sandwiches because we couldn't be bothered cooking), and settle down to my stitching. I've been working on A Restful Night and she's looking lovely, the row is almost finished except for about 25 stiches on the final mushroom, and then going back to frog about 20 stitches (all the same colour so no real drama) at the beginning, then I'll have a photo for you all! Her sleeves were a pain (fifty zillion shades of pale, pale blue) but they look lovely, and I'm very proud of her. All the same, I'm starting to get tired of her so I'm going to put her away for a little while when I finish this row, to work on either Dance of the Graces or Mystery X. The Historic Countries sampler needs to come out for some love too at some point, but I'm not really in the mood at the moment.

It will be Dance of the Graces tomorrow, anyway, as I'm waiting to work on Mystery X until Mum brings home the tapestry frame someone's lent me and gave to her at school...which she's been forgetting for the past week or so. It's just too big for q-snaps now. Part of me (the crazy part) is actually wondering if Dance of the Graces would do well on a tapestry frame...we'll see. At the moment she's in a hoop, and staying there! I'd really like to do some major progress on the background, I think I've figured out a plan of attack. Now that I've done most of the detail bits within the background, it should go quick, and I can sort out the far corner section for this row and post a picture. It's lovely, such gorgeous browns.

I've started a wordpress blog for the spiritual/church side of things, too, if anyone's interested. Most people come here for the stitching, so I'm not at all offended if you're not interested, but I thought I'd let people know here just in case. The blog's at candleprayer.wordpress.com, and it's from a decided Eastern Orthodox perspective :) I'm having fun.

I think that's all that's interesting here in my world - nothing much happened today at all! I do have a lot in the way of doll photos though, as I got a nice big box from American Girl, so I might post a few photos later. Maybe :)

Survey fun

LIFE SURVEY
12 years ago
I was:	Five
The year was:	1993
MY FAVOURITE:
TV show	Playschool possibly?
singer/band	Peter Coombe!
movie	Something disney, if anything
subject	Reading
WHO WAS
your best friend	Stephen maybe?
your crush	Heh
your teacher	Mrs Green
your idol	Mrs Green!
Pick something nostalgic about the era	The star charts I had as bribes because I'd figured out I didn't need to work and people wanted me to
8 years ago
I was:	Eleven
The year was:	1999
MY FAVOURITE
singer/band	B*witched
TV show	Something on ABC I'm sure
movie	Not one that I remember
subject	English
WHO WAS
your best friend	I didn't have one
your crush	Nope
your teacher	Mrs Bleby and Mrs Richmond
your idol	None
Pick something nostalgic about the era	Pikachu
4 years ago
I was:	Fifteen
The year was:	2003
MY FAVOURITE
singer/band	P.O.D.
TV show	Aus idol I suppose
movie	Life as a house I think
subject	not at school
WHO WAS
your best friend	Troy
your crush	Troy
your teacher	Lots, but home group teacher was Mr Sullivan
your idol	N/A
Pick something nostalgic about the era	Black P.O.D. hoodie and wearing my cloak on casual day
TODAY
Age:	Nineteen
Occupation:	Sort of a self-employed dressmaker
FAVOURITE
singer/band	Chant of some description or another
TV show	Aus Idol I guess, I don't want much TV
movie	Recently, Across the Universe
subject	My stitching, Orthodoxy
WHO IS
your best friend	I dont know, I have a lot of good friends
your crush	TROY :)
your teacher	God, Fr Silouan, Jeremy ;)
your idol	...God?
Something about this year you'll never forget	Becoming a catechumen
CREATE YOUR OWN! - or - GET PAID TO TAKE SURVEYS!

PIF and exhausted

Well, I finally got my (massive) American Girl order in. I think we kind of scared the CS lady...oh well :) Stupid having to do it over the phone...oh well. So now I'm stalking the mailman for a few reasons!

Can't wait, it will be good to get an AG order again. Then I'll be counting the days to Christmas - I get to open *my* stuff but the Julie stuff is all hidden away until Christmas day. Oh well, I'd have a few cute outfits for each of my girls and the most adorable pair of shoes... that'd keep me happy.

Sally's hosting a Pay it Forward on her blog, and I signed up for it, so now it's my turn! Basically, it goes like this: First three people to comment and say they want to be in will receive a package from me sometime in the next year with a handmade (most probably stitched) gift and maybe something extra ;) So, come on - sign up!

I also saw Across the Universe tonight, and it was brilliant. Go see it.

Now, I am going to go pass out!

More photos

Well first I have my sister's cat + Felicity (the AG doll)'s bed:


And also, JOB after my SAL with Tash got resurrected :D

I'm almost done with part 2, just the bonsai tree to do. And when I've started work on part 3 proper (not just the frame, which is 3/4 done) I'll fill in the rhodes stitches in part 1 because they'll no longer be in the way of my hoop.

I'd forgotten that hoops can actually be useful things! But this really doesn't fit on my q-snaps in any kind of satisfying way, and using a hoop works very well. I have a feeling that if I dont have a big frame by the time I get past the borders of the ginormous q-snap that I currently have Mystery X on I'll be using a hoop for that, too, and beading the last parts by hand. That's why I haven't beaded anything for the North house - just in case!

Mystery X Photos

Yay photos! I got the camera back, so now I have pretty to show.

Here is the whole thing:


Here is the North house, the right way up:


And here is the West house, but its rotated 90 degrees (thanks, webshots):

Hit by a Truck

I still feel like I have been. It will pass, it will. In the meantime I need to rest!

I got quite a bit done on Mystery X yesterday, after staring at it and not wanting to work on it. I just started work on the Western house instead, and I'm going to do the three not-North houses in the parts they're supposed to be done in, with the exception of where it's logical to do the little bit more (ie the top little rows on the walls, etc) I'll take a photo soon.

I've also been rinsing and drying the silks for Convents Herbal Garden, and if I'm not careful I see a new start on the horizon. I've got no problem with starting it though, it's beautiful and I've had the kit patiently waiting since February.

Nikki came to visit yesterday, and so did Tessa, which was nice. Didn't see Jeremy, but he had good reason, and I'll see him Thursday night anyway.

And Friday is the feast day of St Nectarios', patron Saint of one of my churches! So massive festival to be had by all, and then a dinner that night for the *other* church. Hoo boy :) Sounds like fun to me, much food. I approve of food!

Anyway, I'm supposed to be working on JOB for the SAL with Tash today. I'm going to try in a hoop today and see how I go. I will find a way to get this done!

Goals for November

I'm starting to get worried with this whole goal-setting thing. I keep changing what I'm working on!

Anyway, here's time to face the music.

Last month:
Stitchy goals:

• Finish part 1 of Historic Countries Sampler nope, have barely worked on it
  
• Finish part 2 of above see above
  
• Finish pages 1&2 of A Restful Night (carryover from last month) have barely touched it
  
• Make progress on one other WIP This one I got! Lots of progress on Mystery X
  

Life goals:

• Attend DL at least twice on Sundays Every week
  
• Make the spidery gift Still no. I need to print out the logo, and we don't have a printer - argh.
  
• Get all my clothes AWAY and pack the heavy winter ones in boxes for the summer Progress has been made, but it's slow
  
• Finish godsister's dress on time Yes, very yes!
  
• Make a bag for church Nope, too busy
  
• Buy damask fabric for a new semi-circle skirt for church Yes!
  
• Finish green dresses Nope, too busy

This month:
Stitchy goals:

• Finish North house on Mystery X
• Make progress on West house
• Make significant progress on another WIP
• Join back in with Tash on JOB SAL
  

Life goals:

• Finish Nikki's nieces' dresses
• Make damask skirt
• Finish green dresses
• Attend church as often as possible
• Read and note The Orthodox Way
  

That should keep me out of mischief, I hope!

Gak

Well, I've spent three days this week in the hospital with kidney stones. That was annoying, but I'm not going to go into it because it was just irritating. Literally. They thought I had appendicitis, but I didn't. Yay!

Now I'm home, and that's a lot better. I'm very very tired, and I am going to enjoy my bed tonight. Troy told people that I was in hospital, so I got a few surprise visits yesterday!

First, Father turned up while I was eating lunch and we had a chat, and then later Maria came to visit bearing roses (which were beautiful) and a card and gift on behalf of my study group. The gift was a small framed icon of the Theotokos, given to watch over me, and it's beautiful. Elias (the one who found my blog by accident!) also came, with a card and a lovely blown glass angel.

Anyway, now I'm settled down with dinner and my stitching, and part 11 of Mystery X looks BEAUTIFUL, so I will be pleased when I get there!

Sleepy

Yep, I'm tired. I haven't had a break, really, in ages. Even when I tried to have one the other day I ended up working - I cleaned (my room now looks about half as bad as it did) and I stitched...now I just need to sleep.

Unfortunately, Dad's got company in the morning, and I need to be up. So at about 10 I'll be up and presentable and eek!

On the other hand, Mali's dress is almost done. It needs hemming, and the zip put in, but those can't be done until she's tried it on. What cane be done (I think!) is the fabric rose, ribbons and rosettes adding (easy) and the sash. Shouldn't take me too long. I'm going to put the caftans and Moesha's outfit together with a different coloured thread and nice big tacking stitches, just to make sure it all fits. It's so easy to rip out and resew then, and Nikki's said she'll take me down to try them on the girls sometime soon.

And my hand hurts. Urk. So I'm going to rest it - not much, if any, stitching tomorrow. We'll see what else I can do instead.

The Orthodox Way is next to me, I got it back off of Dad for the night. Yay :) Now I get to start the process of noting it, eep.

Slowly I'm getting there. I think. :)

Edited to add: I sewed the last major seam just then (well, finished, it was half done) and you don't want to know HOW many pins I put in to get the gathers right...

And I give you (with the exception of hemming, sash and fabric rose):

Mali's dress!

Ever get the feeling that you need to do some cleaning?

My room currently looks like this:

That is not a good thing. That's the view from the doorway.

It doesn't get any better as you move around, either.

Same position, turned 90 degrees. That's my bed and my dresser, and yes those are icons over next to the little chest of drawers (that I still need to paint).


And that's the view from my bed. Right. Let's attack this!

Rest Day

I'm tired. I've been working very hard the last few days, and last night it hit me - I need a day off. So, I'm taking one :) I'm typing this from my bed, and I'll probably get up, sort out some of the chaos that is my room's current state (I should take a photo, it's atrocious) and do some stitching, but I'll take it easy. I might swap pieces too as I'm starting to feel a little burned out on Mystery X - give myself a day on something else and then come back to it.

I did make progress yesterday - the side garden of the house is completely done, and I've done most of the dormer window too, and finished that half of the roof. I started part 9 (with the trees, yay) as well, so that gives me even more space to 'grow' out into. Mostly I'm not going to make it a goal to finish this side's part of part 9 before I move on, but it does mean that I can use the colours in it which is a nice break from the houses. The trees are a very different kind of stitching, it's nice. Just the roof to finish off though, and one side garden. I'm getting close to getting to move on to the next house - YAY. Here's a photo:


I got to play secretary too. My parents are buying a new car since our other one keeps breaking (it's about 11 years old so i guess this is fair) and Dad was doing the ring around yesterday to get prices, and gave them his mobile number to call back on. So I was answering the phone in the classic secretary manner while he was on the other phone, and they're all convinced that he's a businessman with a personal assistant now! I've played PA in a couple different ways
for him - typing, taking dictation, phone calls etc for him now, and I enjoy it. I like the way I'm living at the moment - I'm busy, with all my different projects, and helping Dad, and I still have time to do my own thing. I set my goals, and my limits. I'm not getting paid much, but it's a start and I'm enjoying it.

I should go back to school next year, but for some reason I'm unsettled about it. I'll talk to Father about it when I see him next, and see what he thinks.

It's funny though. We have these ideas of success - as I was saying to Dad last week, I feel satisfied and happy with where I am in life - successful, and I've got no career, no power, no money. But I have a trade, of a sort, that I enjoy, and am good at. I am reading, I am being useful, I am being a servant of others....and I'm going to get married and have a family, and I can continue this trade then. Even if I never finish high school, I will be a success, I think. My sister is freaking out about her yr 12 scores and while I understand that...yr 12 marks don't a successful person make. It's not going to ruin your career and life if you don't do perfectly on your high school leaving! Oh well. It's taken a lot of bitter pills for me to come to realise this, and I don't always accept it even then. Kyrie eleison.

I worked on Mali's dress yesterday, and it's looking good. I've found a couple mistakes but they were easy ones and have been fixed now. I might do some work on it today, if I feel like it. Otherwise it can wait until tomorrow.

So today...today, I hope to get something done on my room and to do some stitching. And to relax.

Recap

Well, best intentions, huh? I'm a screamer, I admit it. Hence, not long after I posted that entry on Monday night I put DOTG down and picked up Mystery X. But, it is finally starting to come together, and look good. I am pleased :)

Here's the whole thing:


And here's just the North house:


Just the flowers to finish off on that side garden, and I'm thinking I'll do the roof (and maybe the tree?) of part 9 while I'm at it too. So more sable thread - yum, I like it.

I have a photo of my stash for Nuts About Autumn too, see? All those pretty harvest colours, yum.


I worked on the dresses a bit yesterday too. Mali's dress is half done - the skirt is made, the underskirt and ruffle are made but not sewn together, the bodice is done and the sleeves are hemmed, but need the casing and elastic put on them. It'll happen :) Moesha's top is half done too, it looks huge...fingers crossed it fits, if all else fails I'll take it apart and cut it down. Not hard to do, it's probably the easiest thing I've sewn in a while.

So that goals list:

• Fill in the gaps on Dance of the Graces with the thread I was missing up until today Got distracted by Mystery X
• Reach the 1300 stitch mark on it too See above
• Sew together dalek Nope, still need a needle
  
• Sort out Peaceful Paradise fabric Yes. And the fibres too, hopefully :) It's in Jean's capable hands now
  
• Figure out how big my fabric for the Angels needs to be Not yet.
  
• Not start anything new!! Easy one
• Spend at least half an hour on my room. It is really really scaring me I did something towards it...
  
• Check that I don't have fabric for Nuts About Autumn in my stash I really need to do this
  
• Coerce parents into taking me fabric shopping See above
  
• set up sewing machine and start Mali's dress Yes :) And Moesha's outfit too!
  
• Read and note at least a few pages of TOW Bad Kyrie
  
• Eat lunch - this is serious, I've been really bad on this one recently I actually did. Rice crackeres.
  
• Find out total allowance from parents to spend on dolls (parents pay for sister's horse so they give me equal amount to spend on whatever, fair's fair - it usually goes on stitching or dolls) This will probably happen to day if I can drag my Dad away from his paper
  
• Decide on doll order See above, though I did figure out what to ask for for Christmas (and my Dad will be relieved as it's not a computer)
  
• Order dolls See above.
  

So all in all not too bad.
Today I'll be less ambitious:

• Make serious progress on Mystery X
• Get Mali's dress almost, if not completely, finished
• Finish Moesha's top
• Sort out dolls
• Read and note some TOW
• Sort out fabric for NAA
  

Dalek plushies

Well, it's not hot today. It's been about 20*C, so quite nice. Mild enough inside to wear my purple dress, but I needed a jumper (sweater to you Americans) outside, when I dared to venture out - it's been stormy and raining.

I got my Sew&So order - ABOUT TIME! Some idiot must have put the clearly marked "air mail" package in the sea mail, that's the only explanation I can give. This is the fibres and buttons for Waxing Moon's Nuts About Autumn, to those who have forgotten/never heard in the first place. Beautiful, I haven't seen hand dyed cottons in real life before and these are lovely. And the buttons! Oh...to use a Bindi-ism, SQUEE. They are tiny little acorns and absolutely adorable. Expensive when you think about how much I paid for them vs how big they are but they are so cute that I think they were worth it. Now to rummage through my fabric stash to see if I have a piece of 28ct that suits it, or else I'll have to go to Spotlight (horrible fate) and pick some up. It's just plain fabric, and my LNS has a terrible range of fabric, so Spotlight it is.

Which reminds me, I've been meaning to get a piece of fabric for my Angel Virtues for a while. I should order it.

I need to contact Jean at Needle Little Love about the fabric for Peaceful Paradise too.

I am forbidden to start anything new. I am, I am. But Nuts About Autumn is screaming at me and it's little...*sigh*

I have finished knitting my dalek, too. Everything but the base, which will be knit when it's stuffed. The appendages are adorable - the plunger is the cutest. I need to dig up a needle big enough for the wool tomorrow, and then I'll sew them on and stuff him. I will have a very happy Bindi then! It shouldn't take me too long to knit the base.

For all my good intentions with my list, I found it too unwieldy. So I might go for daily goals instead.

Tomorrow I aim to:

• Fill in the gaps on Dance of the Graces with the thread I was missing up until today
• Reach the 1300 stitch mark on it too
• Sew together dalek
• Sort out Peaceful Paradise fabric
• Figure out how big my fabric for the Angels needs to be
• Not start anything new!!
• Spend at least half an hour on my room. It is really really scaring me
• Check that I don't have fabric for Nuts About Autumn in my stash
• Coerce parents into taking me fabric shopping
• Set up sewing machine and start Mali's dress
• Read and note at least a few pages of TOW
• Eat lunch - this is serious, I've been really bad on this one recently
• Find out total allowance from parents to spend on dolls (parents pay for sister's horse so they give me equal amount to spend on whatever, fair's fair - it usually goes on stitching or dolls)
• Decide on doll order
• Order dolls

Hmm...that should keep me busy!

Still Stitching

Well, I need to make Jeremy's spidery gift at some point, but otherwise life is starting to get somewhat under control.

I've put Mystery X aside for a bit - yes I know I'm terrible, and I've been working on Dance of the Graces, and thoroughly enjoying it. It looks beautiful, and I'm most of the way across the first page (first row of blocks) already. I did my calculations and it turns out that 1% is 2,216 stitches!!! Yikes! I think I'll be marking each % this time. 1% is just about halfway across the top row. On the other hand, there's an awful lot of background so it should go quickly. I think I am going to get very sick of the a colour, there's LOTS of it.

I started Mali (Nikki's 3 yr old niece)'s dress last night - Nikki and I cut it all out, and it looks lovely. So cute! I'll cut Moesha's stuff and the caftans tomorrow, hopefully - it will depend on how well my foot is doing, I don't really want to grub around on the floor with a sore foot. It hurts!

I started the Count of Monte Cristo last night too and I'm enjoying it so far, I'm up to chapter 3.

We got to Liturgy this morning - at St Nectarios', was wonderful to get to church and I like that one a lot.

The rats are in a clean cage, and I should be ordering a nice fat American Girl order today. Life is good, even if it is really really hot!

I have had such a great day.

I know that the Immovable comes down;
I know that the Invisible appears to me;
I know that He who is far outside the whole creation
Takes me within Himself and hides me in His arms,
And then I find myself outside the whole world.
I, a frail, small mortal in the world,
Behold the Creator of the world, all of Him, within myself;
And I know that I shall not die, for I am within the Life,
I have the whole of Life springing up as a fountain within me.
He is in my heart, He is in heaven:
Both there and here He shows Himself to me with equal glory.
- St Symeon the New Theologian

I've had an eventful day. Somewhere in there I sprained my foot, ate sushi, got hot chocolate spilled all over me, walked into a beautiful Orthodox church (the church of the Nativity at Port Adelaide) which has icons EVERYWHERE and is generally incredible, helped Nikki buy fabric and patterns for dresses, ate spinach cannelloni, went to study, got told by Father to keep talking (goodness knows why), and got brought home.

Oh and I got a massage with tiger balm on my sprained foot from Nikki, and a package full of thread (the fibres for Dance of the Graces). And I got a small pair of circular needles for the dalek.

I've been being so good working on Mystery X...but Dance is calling...ack! I might have to get a few hundred stitches in tomorrow (if I stay home) but focus on MX at least until this house is done...

*sighs* I wish I wasn't such a screaming rotationer.

Oh and Elias found my blog by accident searching for Father's number. Hi Elias!

And Andrew gave me back my triquetra necklace...and I told him about how much the jeweler wanted to sell me a new chain for my cross for...and he laughed so much that it hurt and offered to fix it for free. I love Andrew, I think. He brought his violin but I didn't have my flute, but when we next have study this will be rectified. He also gave me The Count of Monte Cristo to read, and added me to his facebook.

I will go to sleep happy tonight.

Going up

My house is growing a roof. Slowly but surely :) I think that's the motto of this piece! I showed my friend Tessa my progress tonight and she's sure I'm mad, but as I told her I'm happily mad!

Here is my progress:


The side garden is mostly done now, which I'm pleased about, and the other side garden is starting to grow. The roof is going very quickly which is satisfying, to say the least, and the frieze is done now. The windows are almost done too - just a tiny bit left to do on that last window.

I've run out of space on the q-snaps right under the edge of the photo, so I've parked my thread for the chimney and I'll finish it when I have to move the q-snaps. These are so big that it's such a pain to move them and I won't do it until I have to. I'll just get the rest of the house done, move on to the next (will be the west house) and eventually I'll have to move them and the chimney will get done then.

Anyone know where I can get an even bigger set of Q-snaps? No, don't answer that...lol...

The last few days have been uneventful. Dad and I went into the uni yesterday and I worked in his office, we went down Rundle St for lunch which was greek and I got a kind of sausage I forget the name of, but it was pork with orange and garlic and really really good. I worked on Tranquility, making progress, and knit a lot of dalek until I realised that I really need a set of circular needles with smaller cord linking them because of all the decreases I've done. I'll get them tomorrow at spotlight. All of his body is done, and now I'm doing the bit with the instrument panel and where the plunger and gun attach. He is very cute. Lots of colourwork but I'm settling into it and enjoying it. I like having another kind of work to swap to, and I'm thinking I might knit a pair of socks next (I never have and I want to try) and keep them on the couch next to me for when I need a break. I"m less likely to waste time that way - I currently take breaks by surfing the net which is hardly productive.

Anyway, I'm tired. I better knock off for the night.

Houses

I've been hard at work today, working on MX with the SAL in the MX (surprise surprise) forum.
It's sticky and muggy and I'm wearing my purple dress because I couldn't be bothered wearing anything that fit closer. I knew I made these dresses for a reason!


Here is my 'north' house, upside down since it's the only way I can reach to work on it. Working on massive Q-snaps is definitely an experience, I'll say that much.

The photo's a bit washed out but it'll do. I'm really pleased - most of the main house is done, I'm finishing up the last window, and the frieze should get done early into my stitching time tomorrow.

For anyone interested, I have sections 1-4 complete, and the part I'm working on now is sections 5-8 together since they're all part of the houses, and I'm working a house at a time except for the occasional few stitches into the 'west' house when I have leftover thread - I'd always rather put the leftovers into the piece even if I can only put a few stitches in and then 'park' the thread, I lose less thread this way. The 'south' house also has quite a bit done on it, but I'm leaving it alone for the time being to focus on this house. Each of the houses is slightly different, too, and the side gardens for each are different.

I am trying to think about the logistics of working on the last few parts. I'm starting to get to the edges of my q-snaps and that's worrying - it means I'll probably have to move them a bit to get the last few parts done. Means no more beading or rhodes stitches so that I can put cloth over the already worked sections and move the frame around...sigh. I dont like doing that. The houses are chock full of rhodes stitches so I'm thinking I'll do any beading that lies within their general area, but I'll leave all the rest until I know it's safe to add. I'll leave the rhodes stitches off the roof too while I'm working on the houses, for the same reason.

There's just something about the way the light plays on the silks and the metallics and the crystals and the beads...this piece is incredible.

Speaking of Chatelaine-y things, I'm thinking I'll try a hoop on JOB again and see how that goes. I love the piece, it's just frustrating me no end at the moment!

Dalek progress continues - I've been doing a row or two every time I needed a break from stitching. I am now at the beginning of row 21, and there are two rows of bobbles in now. He looks good.

Mmm...zzzzz...*dozes off in a chair* I am so tired.


Kyrie eleison emas...and I am off to bed.

oh - joke that probably only Orthodox people will get but I liked it anyway: My name is Kyrie-Eleison, which means Lord have mercy in Greek and we say it a zillion times each church service. Someone the other day joked that with Kyrie-eleison as a name I needed to name my first child Doxa te Theo (glory to God)

...maybe you had to be there?

Hmm

Well...rotation. Not sure about that the next few days...there are some ladies having a SAL to get caught up on MX on the Chatelaine board and I might be joining in with them. Bleh, maybe I'm just a screamer after all...the minute I pick up a different project I get addicted to it!

I've been working on MX recently anyway, and got a bit done. I'm pleased, anyway. Slowly, slowly - there are more of the #*$(#& bricks done anyway - I HATE them but they look wonderful. Sodding things. Most of the frame of the house is done now for my North house, and I'm steadily adding garden and filling in rhodes stitch 'bricks'. People admire it anyway so I get to smile and say 'yes, it's mine' every time someone notices it. I think I need to keep it out on display even when I'm not working on it!

I'm still wanting to join the Christmas mystery, so I might wait and see what happens there - I want the materials list before I join I think.

I need to get the fabric for my skirt and Bindi's dress washed tomorrow night, and I plan (God-willing) to work on MX tomorrow, and put an order in for some doll stuff if I can. Other than that...Bindi and Mum are back to school tomorrow so things should be much quieter for a while.

I started the dalek, too...too many times, ugh. It took me three attempts to realise that doing a provisional cast on onto circular needles was a bad idea, and then after using straight needles and knitting the first three rows I realised that I'd cast on 144 not 114 stitches. AAARGH!! And I fail at getting provisional cast on stitches back on to the needles after ripping out knitting...so I started again.

Finally, I'm now partway through row 9, and I've completed the first row of (adorable) bobbles. It took me a while to figure out how to do them, but they look great and they're kind of fun. The dalek itself is a lot of fun to knit as well! I'll have to do more stuff like this sometime...and I really should learn how to knit socks at some point. I didn't realise how much I missed knitting - I did it obsessively before it was 'cool', and I've been somewhat resisting picking it up again because of the coolness factor. Oh well, it's fun!

EXTERMIKNIT THE DOCTOR!

What I did today - that can wait until tomorrow. I can't be bothered writing it all now, I'm tired.

On the To Do List front:
This is what I have achieved since last posting it:

• Order Orthodoxy books (got #2 and #3 from The List that Father gave me by Nicholas Cabasilas)
  
• Find a crochet hook and learn the provisional cast-on to start dalek

Aaaaaand here's the list:

• Continue going through magazines to find the recipes I've made and liked and copy them into my recipe notebooks, and copy out every lenten-friendly one that looks nice that I can find into that notebook for Mum's sake every Wednesday and Friday so that she doesn't have to keep feeding us vegetarian fried rice for lack of things to cook.
• Get parents to fix/buy a new printer
• Put the zip in and hem Bindi's green dress
• Regather and reattach skirt for my green dress, and hem it
• Clean my room
• Sort out school stuff with Hamilton
• Put each of my stitching projects into a large baggie so that I have everything at hand when I need it
• Make up a folder for Dance of the Graces
• Buy more stitchbow sleeves and binders to put them in
• Stitchbowify remaining DMC for master set
• Sort out fibres for Peaceful Paradise
• Pull the DMC needed for Stretch that aren't currently in with him from spares
• Go through TGOSMs that I haven't listed in my 'to stitch' list
• Decide on a to stitch list from the JCS Ornie issue
• Stitch an hour a day on whatever my rotation piece is at least
• Wash red dress and skirt fabric
• Clean off my dresser to make it a proper icon corner
• Get copies of the morning and evening prayers printed out
• Cut Bindi's dress
• Cut my skirt
• Knit dalek #1
• Get a small art notebook and start sketching Amanda clothes
• Finish row #9 of A Restful Night
• Read and note The Orthodox Way a second time for Father
• Get a notebook to write all my Greek that Nikki's teaching me in
  

urgently:

• Figure out what cut of linen to get from Jean for Peaceful Paradise
• Sort out the fibres for ^ (means emailing her)

To Do List update:

I have been busy.
So far, this is what I have achieved from my list:

• Finish this row of A Restful Night
• Get wool/cotton for daleks
• Get Mum to print me out a colour copy of the front page, and black and white copies of the rest of the chart (sort of - I did it instead and the front page isnt in colour but it'll do)
• Hassle Sew&So until I find out what happened to my order (again, sort of. I got a response and now the ball's in my court - I need to get to the post office and check that it's not there, otherwise I need to contact them again)

So, the list as stands (with additions)

• Continue going through magazines to find the recipes I've made and liked and copy them into my recipe notebooks, and copy out every lenten-friendly one that looks nice that I can find into that notebook for Mum's sake every Wednesday and Friday so that she doesn't have to keep feeding us vegetarian fried rice for lack of things to cook.
• Get parents to fix/buy a new printer
• Put the zip in and hem Bindi's green dress
• Regather and reattach skirt for my green dress, and hem it
• Clean my room
• Sort out school stuff with Hamilton
• Put each of my stitching projects into a large baggie so that I have everything at hand when I need it
• Make up a folder for Dance of the Graces
• Buy more stitchbow sleeves and binders to put them in
• Stitchbowify remaining DMC for master set
• Sort out fibres for Peaceful Paradise
• Pull the DMC needed for Stretch that aren't currently in with him from spares
• Go through TGOSMs that I haven't listed in my 'to stitch' list
• Decide on a to stitch list from the JCS Ornie issue
• Stitch an hour a day on whatever my rotation piece is at least
• Wash red dress and skirt fabric
• Order Orthodoxy books
• Clean off my dresser to make it a proper icon corner
• Get copies of the morning and evening prayers printed out
• Cut Bindi's dress
• Cut my skirt
• Find a crochet hook and learn the provisional cast-on to start dalek
• Knit dalek #1
• Get a small art notebook and start sketching Amanda clothes
• Finish row #9 of A Restful Night
  

How's that look?

More *bounce*

Hoo boy, I am hyper.

The reasons for this:

• I have a great pattern for 18" (ie American Girl) dolls which has basic patterns for a long sleeved shirt, a dress, a pinafore (jumper) dress, leggings, pants, a jacket, a sweatshirt and a beautiful coat. Oh and some boots. This will be used as a foundation for a wardrobe for Amanda, modifying each of the patterns to make 'real' clothes. $15 for all that's not bad!
• I have fabric for Bindi's dress - red, the same as godsister-creature's
• I have more of that fabric for a semi-circle skirt for me
• I have another 1x1.45m piece that got cut by mistake to turn into something
• I will be washing red fabric tomorrow to get the excess dye out
• I have gold yarn (sparkly!) and black for daleks, and a grey blue for the 'eyes', and a new pair of circular needles and some straight ones.
• I ate way more sushi than is good for me for lunch
• I found more of the scarves like my wine red one for sale (best head-wrap scarf ever) and bought a cream and a chocolate brown one
• Bindi got her Molly out and we had fun re-dressing her and I fixed (hooray for leave in conditioner spray) and braided her hair, and decided that she desperately needs a new sweater - hers got left in the sun and is all faded but we can get a replacement part
• We spent the evening at Nikki's before fellowship and it was fun
• Fellowship was wonderful, on Spiritual Guidance, and then we got talking after
• I have a blessed cross necklace and an icon of Christ now thanks to a beautiful lady named Thainii (that's what it sounds like, probably not how it's spelled)
• I get (God-willing) to go to Vespers Saturday night.
• I get to go to St Nectarios this weekend, God-willing
• Father has promised to lend me books after church

ummm...I think that's it.

I generally feel very high on sugar. I'm pleased, and very happy.

I am going to go crash now, I think!

Hmm

I feel...down, for the first time in a while. Finally everything hit me at once and I'm back to reality. Was nice to be high while it lasted.

Today has just been...ugh. I got up and was that kind of hyper-happy where you have too much energy but no motivation to do anything. So I stayed in bed and wandered around the internet, and then got up when my uncle got here to talk to him.

Mum went up to school (it's the school holidays here) to take some *cough*two large bags and more full*cough* books back to the school library, and I took Amanda and borrowed the printer. I now have copies of the charts for the motif that I messed up on Tranquility (yay!) and all of the chart for Dance of the Graces, albeit in black and white. I am pleased. I also got a neat joke called "The Lesson" which is borrowing from the Beautitudes which I am going to show Father tomorrow night, hopefully he'll like it. The librarian and the receptionist both liked Amanda, and I sat her on the library desk and sat down to read so the librarian gave her a book to read, opened it, and positioned her so she could read. Aww, bless :) Neither of them found it weird that a 19 year old girl would be playing with dolls, and they liked Amanda a lot.

I got the second Keladry book in Tamora Pierce's Tortall series' out as well, they didn't have the third (sniff, but I'll get it eventually and I own the fourth) and the four books in the first Emelan quartet. Yay books! Good easy to read ones too.

We came home and ate lunch which for me was peanut butter and honey sandwiches which were very good, and then went to pick up Bindi from the uni library where she's studying for her exams. We meant to go to spotlight and get fabric and yarn, but on the way there I got agonising cramps...and two neurofen plus and an hour later they hadn't eased. So Mum bought an iron instead (we really needed a new one, ours is EVIL and burns stuff/doesn't work at all) and we went home. We're trying again tomorrow.

I had a cup of raspberry leaf tea and it helped.

And Troy got mad, taking out on me the anger from a friend making him very very very angry last night. I didn't know this at the time...much chaos ensued. I know he's not mad at me but I'm still kind of emotionally blergh because of that. And then I went to this reenactment group tonight which was fun, but none of the people who would be friendly with me interest wise were there, just the fighting people (and Troy ran around hitting people with sticks - sorry, staffs, wooden swords and spears, and had a great time) but it was a long slow thing for me.

So now I'm just...flat. I've got about 150 stitches done today, all mushroom, and it looks wonderful, but I wish I could get out of this funk.

And I'm hungry and it's late.

Yuck.

Return of the Fairy

It's only been a month since my last photo of this...sigh.

Anyway, here is my beautiful little girl and her mushroomy friends.


80 rows, so 12,000 stitches. Aren't those mushrooms wonderfully radioactive looking?

Lists

I've got to the point where I have a lot of time, and energy to do things with that time, so I waste it. Not useful. So I thought I'd start doing what I did at work - making a list, and then rolling over the undone things to the next day along with anything new that comes up.

Today has been slow. I spent some time cleaning, and a lot of time sorting my spare DMC into little baggies - it's all done now, yay! Now just to get some more stitchbow sleeves and binders for my master set and I'll be set... I also found a binder with the plastic sleeve kind of cover, so I might have to get a printout of Dance of the Graces (the artwork) and slip it in the front to use that when I get my floss for it.

It's Dad's birthday today, so we're having dinner, and mum spent the day cleaning. It's a bit weird being able to see our floor! All the random chaos from my dressmaking is sorted now too, or for the most part anyway, and the spare pieces of fabric have been cut into useful pieces with all the rest thrown away, and then they were folded and stacked.

Felicity is now dressed for spring in the rose gown too, and perched on top of our piano. Her bed is currently in our living room against the wall near the piano, and people have been commenting on her (I'd just put her to bed and left her be) so I thought well, I'd make her bed and dress her up to put her on display. Amanda (modern doll) is on a stand on my sewing cabinet in her purple dress.

So, lists. Tomorrow I am hopefully going to Spotlight to buy fabric for sister-creature's medieval gown, and wool/cotton for daleks, and I plan to pick up a pattern for some 18" doll clothes to make both for Amanda and my old faithful teddbear from when I was a kid's dress is disintegrating so she can have a new one too. I have lots of spare fabric from the green dresses, and it's a lovely small design so it will suit Amanda beautifully.

So the current to do list is as follows:

• Continue going through magazines to find the recipes I've made and liked and copy them into my recipe notebooks, and copy out every lenten-friendly one that looks nice that I can find into that notebook for Mum's sake every Wednesday and Friday so that she doesn't have to keep feeding us vegetarian fried rice for lack of things to cook.
• Finish this row of A Restful Night
• Get wool/cotton for daleks
• Get parents to fix/buy a new printer
• Put the zip in and hem Bindi's green dress
• Regather and reattach skirt for my green dress, and hem it
• Clean my room
• Sort out school stuff with Hamilton
• Put each of my stitching projects into a large baggie so that I have everything at hand when I need it
• Make up a folder for Dance of the Graces
• Get Mum to print me out a colour copy of the front page, and black and white copies of the rest of the chart
• Buy more stitchbow sleeves and binders to put them in
• Stitchbowify remaining DMC for master set
• Sort out fibres for Peaceful Paradise
• Hassle Sew&So until I find out what happened to my order
• Pull the DMC needed for Stretch that aren't currently in with him from spares
• Go through TGOSMs that I haven't listed in my 'to stitch' list
• Decide on a to stitch list from the JCS Ornie issue
• Stitch an hour a day on whatever my rotation piece is at least

How's that? Nice list to work from...

Nudey fairy!

I'm almost finished 80 rows (8 rows by my usual count, I work in rows of blocks) of A Restful Night, and she's stunning. But she does look like shes posing for a nude photo, you can't tell that she's wearing any clothes. That will all get sorted out next row, but it's very amusing in the meantime! I have about 200 stitches left to go and I plan to have another stab at it before I go to bed but I doubt I'll get it finished tonight. In the morning.

I did stick to rotation - I worked on JOB all morning and I got the grass cross stitches done and a lot of the 'clouds' in the sky, and LOTS of the frame. Tedious, but progress. My problem is not with the design - it I love. I just hate the fabric, it doesn't want to fit in any of my frames. I tried a hoop before and it drove me nuts because of the rhodes stitches, but I've stopped adding them until I'm done and I've made significant progress since then, so maybe it's worth trying again. Or maybe I need to be more patient and get the fabric to sit right in the frame! It fits but I can never get the fabric 'straight' and it's so irritating...oh well. It's done for this week anyway unless I get the urge to work on it after half a day of my rotation piece, which is possible...not probably though. I can't wait for the next bits...on other pieces of fabric, better luck with them perhaps!

That's what I've decided, too. I'll work on my rotation piece for at least half a day, and then continue with it if I want to or switch to whatever's screaming, but I have to work on the rotation piece for at least that half day. That way I'll make progress but I won't be sitting fuming and not stitching because I want to stitch on whatever's screaming at me from the WIP basket.

I've somehow acquired lightning speed powers, too. I don't know how many stitches I've done today, but most of a page worth of this row! My goodness, I didn't realise just how slow I'd got while I was sick. I'm so enjoying my stitching again, and I've finished all of the fairy for this row too - and I'm not getting fed up with confetti stitched purple background this time...no, working on another fluro mushroom! This one looks slightly less glow in the dark. It's fun, and a nice change from all the blues, though I will be glad to be finished with the row. It's just so satisfying to finish a row, and it's been a while. If I keep this speed up and work on a row a week at least for the next while...I'll get her done soon. Only 14 rows to go, 3 and a half months if I only get one row a week done and I should get more than that. But we know how I am, very likely to get sidetracked.

I am very much enjoying her though.

Today has been very slow, very quiet. I got up late, and had an empty-ish house - my sister was home but holed up in her room and my parents were both out, and I just pottered around and stitched. I sorted my spare DMC and I now know which I have multiple spares of, and they're lying on the floor over near the tv. Our cats pretty much ignore thread and it's not in anyone's way so it should be there in the morning, and I'll put each of the colours I have multiples of in a baggie and then the others in baggies grouped by whatever 100 they're in. Sounds like a plan, and its better than them all shoved in a Michael's bag like they were! We watched Aus Idol tonight and they STILL haven't got rid of Carl which annoys me intensely though we did get to hear Jacob (who left) sing Let it Be again. Dad and I both like that song, which I find amusing given his comments about Mary worship and the Theotokos lately (long, frustrating story) so it was good to hear it again. He did it well, I think. And then we watched My Big Fat Greek Wedding which was also on TV and my sister gave me heaps about how I'm going to have one. Oh no I'm not. Greek Orthodox yes. BFGW - no. It will be interesting, actually - usually they have weddings between Greeks or one Greek one something else. Not two something elses! We'll probably compromise somewhere along there. And we'll get Father to say the Liturgy in english if at all possible. He'd like the chance to do that, I think.

Oh I almost forgot. I also got a package from Needle Little Love - yay STASH! I got a beautiful chart, Peaceful Paradise by Midsummer Night Designs (which I love to bits) and the JCS Ornie issue (yay) and some needles. I like stash packages.

Unfortunately *dramatic sigh* I need to do another order now...she's got a special on fabric and it's the only way I'll be able to afford the Lakeside Linen to do Peaceful Paradise on!

...I could always order the floss I need too...

...uhoh...

someone hide my credit card? :)

*smiles*

I really can't think of anything else to title this.

Jeremy asked me in the car this morning on the way to Liturgy how I was. I responded "good" but Troy, not having heard me, said "hey, Jeremy asked you a question"
"She answered, but I was hoping for a more detailed answer!"
My response to that was to retort that it's easy when you're sick, you say how you're sick. When I'm not...well, I'm good!

I had an enjoyable day. Nikki had told me she was going to pick me up from Liturgy, but she ended up coming for half of Orthros (the service before the Divine Liturgy (think mass) itself that flows into it) and the Liturgy which was nice. We were at St Elias', and she usually attends St Nectarios' so it was good to have her come visit! We went back to her place for lunch and I measured up her nieces for baptismal gowns, Troy had fun with them in the backyard, and we went down to Fishermen's Wharf to the indoor markets to have a look around. Most enjoyable.

I got another chunk done on A Restful Night, too. I seem to have my pre-illness speed back, which is wonderful, and I've finished the first page's worth of this row plus about 100 stitches more. And maybe I'll get a few stitches done before I go to bed, too.

She looks somewhat like she's modeling for a nudie shoot as you can't see any of her low neckline or sleeves and an awful lot of bare shoulders, arms and chest! Very pretty.

So, a weekend over. Tomorrow JOB is up in the rotation, and Mum is hoping to get the house cleaned up. Goodness knows my room needs attacking, it's a disaster.

Also, I've got commissioned again. The baptismal gowns for Nikki's nieces (which she's paying me for) and another of the medieval dress for sister-creature, who is the same size so I can essentially make a carbon copy, yay. Hopefully this one will be quicker as I won't have to puzzle out the idiotic instructions!

Here is godsister-creature modelling hers (with a pinned hemline, I haven't seen it hemmed as she was taking it home to do herself)

from the front (she refused to smile:


and the back:


the photos are a bit washed out, go here to see a photo of the dress on a hanger and see the colour.

Sister-creature also wants one of these:

from here. And I want to knit one. So, a deal has been made.

Sounds like fun!

Progress

I finished the dress, and I have photos but the camera is dead so you'll have to wait, sorry.

I got a few more stitches into Dance of the Graces, but not many - I'm missing so many colours that I'm going to wait until I get the floss fairy package, and then get stuck back into it.

So instead, I bought lots of stitchbows and stitchbow-ified a lot more of my floss for the Master set - I'm into the 3000s now, working on the 37-- which is good, it means most of my set is in there now. Now I just need to give all the binders their own shelf on my bookshelf! I've been working on A Restful Night today instead of Dance of the Graces, and she's looking beautiful so I'm very pleased. I passed the 35% mark too, yay! It's all confetti at the moment which is frustrating but it will pass and it looks fantastic.

I took Stretch with me up to Troy's parents' place last night, and got LOTS done, so it's looking great. I got a significant amount done on the wings, and when I add in the colours I was missing it will really start to look like it's coming together.

It's been a good stitchy weekend so far :)

News

Fun news #1: the medieval dress is 90% done. FINALLY after a massive argument with the facing and the bias ribbon I've used for trim everywhere else that didn't want to go on the neck...I took it up to my new favourite habadashery shop and talked to the lady there who's a professional seamstress. We finally decided that taking the facing off (which was PAINFUL - there was two lots of top stitching to hold the bias ribbon on, stitched through the facing, the front, the seams joining the front panels, the seam allowances...etc + the seam itself + the understitching for the facing and seam allowance) and simply binding the neck with bias ribbon after strengthening it with vilene tape was a better idea. So I got some ribbon that was twice as wide, and did so - it looks beautiful now, and it has one sleeve mostly in - I messed up part of it so I'm going to resew the unpicked bit in the morning, and then set sleeve number 2 in and hem it. Then it's done!

And it fits a human being - I stole my sister for a mannequin as she is the same size as my godsister, and it looks good :) I am pleased.

Exciting news #2: as far as we can tell, as of Monday (yes, sudden) I don't have chronic fatigue or fibromyalgia anymore. I can think, I can walk, I can RUN, and I am eating everything in sight. And waking up at a normal hour. And I think I could probably cope with a proper rotation again now...so I will have to think one up.

I was weak, I started Dance of the Graces. And noone is surprised, right? Our printer is on the blink so I just printed out the first six pages (the top row) at the library ($1.50, ouch) and I'm using my computer for the colour key. I'm missing most of the colours for the background though, as far as I can tell, so I'm adding bits and pieces but I won't start it *properly* in my usual obsessive way until I get the floss fairy parcel :) It does looks beautiful though, what I have in already.

So, a rotation:
here are my projects.

• Dance of the Graces
• QS A Restful Night (I want this as a focus, and it's part of a SAL on Wed)
• Historic Countries mystery (I want to keep up with this)
• Mystery X
  
• Tranquility Mystery Sampler
• Japanese Octagon Box (SAL on Mondays)
• White Musings (this needs finishing)
• Noon Basking
  

If there are more I'll add them later. I'm thinking I'll work on a daily rotation - I don't mind the idea now, I spend so much time stitching. So:

Sunday: free choice, if I get the chance to work on anything at all
Monday: JOB, at least for half a day, free choice for the other half
Tuesday: Historic Countries sampler
Wednesday: QS A Restful Night
Thursday: Historic Countries sampler
Friday: Mystery X (I miss it)
Saturday: rotate from the following list, each saturday-

• White Musings
• Noon Basking
  
• Dance of the Graces
• Tranquility Mystery Sampler
  

How does that look? I won't start tomorrow, as I'm going up to Troy's place to stay the night and spend time with his folks, and I won't get home until Saturday afternoon. But next week perhaps :) I need to get disciplined and actually work on my SAL pieces!

It's very windy today

But a beautiful sunny day, even though it's overcast.

I have exciting news, but I can share it yet.

I got a parcel today! It's the fabric I ordered from Passione Ricamo for Dance of the Graces. What's everyone's bet one whether I can hold out until my floss fairy's parcel gets here? I have all the floss already....*giggle*

If I *do* start it though, I need to get up to the library with a USB so that I can print the chart as our printer is currently on the blink/out of ink/both. I can't wait, its such a beautiful chart with very soothing colours.

I miss A Restful Night, too.

I'm still working away at this Historic Countries sampler. Hopefully I'll get part 1 done very soon, so I can get into part 2 (specialty stitches rather than big motifs, YAY!) but I miss all my other pieces. I wish I stitched faster. Maybe if I spent less time on the internet I'd get more done!

I've found myself wanting to work on all my other WIPs again recently - a LOT. So I will probably break my resolve and work on something else before I get these finished, but I don't think it will matter too much. I'm somewhat sick of all this massive motif stitching, but that's okay. It will get done. It will.

Loukoumades!

Mmmmmm food.

I went to an outdoor Liturgy and picnic with one of the churches today - my goodness, I can't move now. So full. And very tired as well.

We let at 7:45, ugh. Jeremy turned up - with Fr. Silouan! Was surprising, but not that surprising I suppose - it's a long way to go and carpooling makes sense. It was Father's car, and it stalled a few times on the way but it got us there :) We got there at 8:30...we forgot. 8:30 Greek time, meaning 9am normal time!

We stood (and then sat when Jeremy figured I would be stubborn and not sit down until everyone did) and talked to Frs Silouan and Kon, and then Jeremy joined the choir and I sat down in the congregation. It was...Liturgy. :) Divine Liturgy is always wonderful, and this one was all in Greek - I figured out how much I've learned in recent weeks, languagewise and in familiarity with the Liturgy itself. I could mostly figure out where I was, and a lot of the hymns are getting familiar now.

A little old lady mistook me for a kid and tried to push me up to take communion - finally after much protesting and wishing I spoke Greek to explain why I couldn't take communion to the lady who was chattering excitedly in Greek at me, she went away.

Ena, duo, tria, tesera, pente, exi, efta, okto, ennia, deka. I can count to ten in Greek now, when I can remember what the word for nine. I was counting loukoumades, the little old ladies selling them when Fr and I went up to get a couple plates worth smiled at me. It was fun.

I really, really need to learn Greek. Maybe I should do something serious about that?

I spent the afternoon playing backgammon with a new friend, Despina, and her family of 8 kids and two parents, who taught me how to play (and I promptly beat, then lost, then beat, then lost - and both wins were flukes) and messing around with everyone, and talking.

I think I had a smile or a grin on my face the whole time I was there.

On the way home we had a chat in the car, and now I'm just so, so tired.

I can say a few phrases now, and I'm starting to learn to understand the rambling Greek :)

*dies happy and full of loukoumades and souvlaki*

Goals for October

Well... lets just say I didn't achieve what I wanted to, stitchy-wise. I did quite well with my life ones though, especially the ones pertaining to Orthodoxy. I'm being a lot more conservative with them this month!

Last month:
Stitchy goals:

• Make progress on FFW during the Challenge SAL this month Didn't happen. At all.
  
• Participate with same in the background SAL - ugh, a whole weekend of stitching glitter! Good for me though. Didn't happen either, I'm not in the world's best mood with that piece. Maybe I'd be better off buying the print.
  
• Finish pages 1 and 2 of A Restful Night Sadly, no. Life got in the way.
  
• Finish part 2 of JOB, make progress on part 3, try to finish and start part 4! This didn't happen either
  
• Participate in JOB SAL each week to achieve the above. ...no.
  
• Make progress on White Musings Yes, actually. Not a whole lot, but a bit.
  
• Start *gulp* the new mystery sampler This one I achieved!
  
• Make progress on MX, aim to get the main part of the house done Nope
  
• Finish the motifs on page 6 of Tranquility Bloody frogs...
  
• Buy stitchbows and stitchbow-ify another binder's worth of my master set Nope
  
• Overhaul my 'what threads I have' list for the above Nope
  
• Start a list for the fibres that I have, unused (non DMC) or are left over from kits ...nope.
  

Life Goals:

• Attend DL twice, more if possible Every single week, yay!
  
• Stick to the fasts I've been sick. If I fast when sick, I get in serious trouble with my Spiritual Father. Hence, no.
  
• Read a book on Orthodoxy Yuppers, The Orthodox Way by Bishop (now Metropolitan) Kallistos Ware
  
• Meet with Father Yep
  
• Get rid of boxes, or sort them and put them under my bed Uh...no not really.
  
• Get desk out of room It's still there
  
• Argue some more with Centrelink No arguing whatsoever. I just haven't been bothered.
  
• Work towards getting my licence again Yes :) I got the book again, and now I just need to do some more reading and retake the test.
  

This month:
Stitchy goals:

• Finish part 1 of Historic Countries Sampler
• Finish part 2 of above
• Finish pages 1&2 of A Restful Night (carryover from last month)
• Make progress on one other WIP

Life goals:

• Attend DL at least twice on Sundays
• Make the spidery gift
• Get all my clothes AWAY and pack the heavy winter ones in boxes for the summer
• Finish godsister's dress on time
• Make a bag for church
• Buy damask fabric for a new semi-circle skirt for church
• Finish green dresses

That sounds achieveable, right?