It's been almost a week

So I figure I should probably blog something. I have photos now too - I lost the camera cable and had to find it but that happened this afternoon so all is well.

First, kitten picture, because everyone likes kittens!

This is Koukla asleep in her favourite spot in the window - in the sun, in a shoebox lid, with stitching stuff around her. This particular part of our living room is in a constant state of organised chaos with my stitching basket and whatever's spilled out of it, so you can see the threads in flossaway bags on a ring for a chatelaine, a bunch of dmc, the dilly bag with the threads for my tranquility sampler (which I should really get back out again), and whatever else... isn't she a cute fuzzball?

She also inexplicably likes the vegan soup I made last week, and trying to play with the prayer rope on my wrist, which led Troy to comment that I have an Orthodox cat! Well, she has a greek name at least...


Today is the feast day of St John Maximovich of San Francisco and Shanghai - yep, modern Saint! He reposed (died) in 1966, so he's a recent Saint, and there are so many miracles that happened during his life, and after. If you go here and scroll down to July 2 (not hard, since we're at the beginning of the month) you can read the story of his life, and some of the miracles :) Its not long, and I might post it in its own entry in a little while.

Someone elsewhere asked me how I dress normally if not in the dress I posted a week or so ago! In winter it's usually, a long skirt either my edwardian one or a semicircle dark blue one, both to my ankles, a shirt or blouse (or both), sometimes my cream turtleneck sweater and my red knit jacket, and my hair up. So, here's me:

I'm wearing my Cross too but its slipped down between the layers of shirts, and on my wrist are a collection of hair ties and a kompoiskini, a prayer rope.

And I have a picture of my stitching too :) Here's the St Nicholas icon - it's been more than a week since I uploaded a photo. Blech.

The initials plaque is being filled in, there's quite a bit more border (but never enough to represent just how much time I spend on it, sigh - this border will be the death of me), more backround and the beginning of the small icon of Christ - you can see part of His halo and his hair, beard and eyes starting to appear. I've divided my threads up into 'colours I am not using at the moment' 'colours for the border', 'colours for the background' and 'colours for the icon' at the moment, and trying to do a length of thread from each. Some colours are used in more than one place, and usually if I do a length of a colour that is used in the border I use it in the background or the icon too, to break up the monotony that is the border. It's beautiful, just makes my brain threaten to explode at times. Mostly I have a lot of the bright golden brown and the palest yellow to do, and they're the colours I'm focussing on when I work on the border. When the gold is in it will be a skeleton to add the other colours, and the pale yellow is the colour there's the most of but stitching with it is kinda boring and takes forever to fill in all the gaps.

I also finished the first sock of my pair, see?

They're small, I know. I have tiny feet! Here's proof that they fit:

Very cute, very fun. The toes are done...interestingly, but it works.

I went to see Get Smart last night which was fantastic - I remember the tv show, the only thing I was disappointed with was that we didn't get a single 'good thinking, 99'. Oh well. Very good movie, and the kind of comedy I actually like which is an achievement since I don't like most american comedies, I just don't find them funny. I went with my parents and we took my grandmother, who really liked it too.

Spotlight had a sale the other day too - 20% off everything, woohoo. So we went...Mum got some sheets, Nana got some sock wool and needles, I got some floss I needed for St Nicholas, and I wanted to make another summer dress - a little more tailored than the usual but still simple and long with sleeves. Do you know how HARD they are to buy??? There was some beautiful fabric that I've looked at several times for other things but not bought, and finally I bit the bullet and bought it. It's lovely stuff. See the little roses?


I got a pattern for it too -


I'm going to make the bottom left one, which is basically the middle one with short sleeves. Looks like exactly what I've been looking for to make :)

I also got this pattern because I couldn't resist:

I want to make the middle on in black velvet (like the picture) and wear it for a winter party dress. It's just gorgeous like that! I'll have a hunt to find a blouse too (they seem to be trendy at the moment) or else I'll find a pattern and make one up.

I *think* that's all I wanted to say! I'm sure if I think of more it'll go in another post :)