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Thursday 31 July 2014

Mount Gravatt Show

This past weekend I put Lana's and my cross stitch into the Mount Gravatt Show to see how we would do. I barely got them in in time as I was away when I was meant to get the forms in and nothing wanted to work /I forgot the dates again! But unlike last year I wasn't going to let it get away from me.

SO on Thursday I take the cross stitch in, just hoping they will at least accept her cross stitch because I promised her I'd get it into the show. When I handed it over the comment they made to me was are you sure a nine year old did this. You didn't help her at all?? With skeptical looks on their faces.

Yes I'm sure she did it. Actually the only things I ever did on it was starting and finishing threads because anything else would have been cheating and by the end all I was doing was threading the needle. I will say it was the cause of a couple of melt downs when she just wanted it to be finished and I refused to help her but she did it and will always be able to claim that she did. That makes her prize even more exciting.

 See that card in front of her cross stitch! that's a first prize! I'm so proud of her and the work she put into it. She's proud of herself and extremely pleased at the prize money she got. A whole $5!
Sorry the photo isn't better but it was hard getting a photo with the way it was tucked in the corner.
 I also came away with a first and a third. The third was a piece I did a couple of years ago and it's now gone in three different shows.
 My first prize was the first Joan Elliott ornament that I finished in time for last christmas. It's the only Joan Elliott piece I've managed to finish though I hope to have a number of them over the coming years.

Well Happy Stitching,
Caitlin

Tuesday 29 July 2014

Planet Finish

I finally have some sort of finish to show you guys. It has been a while since I've had one because I've been working on too many big projects. I love the big stuff but finishes are extremely hard to get with them.

So here is my finish. I still have to finish it properly into a mobile but I wanted to show everyone the finish now.





The pattern is by cloudsfactory and it's such a cute little one to do. I thoroughly enjoyed working with it and each planet has so much detail for such a little piece. I also know that pluto is not technically a planet anymore but I'm old school I was taught there were nine planets and pluto was one of them.

Here are the close ups of each of the planets.










I had fun with this piece.

Happy Stitching,
Caitlin




Sunday 27 July 2014

New Zealand Finds

Now I haven't mentioned my adventures in Wellington yet. My Partner in crime (fellow trumpeter Colette) and I have been crafting together the whole trip. She was doing embroidery while I was knitting. We had been looking out for a chance to visit some crafts stores but nothing ever seemed to pan out. In Auckland we ran out of time to get to the other side of the city and back. Rotorua we had no time at all and Ohakune had no craft stores to find. So come Wellington we really really wanted to find something.

In a souvenir shop in Wellington I managed to find a stand with New Zealand cross stitch bookmarks. The only one I liked and that had anything to do with the trip we'd been on (I didn't visit Queenstown at all!) was a tiki bookmark. As soon as I got back to the hotel I had to start working on it immediately. So although I haven't been stitching much I do have some progress to show. 


  This was on the Sunday afternoon and we didn't get time to explore anymore until Tuesday where we had the whole day to ourselves so we went exploring. We searched out one shop we had been told of that was apparently great but we weren't impressed because it was all dress making fabrics. Great fabrics and awesome looking store but not what I'm after.

But while we were there they gave us a map which was a craft map of Wellington and through that we found a store called Made on Marion. It was like walking into heaven. They had a bit of everything from quilting fabrics to cross stitch threads and patterns. So both of us were happy. To make it even better they had 50% off cross stitch patterns. So I may have bought a couple of kits and a big blackwork pattern.

 I love this pattern of Captain Cook's endeavour and it's important for us to because Cook in the Endeavour was the one to find Australia's East coast.


I love these three little kits that I got especially the sheep they come with tassles and purple felt for the back. The orange and red kiwis are an Assisi pattern I think the colours look stunning. The other kiwi will be Lana's to do when she wants to.

I love the patterns I managed to find and they will always remind me of my trip to New Zealand.

Hopefully it won't be long before I finish my first bookmark.
Happy Stitching,
Caitlin

Thursday 24 July 2014

New Zealand Take 2 - Snow Day

I promised these photos halfway through my New Zealand trip when I posted the last photos but getting internet was a bit iffy. Then I got home and didn't have interwebs at home and now I'm just making excuses. I'm getting very good at excuses but no more!

 We stopped on the way to the snowfields for a walk and a toilet stop as you do when you have 40 people on a bus. But this was where we stopped it was gorgeous.




 We're freezing cold as the breeze coming off the water is icy.


 Heading towards the snowfields doesn't that snow look cold!



 At the top of the mountain this is just before an enormous snowfight. The beauty of having younger kids along they know how to have fun.




I just went tobogganing but I had an absolute ball. I had such fun in the snow and I will have to find the photo of my tiny snowman. It wasn't very big but it looked so cute. We were getting too cold to stay and make it bigger so we went to get some warm food for our tummies.

Happy Stitching,
Caitlin

Wednesday 23 July 2014

Life is getting back on track

It's a funny thing to say but I feel like everything is starting to fall back into normal again not sitting out there in crazy land.

  1. We have a new place and we are all moved out of the old place so I'm no longer spending my time going to inspections and putting in applications and constantly cleaning to get everything right. I got so sick of seeing forms and then would dread looking at my messages and emails just expecting that rejection again. Though the worst were the ones that weren't rejections they just never bothered to respond even with a generic sorry you weren't successful to my email. 

  2. Having now moved the house itself is generally unpacked so we aren't living in a mess but I still need to work on the kids bedrooms and my wardrobe..... 

  3. My trip to New Zealand is over. I had an awesome time but by gosh it came at the worst time stress wise. We moved house the day before I left for New Zealand so we were just a little bit rushed. 

  4. The wedding is over! Not mine I'm not planning to get married anytime soon but my partners sister got married 2 days drive away from home so two days there and two days back with two kids in the car is not my idea of fun. Nor is all the drama that seems to go along with weddings why do they seem to bring out the worst in people?

So now that this is all over the stress is settled and I can begin to stress a little bit less and be less of a pain in the butt to my family. Because I'm stressing less and life will start to settle and I will be home more to be able to post regularly I am going to get into a regular routine with posting. I want to and intend to start a number of regular posts and I have lots of ideas and projects that I want to show you that just get shoved to the side because it's easier. Stress isn't my friend but I am going to make an effort now to not let it get to me too badly. It should be easier to handle since life is more settled.

Well Happy stitching everyone and keep looking for the regularly scheduled program to start again as soon as I can.

p.s. I will be starting my dress-a-long again and actually doing it as soon as I have settled everything.

Sunday 6 July 2014

New Zealand :D

Well we have been travelling around New Zealand for 7 days now and we have three more to go.
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We started in Auckland and spent a couple of days playing around in that area. It was great to experience though we didn't do much of the tourist thing. Then we travelled south towards rotorua. This was amazing because on the way we passed through Hobbiton. Yes if you're a LOTR fan I went to HOBBITON!!!! I loved it it was an awesome experience and I was very hyper for the rest of the day.



 I got many photos in front of various hobbit holes :D I had fun enjoying the site despite the weather. It didn't know whether it wanted to rain or not.
 Though when we got to Bag End it started to really rain!
I stood at the gate of BAG END!!!!!!

To finish the tour off we had a drink in the green dragon.

Then we moved onto Rotorua where we got to visit the Geysers.




But boy does that town stink of sulphur.

I have more photos from the snow as well but I think this is enough for the moment. Hope you enjoy them.
Caitlin
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