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Tuesday, 15 December 2020

kookaburras and a little knitting!

Went to lunch the other day and was greeted by this cutie. It's a kookaburra for those that aren't familiar with Aussie birds. They're the ones that laugh at you when they speak. Literally their call sounds like a laugh. 

Watch this video below to hear them. :D They make me smile!



This kinda shows the difference walking to and from the train has made to my fitness and abilities. A typical day used to be at most 4000 steps. I was lucky to hit that on an active day. Now it's easy for me to go over 8000 steps daily which I really love!

 
My tiny tiny bit of knitting. My yarn is all tangled and honestly I need to get in the bag and sort it but ... I'm being lazy! 

 
You can see the frustrating tangle here.... I'm not even using that dark purple right now! but it's gotten all tangled up as well :( 


 Happy Stitching, 

Caitlin

Monday, 7 December 2020

Fun yarn update

 It was a weekend of playing with yarn. I needed to make up a couple of gorgeous presents for my friend that I was seeing over the weekend so I quickly whipped up a couple of bookmarks for her to use. I am going to have to have some fun in between gnoming and make a pile more of these because they are cute and fun to make. Very quick to stitch up.

Both patterns were freebies I found through ravelry. I love their search engine!

 

The two ended flower pattern can be found here

While the Rose can be found here ... though this actually links to making the stem and then you follow it through to the rose pattern. Both flowers are really easy to crochet and took very little time but look absolutely gorgeous in the Bendigo Cotton. 


Now let's talk Gnutmeg the Gnome. If you don't want to spoil the mystery this is Day one and two of stitching so if you haven't got there yet don't keep scrolling. This is the last project I'm showing off so you're not missing anything but gnomes!


Day one we did the beard. I love how the nose was integrated into the pattern. It is so clever! I was really unsure about how it would turn out and ended up pleasantly surprised.


Then the second Day of knitting came out.... This one was dangerous!! I had to start knitting in the round and I realised after the needles were going every which way and the swearing was getting more pronounced that I really needed to rethink! So I did! I stopped what I was doing, pulled it back to two needles and worked from the two needles to start bringing it into the round. SOOOO much easier. I have a funny feeling this happened the last time I tried to start knitting in the round as well! 


As you can see here.. this was the end of day one's knitting. I took my knitting to watch the softball.



I am speculating here but I'm thinking this may be part of the hat. BUT I am not sure. We shall see as more clues get revealed!


Happy Stitching, 

Caitlin

Thursday, 3 December 2020

Peppermint Purple SAL update


 So it's been about 6 months since I last updated about this piece. That is not because I kept forgetting to post about it ... it was honestly because I caught up one week and then put it down for half a week waiting for the next pattern and then started stitching something else and that is where I went wrong. As with a lot of long term SALs it's very easy to just not pick it back up when the next part is published. I was really good for about 16 weeks or so. Then other projects took precidence and I forgot about it entirely. 

 Then in the last few weeks I started catching the train to work each day. I really really love this extra time I have. On top of the exercise I'm getting, that is just makes me happier, I am managing to stitch or knit each day. 


It truly is the small things that help. I've also started working on the gnomemkal which will be so much fun. I've never done a mystery knitalong and this is great fun. 


Here are the pretty colours I'm using. They are going to look so nice together 😊

Happy stitching,
Caitlin 







Tuesday, 1 December 2020

MY DESIGN IN A MAGAZINE!!!

Now if you follow me on Instagram or facebook you would have already heard this exciting news but for those that haven't here goes!!!

There is a new digital magazine out from Australia featuring Australian and New Zealand designers. It's called Down The Rabbit Hole and is now available to buy on their website. 


But why does this have me so excited? ?  Well one of the designs in the magazine is one of mine! They put a call out a few months ago and I answered and they accepted one of my designs!!!! Cue dancing around the room!!!! It's been a long fight to get more of my designs out there and recognised and this is absolutely great :D 

My design Summer Koala is one of the designs that you can get a hold of when you buy this magazine.

This little cutie is all ready to go swimming in the heat of summer. It's a quick little stitch and won't take you long to do.

Actually the whole magazine has so many cute designs and I am going to have to stitch a few of them. 

 Anyway I hope you enjoy this magazine and you find some cute little patterns. 

Happy Stitching, 

Caitlin

P.s. I wrote this two weeks ago but forgot that I hadn't posted it at all! Silly me so I will have a few posts coming out all at once as I am disorganised right now. I blame Christmas crazy already starting. I am looking forward to the christmas holidays! 



Monday, 9 November 2020

Signing up for a knitting KAL

 I'm probably crazy... actually I'm sure I am but each year I see everyone doing the gnomemkal on instagram and I want to join in but I keep going nah... I can't do that!

SO this year I went stuff it! I want to join! So join I did! I signed up through ravelry but all the links are available on her website. 

If you search the tag #gnomemkal on instagram there are a tonne of photos of previous gnomes. The variety and options are seemingly endless and all sooo beautiful! 

I may even have put an order in for some gorgeous cotton from Bendigo woollen mills to knit it in! I'm going to do the purple shades :D Of course! I'm so excited and looking forward to what it will look like.

Happy Stitching, 

Caitlin


Friday, 30 October 2020

Using Frixon Pens on Fabric - Please DON'T!

 


 

I am seeing this again and again on the facebook groups someone gets really excited about finding these new pens or they ask the question what can I use to grid and someone pipes up with oh I have these pens. 

You know the pens? They are the Pilot Frixion Erasable Pens. Absolutely fantastic for what they were designed for. I have a collection of them and I use them all the time on my sudoku. Because I can erase errors I make.  Now someone had the awesome idea that these pens would be fantastic to use to mark fabric for embroidery and cross stitch. I end up on these posts again and again trying to argue with people that think these pens are the next coming and don't understand the impact they can have on your project. I'm hoping this post will get all my arguments in one place and it will help others make a good choice. 


I do want to make a disclaimer ... I always believe that people are allowed to make their own choices and can choose how and why they choose to use certain techniques. If after reading this you still choose to use the pens I can't stop you. But I really hope you read this and think about using them. They aren't worth the risk when there are other options out there. Also to make the point if you use them for their intended purpose as erasable pens for paper you shouldn't worry either.

So why shouldn't you use Pilot Frixion pens for your cross stitching. More importantly why do I feel so strongly about it that I need to write this. 

1. They aren't acid safe. 

What do I mean by this, inks and glues that you use are usually put into two categories. Ones that are free of the sorts of chemicals that will speed up the deterioration of items over time. You will particularly hear about this in the scrapbooking community as a lot of glues and pens aren't acid safe and will fade dyes or cause ugly yellow marks over time. Pilot have outright stated in the product descriptions for this product that they aren't acid safe. But this is particularly talking on paper why does this matter with fabric? 

We make cross stitch projects to love for years and hopefully to hand over to our friends and family to enjoy for many years and why would you want to risk the fabric getting marks over time because you used something that will yellow it before it's time. 

Also I have had it from others that they used these pens on a batik dyed fabric that they wanted to embroider on and it ended up bleaching the fabric. Not the effect she was going for. So not being acid safe they aren't reliable to use on ANY hand dyed fabrics and I wouldn't trust them on anything but white. 

 

2. Heat or Friction to remove. 

One thing I hear often from people is but all it takes to remove it is the iron. Ohk but what happens if you live in a cold climate? Someone else responded to that once with 'Oh I'll just remove them again' Which is fine if you've finished your piece as a quilt or something but what if you've finished it as a flat finish around cardboard? Or put it behind glass? How are you then going to heat it up to get rid of the lines? If you have the sort of winter weather that we can have here where the days can get quite warm but the nights go cold are you going to reheat it every day? 

This was said in response to one of my comments on facebook not to use these pens. This is not the first time I have had someone respond like this to conversations about the pens. They don't stay away. And depending where you live they will continue to come back.


So heat is not a reliable removal method what about using Friction like you are meant to. While it wouldn't be hard to remove areas that don't have stitches around anything near stitches would be nigh on impossible. At the least you could do damage to your stitches trying to remove with friction. 


3. Time

Every test I have ever seen people remove the ink after at most a day. No one that I know of has tested it over time. How often do you finish a cross stitch project in just days? I have but only little pieces. The pieces I feel the need to grid are rarely projects that will be finished in days. They are honestly likely to be months. Leaving the pen on the fabric without removing for months at a time could a) bring into play issues with being acid safe see point 1 and b) make it even more difficult to remove the pen as the pen settles into the fibers of the fabric. 


Why do I care?

I would hate to see someone putting a huge amount of time into a project and finding that it was destroyed by something as simple as using the wrong pen to grid. Particularly when the people asking are just beginning their cross stitching journey, I don't want you to get discouraged. Particularly because the solution is so easy.


What are the alternatives?

I'm telling you what you shouldn't use but in order to actually help I need to offer you another option. Something that you can use. 

The best option is fishing line. Yes you heard me right. Fishing Line. A thin fishing line as a gridding thread.  Because it is not thread so you can't split it when stitching, it's slippery so can easily be removed. 


You will also find a recommendation for sulky silver metallic thread. It gives the same effect as the fishing line as it's not a twisted yarn so you can't split it with the needle and it's fairly easy to remove from your piece. 


If you really don't want to use one of these thread options there are some pens you can use. Specially marked fabric markers. Only pick pens that are marked as fabric markers. They are usually acid safe and tested with specifically removing from fabric. They are often water based so they will wash out of the fabric easily. I wouldn't trust ones that can only be removed by heat because those sorts of pens can come back. If you are using a darker fabric you can use tailor's chalks. But the problem with these is they are easy to remove from the fabric as you are working without intending to.  BUT even the are not safe. They can still come back and while I recommend them over frixion pens they're not full proof. Have a read of This article as well about this subject. Do your research before touching any pen to your fabric.

 

I have also heard of people using lead pencils. These don't always clean really well but are a great way to mark something like embroidery where you are stitching over all the lines. I wouldn't rely on this for cross stitch unless you are doing a full coverage piece as you may not be able to remove the lines.


Honestly if you need to grid a piece the best is to take the time to use fishing line. It removes easier than the other options. 


In the end you can make your own decisions and do your own research. Look up archival and acid safe in scrapbooking or preserving clothes. Ask in the facebook groups with an open mind, you will get at least one person commenting on what went wrong with a project. One day I want to do a time test with the frixion markers but I honestly can't be bothered to organise it somehow. 

 

Happy Stitching,

Caitlin


Wednesday, 28 October 2020

Lack of crafting ...

 I don't know what happened this month but I get home from work most days and just collapse! I haven't been motivated to do much so I decided to change crafts for a bit. Usually that's enough to break me out of a crafting funk. 

I bought this book ages ago. It's called Edward's Imaginarium and while I tested out a little bit of it I haven't done much. So I decided to just break out of my funk and crochet myself a monster! I've only just started. I'm about 5 rows further on than this picture but something is happening with it. 


I'm using my Bendigo Woollen Mills Cotton in the 8ply so it is so gorgeously soft to work with. I started using my normal go to of acrylic and just didn't enjoy the feel. Then working with the cotton just made me happy! Sometimes it's nice to do something different. 


Oh and just to show something interesting that has been happening.... We had a good lot of rain through yesterday and the park next to my work flooded!

That's usually a green field! But by today it was green again. We're meant to get more rain tonight and I'm really looking forward to it. We've been in a bit of a drought and we need a good growing season.

 

So curiosity, how do you get out of  a craft funk? 

 

Happy Stitching, 

Caitlin


Tuesday, 29 September 2020

Free Witchalong for October

 

Witchalong Cross Stitch Pattern
I was so excited about the drawing I made and the thoughts of joining all of you for a stitchalong in October and I was wondering how I would organise it. I also realised that October is my birthday month but it's been a few years since I last did a free pattern for my birthday. So to celebrate that (since I can't have a party this year) and to thank everyone for their support of my designs and me over the last few years I am offering this pattern for free and inviting everyone to join me for a witchalong for the month of October!!

I spent all weekend test stitching this little cutie so that I would have it all ready to share with you. I'm so happy and proud of how it turned out and VERY excited to do this stitchalong or witchalong ... I think I like witchalong better :D!

So how do you get access to this pattern? 

I'm going to offer it in two forms.

1. It's going to be available for download from my facebook group. It really is the easiest way to share PDF patterns.  As I release the parts (the cross stitching and then the next week the back stitching) all the pattern parts will be available there to download and for you to share your stitching as you do it.

2. But because I know not everyone is on facebook, I'm also going to send it out to everyone on my email list because I want as many people as possible to get access to the pattern. You can sign up to my email list from here. At the top of my blog page is a subscription box to sign up for my mailing list. 

 

 What will I need?

Well the pattern itself is only about 30x45 or so stitches so it's a little piece. You can use scrap pieces of aida or evenweave. Unless you want to play with the different colourways and try out a few of them and then you'll need a bigger piece of fabric. 

The pattern only uses 10 colours. With the 4 main ones being 4 shades of the same colour. When trying to decide on the colours to use to test it I ended up laying out a few choices and while I only had time to stitch one all these will be possible colours you can use (or you can use your own entirely.)

 

My tester was done in the blue but I'm also going to start a purple one because ... why not? And it's me and purple!

Thread Colours

Every colourway will use these DMC colours:

920 for the hair

945 for the skin and 841 for the cheeks. I haven't worked out what would suit for darker colours but if you go too dark you may need to change the backstitching colour... 

434 and 744 for the broom.

For the blue colourway:

797,798,799,800

For the Purple:

550, 552, 553, 554

For the Pink:

3802, 3803, 3687,3688

For the Green:

500, 501, 505, 562


 What else do you need to know?

So the first pattern will be released on October 1 ... if you wish to get all the patterns via email you must be signed up to the mailing list by then I'm not sure if I know how to resend the emails but I may be able to send the link out if you email me. 

I will release the backstitching on the 8th :D Which I kinda like the symmetry of as that is my birthday! An awesome present for me!! To give you wonderful stitchers the full pattern. 

The week after I will release an email talking about finishing techniques. Over the years I have written NUMEROUS tutorials on how to finish your cross stitch as everything from pillows to book covers and a few things in between. SO I'm going to dig out those tutorials and we can have a look at all the cool ways you can make this design look cuter. 


There is one thing I ask of everyone participating. SHARE. Please don't share the pattern itself but share about the stitchalong on social media. Share photos with me and with others. Let people know where they can get a hold of the pattern themselves. I want to see what you are creating. That is half the fun of a stitchalong. 


So Happy Stitching and I look forward to seeing your creations, 

Caitlin









Monday, 21 September 2020

Painting fun

 What do you do on a Saturday afternoon when you are 'bored' or at least not wanting to do what you have been doing all day? 

Well it appears I was in the mood to start painting. I had an urge to paint a witch and here is the result! 


I started by drawing a little character on the paper and then ... out came my watercolours. 

 


 I need to get a little better at drawing the outlines fainter... the more I got caught in the drawing the harder I drew. It's something I will have to work on. 

The hardest part with painting with watercolours I found was having to walk away and leave it to dry a few times before I tried to put other colours on the paper! It is so hard to do but here is one of the points where I knew I just had to walk away before I stuffed it up irreparably. 


I'm really proud of how she turned out. To the point where I then spent Saturday night playing with my cross stitch program and trying to turn her into a little cross stitch. I've got some more work to do and I want to play with the colours a LOT more. These are the colours the program gives me but I know they aren't right in real life.

 
I decided to keep the backstitching more subtle like the watercolour and used a grey instead of a black like I normally do. I will have to play with it a little more before it's ready but I'm hoping to have it good to go by October 1 in time for a special Halloween Stitch-a-long because who doesn't want a cute little witch to join them for halloween? 
 
 But to make this actually happen I have a bit of work to do :D I will start playing with colours and testing this out this week and we shall see if I can actually make it happen. Who would like to join me for a stitch-a-long? This will be a quick little stitch and I'm trying to think of a cute way to finish it that would look amazing decorating for halloween! 

Happy Stitching, 
Caitlin








 

Friday, 4 September 2020

Friday Finds: Diana Ankudinova

 So as you've probably worked out by now ... Friday finds seems to be me sharing a lot of the videos of singers that catch my interest. I stumbled across this girl on a reaction channel and OMG she is absolutely stunning! She is only about 17 I think and the depth of her voice is just amazing! Also she's Russian and sings in Russian, French, German, English and I think another language that I can't remember.

This song is called Rechenka and it's in Russian but absolutely amazing.


This song is called Dernière Danse I love the song it's originally by a French singer called Indila but I think I may love this version even more! She is a true Contralto and her range is AMAZING!


And because it would be remiss of me to not include at least one song of hers that is in English I hope you enjoy this one! It's called Wicked Game.


I hope you enjoy these songs :D 

Happy Stitching, 

Caitlin


Thursday, 20 August 2020

Word Searches

 I have taken to making some word searches in French. Figured I should share them with you too.

Sorry the second one doesn't have a word list. But you can find the French words around the web really easily! 

A little bit of fun if you are bored :D 

Happy Stitching, 

Caitlin


Tuesday, 11 August 2020

Stitching Update

 I've been a bit sick this last week. Ended up with a couple of days off work and it just hasn't gone to plan. It doesn't help that I have absolutely no energy thanks to having been sick. I often get home from work and just collapse. You know those days? I've got all sorts of amazing goals and thoughts going around for my stitching but I am really struggling to actually follow through and finish them. 

 

Some of what is coming IF I can get myself to actually follow through on my goals. 

 - I'm trying to write a book. It is a book to help beginners with techniques and talking about what you need and don't need to know to actually cross stitch. I want it to be the ultimate resource for people to go to if they need to know something. It will have a selection of exclusive patterns to teach each of the techniques and I'm so excited. I have been adding more words each week so it is something that I am really working on but it may be months more before I have everything written. I want it to be comprehensive and give as much information as possible. I want to do it right. So if you catch me asking questions about techniques you want to know about please give me answers because it's probably for this book. 


- I'm playing with a tonne of new designs. I have a aussie summer design I'm looking to submit to a magazine that I need to work on ASAP. Also a mermaid pattern to go with my fairies which is pretty much done but I am testing out the pattern at the moment so I need to get that finished. 


- I have a tonne of drawings and ideas constantly going through my head. I just have to find time to do it all, which could be why I sometimes struggle to get anything done.I think I just need to focus on a couple of designs and just push through with those and then pick up the next ones. Just little by little! 


So what do I have to show you? 

Well my mermaid is currently looking like this ... so it's getting there. Honestly I don't know what is slowing me down! 

My book dragon has gotten more done on it. I'm missing a few critical colours at the moment and I need to organise to get them but the local store has a horrible selection!

I have also been sewing I needed another skirt for work so I tried out making an 18th century style petticoat. It's secured by Ribbons not buttons or zips. So it was a really quick make. I have worn it a few times to work and it's been perfect and exactly what I needed. I had the zip on one of my work skirts break a couple of months ago so I was getting desperate!


So this is what has been happening in my cross stitch and crafting life at the moment. So much happening at the moment! 


Happy Stitching, 

Caitlin

Friday, 24 July 2020

Friday Finds: Working With Lemons

So since Hamilton dropped on Disney plus I may have been just a little bit obsessed... though I can't honestly say whether a whole day has gone without me singing the music or listening to it at all... actually I can say it honestly. I've listened to it daily. And then I started searching youtube and stumbled across this channel. Working With Lemons.

They have done a few movies in real life videos. I love the ones they did of frozen as well. But this one of The Schuylar Sisters from Hamilton is awesome. As are their versions of helpless and satisfied. Check them out to see more awesome songs, they can sing and the work they put into the videos is awesome.



Happy Stitching,
Caitlin

Thursday, 23 July 2020

New Start: Book Dragon


I've been waiting to start this for a while. Honestly for no reason other than just hadn't started it. I got given this pattern for mother's day a few years ago. I fell in love with the books and the sleeping dragon. I am almost as obsessed with dragons as I am with owls. Though I always forget what makes a wyvern vs a dragon (something to do with the amount of legs).

Book Dragon

I haven't gotten far, I keep getting distracted by some test stitching. But I will do some more work on this soon. It will take me a while to finish this but I'm looking forward to this one slowly appearing. I still need a few more of the colours and spotlight didn't have it last time I looked! Their collection is getting worse and worse each time I go in there!

Book Dragon1


I'm really looking forward to what this one will become. I already have a second one of these dragon patterns a knitting one to do as well. They will be gorgeous on display.

Happy Stitching,
Caitlin

Wednesday, 15 July 2020

Fairy Party

Who doesn't love to think about the fairies that obviously love at the bottom of the garden? We all know they must be there. So with my obsession about fairies in full swing after a passing comment at a cross stitch meeting about fairies being good to stitch for kids particularly since she was thinking of making something for a little baby I felt the need to do some designing.

3 Fairies Cross Stitch Patterns

Now this was about 4 months ago that I started with this idea going around in my head... but as I keep saying nothing has gone to plan this year and everything has been out of order.

But last weekend I was bored and going through patterns on my computer when I happened upon the file for the fairies. Well that was me done and I settled in to do some test stitching.

Fairy 1
I grabbed my boxes of threads and lay them out and then I had to start picking colours. The pattern was originally in generic greens and pinks and I knew that wasn't what I wanted but it was what was easiest when designing so I could have some fun. Of course being me I gravitated straight to the purple :D

Does anyone else love playing with colours and just looking in the pretty boxes full of threads? No? Just me? Oh well!

Fairy 1 Finished
I had a lot of fun playing with these and knew I didn't just want to offer it with a light skin tone so I played with a darker brown for the next one and even without purple I fell in love with this one too!

Fairy 2 Finished
Isn't she so cute? I just love the way she looks :D Then because I had the metallic bug and I went a bought a pile of pretty sparklies that I KNEW I needed to try out something for! I used the dark purple sparkly E718 and it ended up being soooo pretty!

Fairy 3 Finished

But it's so hard to get a good photo of the sparkles but you get a good idea looking at it here! What colours would you play with if you made these fairies?


3 Fairies - Finished

So what would you make for your fairies?

The pattern is now available in my shop and it comes with the three fairy designs which are two styles of dresses and two styles of wings and hair. You can make these however you want and I would love to see what you come up with! So many awesome options!

Fairy by Naughtscrossstitches

I hope you enjoy this pattern as much as I enjoyed making it!

Happy Stitching,
Caitlin

Friday, 3 July 2020

Friday Finds: Lyrics changing by region

This is a really interesting analysis and, full disclosure, being aussie growing up in the 90's I sang. Jingle Bells, Batman Smells, Robin Laid an Egg. Though for the life of me I can't remember what came next!


I do remember the version about the barbie dolls and stabbing which seems to be an aussie thing but I wouldn't be able to sing it again.

What version do you know? I hope this was an interesting little funny video for you to watch.

Happy Stitching,
Caitlin

Tuesday, 23 June 2020

My Hands!

So if you have been watching my instagram I have been posting about this but I realised that I hadn't posted anything about this here. Each year in winter I react to the cold and my hands can start to peal and get quite painful. I thought that this year my hands were doing the same... oh I wish! 

This was at the start of it all... you can see a reddening around my palms and some light red dots... this was the start. This is usually where it stops. It's a little painful but otherwise fine. I piled hand creams on and continued about my day.  




This year it became a LOT worse. I ended up at the doctors a week ago because I was in an extreme amount of pain. Essentially constant pins and needles through my whole hands. It turns out I was having an allergic reaction! The only thing I can pin it down to that I have changed recently is the soaps I'm using at work. We work next to a doctors surgery and the soap in the toilet got changed to one that has the antibacterial stuff in it. Which it appears I'm allergic to!


This is now my hand after a week of steroid creams and anti histamines. I didn't get photos at the height of the reaction but lets just say they were more red than anything and extremely painful. So now I carry my own soap to the toilets... and try and avoid washing my hands as much as reasonably possible because it makes the reaction worse. I have to use a steroid cream up to 4 times a day and they are getting better. Not healed yet but better. Unfortunately for me the reaction was on my hands and it's the worst spot for doing anything. 


Would you believe that this is actually less painful than my hand before? The pins and needles over my whole hands are pretty much gone which is fabulous I'm now just dealing with pealing skin. Which means new skin beneath which is a different pain. 

So just letting you know that any stitching/crafting from me is taking a LONG time at the moment I start working and then have to stop very frequently if not just give up for the day. 

Happy Stitching, 
Caitlin

Friday, 19 June 2020

Friday Finds: Boogie Woogie with a twist :D



Good Music to make you smile!

Happy Stitching,
Caitlin

Final Exam!

You guys have been with me through the long haul. I started this blog after I finished my Bachelors degree so you thankfully didn't have to deal with me during that!

But when I started my current degree 4 LONG years ago I knew I'd eventually get to this point but I didn't think it would take so much out of me. I did my bachelor full time and it wasn't as exhausting as I was only doing a casual/part time job during it.

This time around I have been working full time and doing part time University. It's been a bumpy few years. I have been exhausted and drained trying to get everything done. This semester alone has been crazy! I started off going to classes and that lasted about 4 weeks then all of a sudden we had to move our classes to online. One of my subjects (thankfully the group work one) did that beautifully. The lecturer organised weekly zoom lectures and workshops and it was great. The other subject was much worse. He would record the lecture on a Tuesday morning and post it up and at SOME point over that week I would have to find the time to watch it. (I would often struggle with this) There is a reason I do on campus because I struggle to motivate myself when I am online by myself.

Then to make it even harder we had to move house just at the point when I had a tonne of assignments due! Thank goodness for my parent's internet!

So why am I talking about this today? Because yesterday morning I finished my FINAL EXAM!!! The last exam for my Master's Degree is now complete! I still have to wait for the results but I'm fairly confident that I passed :D


For those that don't know I did a Master's in Business (Professional Accounting) which is kinda the equivalent of an accounting degree at the Bachelor level but shorter and with a Master's expectations on your abilities. But it means that I can go forth and eventually get my CPA once I have recovered from this! It may take a while.... 

I don't know what exactly I am going to do with all my free time but I already feel lighter and I know I will have a lot more that I can do and so many craft projects that I've been putting off! I am going to continue to happy dance over here and I wish you the best!

Happy Stitching, 
Caitlin


Wednesday, 10 June 2020

RANT: Annoying Comments

I love comments on my blog or on my facebook and instagram. They make me laugh and smile and just generally make me really happy that my words have interested someone else. That said I have had to add comment moderation on for a while now and I was so excited when I had an influx of comments this morning until I read them....

All they are is a superficial advertisement. It's people who think they can use my blog to advertise their business or their blog. It hurts. One of my more popular posts is the Accountant vs Magician pattern. I can't tell you how many comments I have had on that post that don't read the post and just see Accountant and make some sort of vague reference to how accountants are awesome and leave a link to their firm. They don't bother to read the post and see what it is about. They don't bother to even notice that it's a cross stitch pattern or to even comment on the artwork. All the want is to use me as free advertising.

This is the comments section for that post. You can see that I have let some slide but I'm actually going to go in and delete these ones because they offer nothing.

I might be a bit more willing to accept it if it wasn't so blatant. The other ones that annoy me that I get the most on instagram is the fitness companies. They send me emails/PMs that go I like what you do I think you would be a good fit. Well guess what ... they all just want me to spend my money on buying the clothes and advertising them. I do look out of curiosity but honestly none of the clothes interest me. They all look the same as everyone else's but they charge $70 US for a pair of pants. So not even taking in shipping or exchange rates it's ridiculous because there are aussie brands I can get for better prices. Even after their 'discount'. You can see by the pic below they make it seem like they are offering you this amazing deal when really it's just a way to sell you clothes. You only get a discount on their items. No money, nothing else. That's not a sponsership! But I get that they're trying to compete with the 30,000 other fitness brands out there at the moment so I don't blame this company just the industry that pushes this!



This doesn't even include the random guys that I get messaging me going 'hey cutie' ... I'm happily partnered up and although I don't show many photos of him because I don't have a huge amount (he really doesn't like his photo taken) You can see evidence of him and the kids all around my social media. I just out of respect for them don't post much with them in as it's there choice if they want to be shared. (random tangent sorry!) But I have had the messages going hey what's your name ... what do you like to do? ... on my craft instagram! With my NAME on my profile! With my list of hobbies ON MY PROFILE!!!! I don't hide things and I have made some beautiful friends through this blog and instagram but COME ON! HOW DUMB DO YOU HAVE TO BE NOT TO AT LEAST READ MY PROFILE AND FIND OUT ABOUT ME BEFORE TRYING TO HIT ME UP????!!!!

Here is one of the messages that I received last year... No hello, no hey I saw your profile and thought it would be nice to meet you... just Happy Valentines Day. Have we forgotten basic manners?



I don't know how to stop this and I don't know how to deal with it but it's just sad that so many people feel that they can treat me and what I do so casually. The guys on instagram and facebook piss me off. They don't want to know me, they just want attention and they're hoping they'll get it from me. I get it at the moment in the my French Groups. I am very vocal and happy to talk and discuss grammar but I get PMs all the time going I want to learn French/English can you teach me for free?! Although my favourite used the phrase 'I need to learn how to French' ...

I don't know why it is but these sorts of comments just make me feel dirty. They make me feel icky. All these sorts of comments don't care about me. They don't care what I want or do. They don't care how I feel and despite appearances they really don't want to. With a little bit of time spent they could know enough about me to start a conversation. Comment on a post about the post and start up a conversation. That's how you talk to people. And while I'm willing to admit there is an English barrier sometimes surely even in their own language you don't treat women like this?

Anyway I hope you fabulous people who have actually read to the bottom of this ranting post are well! I hope you are staying safe and stitching or crafting or just enjoying yourself. I do love to hear from you when you are able. I love to have conversations and know more about what is happening in your journey. I value your input. And I want to hear from you more often.

Happy Stitching,
Caitlin
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