Life Updates, again!

Life is a time consuming bitch.

Every time I start thinking things will settle down and I'll feel less stressed, and have some more time to do stuff, the opposite happens.

After 9 weeks with crappy internet, and having to step away from raiding with my guild in WoW, we finally decided to switch providers.

And dear god, I can play!

Without lag!

And at night!

Have I had much time to do so? Well, no, but still, I can!

Sadly the install was supposed to be a Friday install but because of Murphy's law with the Optus tech's that day, it got pushed to Saturday.

I had to cancel a bunch of my plans Saturday (upside was I finished my friend's birthday gift) to wait for the tech.

A 7.30 am to 12 noon window for them to show up, and just my luck, they showed right near 12.

The install itself didn't take long.

The tech said 20 minutes until we could set it up and be internet filled.

An hour and a half on the phone later, get told it won't be up until late Sunday.

Then get told it won't be until Monday.

This totally messed up my Sunday plans of sitting and doing a bunch of my TAFE assessments.

But in the end it didn't matter, because I got a damned cold.

Spent all of Sunday and a good chunk of Monday in bed, with hankies and a bucket.

Missed my Monday class too.

The TAFE assessment was a group project, and it didn't come together until the very last minute because life!

TAFE itself is going pretty well.

A couple weeks in, already have assessments all over the place. 

Next week I have a presentation to give, but that will be on cross stitching, so easy enough. But to satisfy the visual component of the marking scheme, I'm making up some little kits for the people in the class. 

So I need to make up 30 little cross stitch kits. 

Trip to Spotlight this weekend I think!

Apart from that I finally got a new phone.

My little HTC Desire HD has been a great phone for the last 5-6 years, but the touch screen doesn't respond as well, the apps I use are starting to not work on the outdated Android platform it runs and the speakers were going.

And the battery, 5 hours until it was almost drained.

I'm still waiting for my number to be ported over, but the battery on my new phone is amazing!

I went with a Samsung Galaxy s5.

My biggest happy about it? 

Hearthstone on mobile works, and I can get the cat selfie app.

So be prepared for cat selfies!

Apart from that, I'm still in a reading slump.

I'm days behind in Stitch Maynia (until tomorrow anyway)

I haven't done much stitching at all (though being able to stitch in class will be a godsend)

But now photos!

Only in Australia can we have a storm when it's mostly sunny, with rainbows and lightning crashing over the top of it....

Finished Birthday gift, I didn't take many photos of this before we left.

We only just made it in time for the party after all the mucking around with internet.

Cupcakes I made for my friends party, with  pink and purple icing!

I want to cross stitch this Spiderman art xD

And now I can selfie!

New finish - Birthday Present #1

Number 1?

Yes, I have 2 birthday presents to stitch at the moment!

This one is a late birthday present for my younger sister.

She's super into tattoo's (not my influence I swear!) and nautical themed everything, so this pattern from Plastic Little Covers on Etsy was perfect!

So next came picking a fabric. 

Colour Cascades is my go to, Australian based dyer, so I can get them pretty quickly.

Tammy did me a huge favour by adding it to the next dye lot so I could get it a little quicker.

My sister's birthday is the 11th, so I knew it wouldn't be done in time, but I wanted to get it done as quick as I could, as the next present I'm stitching is for the 9th of May.

So I grabbed a few pictures of Tammy's fabrics and did a few overlays.

Clouds

Black Holed Sun

Candy

She liked clouds the best, so I ordered it in a 16 count Opal, because sparkles!

I kind of dropped the ball on taking in progress pictures, so here's the finish!

For the frame I got a Kasiercraft wooden 10 inch square frame from Spotlight. 

I painted it a lightened Teal, and stuck some little embellishments on it.
It was a little hard to glue the frame together, because I seem to have misplaced my packet of low temp glue gun refills....

But these are just some quick photos taken with my phone.

St Patrick's Day SAL

I started my St Pat's SAL in March, and finished it yesterday.

Anyone who watched my last video knows about the floss related issue I had with this pattern, but apart from that it was really easy to stitch.

And now it's finished.
Only thing left to do is to get it framed.
Because it's a memorial piece I want it done properly, so now I have to find somewhere in Sydney that frames cross stitch.

My Grandfather was a great person and he meant a lot to me. Sadly he passed away late 2012.
His birthday was St Patrick's Day, so I thought about doing a memorial piece for the Stitch A Long with Cross Stitch It's Fun.
I trawled Pinterest and google until I found something that would be easy to modify, and wasn't too cliche'd.

So here it is :)
Unframed as of yet, but finished :)

I stitched this on 18 count aida, from Colour Cascades Fabrics on Silver Springs.
The flosses were from Weeks Dye Works, and if you want to stitch this one yourself, get yourself 2 skeins of the green colour, Lucky. I used all but four strands of a short length for this.

I made a Q Snap cover!

First time I've used a sewing machine since 2001 and that was for maybe 4 hours in total. 

Now to learn to switch the threads so I won't have to stitch everything in white...

Recent Finish - WOCS Sampler SAL

This was a Stitch A Long by The World of Cross Stitching Magazine from last year.

By the time I had started quite a few people had finished so I just stitched at my own pace.

I challenged myself with this project as well by not making a working copy.

I wish I had of, because Illidan (Mr kitty who hasn't learnt not to jump on my desk yet) knocked over a small drink and then clawed some the pages when he freaked and jumped off.

So the pattern isn't quite usable anymore.

I made a few mistakes in this, mostly with miscounting or mixing colours up, but there is only one that is outwardly noticeable.

But I did enjoy this project, it was fun to stitch, and this big, tough goth girl loves the flowers :p

This was stitched on 14 count hand dyed fabric.

The fabric is 'Silver Springs' by Colour Cascades :)