Sunday 27 June 2010

The Golden Age of Jazz Gala Ball




Dressed for the ball in Grandma Duffy's crystal beads


Today is what should have been my mother's 80th birthday. As I have no new pictures of her to share (she died in 1993), I'm showing my dear readers a picture of me taken last night dressed and ready for a ball. The beautiful crystal beads were given to me some years ago. Originally, they belonged to my mother's mother, Molly (Reid) Duffy. How special is that? A jazz ball requires something from the era!!

Molly was given these beautiful beads back in the 1920s by my grandfather, Ven, either as a gift for their first wedding anniversary or for her 21st (I will have to ask my aunt for which). That makes them about 82 years old, even older than my mother! They are gorgeous, aren't they?

About the ball, The MOTH & I had a lovely night with friends. The music was very good (Jim Morrison and his youth band - one of the best musicians in Australia), the food superb.

Wednesday 16 June 2010

UFO = destined to float around unfinished for an eternity

Thank you everyone for your wonderful support! Your emails and blog comments are, as always, encouraging. I'm stitching about 4 hours per week at the moment. To be honest, I'm not sure what I'm doing with myself. Life's one peanut butter sandwich after another (read: dog walk, gym visit, house clean, doctor's appointment, grocery shopping trip, visit with off-spring, job application). Pretty ordinary, really.

About the only real news is that we went to a family wedding in mid-May (no permission yet to post pics of the bride and groom, unfortunately) and The MOTH is again well after weeks of post-op recuperation. Phew! I feel like a wet rag this week. I decided to spend a day in bed just because my leg muscles were too sore to be bothered getting out of it. How lazy is that? Don't start worrying about anything. I'm fine, happy and having fun. It's nothing complicated. I just had a chance to do it (something I rarely do). As much as anything, it's getting colder by the day (winter is here) and I had a chance for an escape from Lucy and Harry who follow me around day in and day out. LOL


A Quaker Christmas - Update No. 7


It's just over half way but I have put it away for a little while.

Grand Marquoir - Update No. 3

Goodness knows what I've been doing with my time, lately, but obviously it hasn't been looking at the calendar in my cell phone. Yesterday I found a note to self that read: June 30, 2010 - finish the Vautier Grand Marquoir Sampler.

Yeah. Right. It's not going to happen, folks. June 30 is only two and a half weeks away! For now, the Grand Marquoir Sampler is in my UFO (read: I've put it down for a while but not for eternity) pile. That's not to say that I've not worked on it at all, I've simply put it down for a while ...


September 2009


June 2010

Medieval Town Mandala -Update No. 2


At the same time that I found the edict on my phone about GM, I found another: December 31, 2010 - finish Medieval Town Mandala. This one is more than possible and I should do it, but do I really want to finish it by then? I thought I did. I even worked on it all last week, even though I hadn't yet read my phone notes. We'll have to wait and see. It is one of my all-time-favourite designs but it is currently been pushed out in favour of Mermaids of the Deep Blue Sea.


September 2009


June 2010


I guess you could say that I've got a rotation going (GM, MTM, A Quaker Christmas and now the MDBS). I rotate just enough that the fore-mentioned 'eternity' doesn't quite get reached. Pathetic! LOL

Mermaids

What can I say about the mermaids? I love the sampler and I hate it. I have already started it twice on two different pieces of fabrics (it seems a super easy stitch) and both projects have been abandonned. I think the problem is that the colours don't work together for me. I don't like the recommended fabrics with the floss and I haven't found a better piece of fabric. Or maybe I have... I have taken a leaf out of Paula's example and changed the floss colours. "The colours where?" you may ask. Wait and see. At this point, I'm thinking of swapping the yellow-greens of the mermaid 'dresses' to blues, the green fins to purples and the blue fins to greens. I might stitch a couple of changes and get opinions. Then again, I might even go coral reef for the dresses since I spent most of my adult life until quite recently living in coastal cities near the reef. LOL. Keep your fingers crossed, stitchers, I'm going in!


By the way, I found this while surfing for ideas, pardon the pun. Though I cannot remember who did it, I love it! The stitcher has put in lots of thought and effort.


From reading this blog entry, I guess you could say that life's kinda floating along and my stitching choices are ecclectic. It's semester break at uni, Winter break at school and I'm home most days. I'm trying to plan some cross stitch work from my stash supply and have too much from which to choose. I like mermaids and Christmas and most things Joan Elliott or Isabelle Vautier. The Medieval Town Mandala is unique. I like it but I loathe Martina Weber designs, in general, and simply cannot understand how the woman designs cross stitch patterns but never stitches models of her work to see if they work as well on fabric as they do on the computer screen before publishing them (particularly when the last online class I saw was some enormous sum like 74 Euros/$125+AUD).

Happiness & laughter to one and all,

Felicity

Saturday 5 June 2010