Double Good News

Well, I finished the purple part of the Samurai's gown and now onto the Peacock next to him. I was glad to start stitching with different colours for a change. The constant multiple shades of purple can be overwhelming. I still need to add the few isolated /confetti stitches plus the detail back and specialty stitch on him. I changed the little picture on my profile blog to show him. I will post a bigger picture here. I also created a new album for my WIPs. You can see them on my webalbum link on the left.

I have also been playing around with the appearance of the blog, added my favorite shop link on it as well as the blogs of my fellow stitchers so I can easy access them.

We went to the hospital for a scan, Amanda is now 8 weeks pregnant. There was a singleton fetus with heart beat. I wish I had a scanner to scan the ultrasound picture of the baby, will have to get one. This will be the 'Made In England' baby when we get home to Australia. Well we plan it that way.

Another good news, I had the phone interview last week for a consultant job. On monday morning I got the call stating I got the job. Faboulous. Double good news. It is what I'm looking for, it will be in Canberra so the weather will be colder than Sydney. But we survived 2 winters in London, Canberra weather will be warm compare to here.

Now we need to start planning our move, need to book the flight, cancel the phone, tv counsil tax etc. More importantly we need to ship our stuffs back. It will be a busy next few weeks.

More Stash and Progress

Yes, Heaven and Earth Designs website is back this week. I had some difficulty email Michele from the site for a while. We thought it was the ICPG (internet chart purchasing gods) doing as I had too many charts already. Something must be wrong with my yahoo email account. She never received my emails. Luckily we were able to keep in touch within the yahoo group. Finally I email her with my hotmail account and it worked. I don't know what has happened to my yahoo email. I got no problem with posting within the group though.

Anyway I am now the proud owners of Flaming June and Lady on a Swing. You can see them in my web album. The last one is a tapestry chart and was suppose to be done on 40 count silk over 1. Somehow I don't think I'll be able to do it that small. We'll see. It was also Amanda's choice as I would prefer to have Oriental Cranes, then again I have something similar already, Harmony from Serendipity which is still on the waiting to be done pile back in Australia.

I also went to LNS and bought a piece of 22 count hardanger fabric. I think I will enjoy stitching on this though it might make it more difficult to do a pin head start so harder do it on chart with blends I think.

My Samurai is coming nicely and I also restarted on one of Amanda's project, the Tutenkahmen. This is a complete bead stitch kit we purchased from Singapore. She started it and now not keen on working on it anymore. It's a small kit ans has lots of luster in it from all the bead's colour. It gives me a nice break from my samurai.

Progress and Stash Collections

Well, I've gone back to the rotation on Samurai now. I have been ignoring it for a while. It felt and looked a bit different with 18 ct aida than the 14 ct, but I get used to it quickly. After a couple of days, I'm close to finishing his gown, on the purple part now. Hopefully can start on the peacock beside him soon. I'll post a picture when I finish the gown I think. Also put in a bit of more of the metallic threads. I've purchased a thread heaven from LNS and together using the securing methods on the needle. Metalic threads are easy to handle now. I'm getting the use of it and it makes it look more sparkly. It's great with all these extra helps or tricks I picked up from my yahoo group.

My favourite Golden Kite is raising its prices on the chart from December. The American dollars had gone down against the euro apparently. So been looking and purchase more charts before the price go up by 19%. I've finally decided on the 3 patterns, The Creation of Adam, Galatea and La Belle Dame Sans Merci (medium). The last one was Amanda's choice. We were tossing between the large or medium size but chose the medium as I would more likely to finish it. I am happy cause now I have a chart from each of the 3 great geniuses from the Renaissance period namely Da Vinci (I bought the Monalisa 2 months ago), Michaelangelo and Raphael. God knows when I will manage to stitch all this charts. LOL

I also heard that Heaven and Earth Design is having a sale. I was interested in the Flaming June chart. Amanda loves that painting. However the website is down at present, will need to check on it later.