June Ornament

Peace by Country Cottage Needleworks from the 2007 Ornament issue of Just Cross Stitch.

Stitched with DMC threads on 28 count mint lugana.

I was hoping to finish-finish it before photographing but up until a couple of days ago I hadn't found the right backing fabric (I'll probably finish it as a pinkeep). I'll try to get it done this afternoon ... if the kids will give me a few minutes peace!!!

Vierlanden Sampler Susanne progress

I thought I would post my progress on this - I have a portable project I stitch on while waiting for the kids to come out of school in the afternoons and this one was the chosen one for last week. I'm back to my Quaker Mystery this week. Anyway, it is too hot for the kids to cycle to and from school now - not too bad in the mornings, but blisteringly hot in the afternoons - so I'm back to driving them. I need to get to school half an hour or so before they let out to get a car park. Very typical of Dubai, they construct multi-story building after multi-story building but don't consider the carparking requirements of the people who will eventually reside and/or work in them. Anyway, gripe over :)

I think I've finally cleared out my Blogger drafts folder which will explain the sudden influx of posts from me - maybe one more waiting on pics - but I'll do that tomorrow. Hang on, it is tomorrow, in fact its almost 1.30am - oops! Better go to bed - gotta get up in 4.5 hours!

Plant Love Pinkeep

I stitched this up a week or so ago. It is a Lizzie*Kate design from Issue 28 May 2008 of the Gift of Stitching Online Magazine.

I finished it as a pinkeep and had planned to gift it away but I'm less than thrilled with how the finishing turned out (I'm a bit of a perfectionist at heart) so it will go into my smalls basket. They are probably minor things but they bother me :)

I had a lot of frogs visit me while I was stitching this too - pesky little critters!

June Edition of HAED BB Challenge SAL

Before:



After:



I managed to finish the first page this time!

What it will look like when I'm eventually done!

Dream of Purple

High School Musical

The high school held a music performance tonight and since DS was playing guitar in one of the items we went naturally went along :) He was accompanied by several of his classmates on various instruments (there were three on classical guitar which is what he plays) and performed the New Zealand folk song "Pokekarekare Ana". They were fantastic!



(Apologies for the quality of the pic - DD decided she wanted to be the photographer tonight!)

I was blown away by the level of talent in this show. We were entertained by some very musically gifted kids. I just wish that some of the parents in the audience could have shown a bit more respect for these kids who had put a lot of work into getting this show ready and were putting their all into it tonight. There was one woman sitting two rows behind us who did not stop talking (and loudly too!) throughout the entire show (except maybe briefly when her child was on stage) and this was despite being told to be quiet nicely by a lady sitting in the row directly behind me! That's just plain rude! Unfortunately, the talker wasn't the only one and I felt really sorry for the kids up on stage. How can a child learn respect when his/her parent is incapable of showing any?

I guess all I can do is try to teach it to my kids the best I can :)

New Starts

A couple of weeks ago the HAED BB had a New Start SAL. I couldn't resist and started Ching Chou Kuik's Sweet Pink Mermaid. I've actually done more than this since this photo was taken. It's a nice stitch. One strand of DMC over one thread antique white 25 count lugana.



This is a Mother's Day freebie mystery exclusive to members of the Wiehenburg Samplers Yahoo Group which I started today. I'm using one strand of HDF's Premium silk "Dusty Rose" (discontinued I believe) over two threads of CountryStitch's 32 count lugana in "Hydrangea".

Dance Awards Ceremony

It's been a long day! It was DD's dance awards ceremony today and we had to be at the theatre at 8.45am for hair and make-up to be done and get into costume for an 11am show start. I had my alarm set for 6.30am so I could walk the dog before we left but she had other ideas and woke me at 5.50am! Tikki is not allowed upstairs, knows the rule and obeys it ... except this morning!! Clearly she needed to go out in a hurry! I'm not sure she would have done it had DH been home (he's away on a business trip). Anyway, since I was up I decided to get her walk over and done with early :)

We made it to the theatre on time, found our seats and deposited DS and his book in one of them with instructions to guard the other two, while DD and I headed backstage. I pitched in to help out Miss Haley (DD's dance teacher) and a couple of other mums with getting the girls hair done. We had a serious production line going and I would hate to think how much hair gel we went through! I lost count of how many buns I did - several - but it was nothing compared to the braiding machine that was Miss Haley!

Once hair and make-up had been done it was on to the costumes.





I headed back out to my seat about 15 minutes or so before the performance was due to start and praised DS for being so patient. I am so glad he is a major bookworm! He defended our seats very well too as quite a few people had tried to claim them. There were no tickets - you just had to ring the dance school's office to reserve however many seats you wanted and that was it. So basically the earlier you got there the better chance of good seats!

The performances were great and DD looked very cute on stage. There is only DD and another girl in her tap class and they performed to "Monster Mash". The audience really got into it by clapping along to the beat which was great :) Miss Haley made a lot of the costumes or part of them herself (she also teaches ballet and modern) and she did the most wonderful job. We will miss her when classes start up again after the summer as she has taken a teaching position at the Performing Arts School in New York.



We arrived back home at around 1.30pm, I made some lunch and afterwards attempted to do some stitching. I just couldn't focus so I laid down on the couch in front of the telly and promptly fell asleep for about an hour and a half - lol!

I've just taken Tikki for her evening walk and am now about to organise dinner. Then the kids and I have a date with the tv and American Chopper :)