Fairy Idyll not idle

Yes. My room is tiny. And yes, I like little baubles. :)

Anyway, my eyes have been feeling tired after squinting so much with my 28ct HAED pattern but I still wanted to stitch and so... out came my Fairy Idyll. Idle no more (for the moment).

I decided to make use of the floor stand as my qsnap is being used for my HAED (at least until I get to the 2nd row of pages). Can I just say, I love it!!! :D

The floor stand makes stitching fun. I realized the reason why I didn't like stitching my haed on it is because of the 28 ct. It's too small. And page one is far up on the left side... making my eyes and arms strain. Regardless of my using my magnifiers. I'll put my HAED on this once I get used to it using my Fairy Idyll AND... once I have more rows of pages stitched so my arms don't have to stretch that much.

I've set up my stand at the end of my bed. So.. I have my table (with my laptop on my left and my floor stand on my right. I can switch from one to the other easily. And playing audiobooks work very very well. I don't have to keep looking up at the screen.

Methinks I shalt finish another page on this one first before I go back to my HAED.

Is this rotating? Taking turns between two patterns? What-do-you-know.... I'm doing rotation! Ha! Improving again. Tee-hee.

Oh and... this is the floor stand my sis got me from Korea. :) It can convert into a lap frame...and I have shorter bars in readiness if I want them. Plus.. if you notice that I have two...errr...three lamps, let me explain. The one with the elbow stand is my lamp for stiching and the two identical ones on top were for my toy photography light box. But... I decided to make use of them now. The more light the better for my eyes.

Hmm... looking at the picture, I should get better clamps for my patterns.. it doesn't look nice if I use clothespins... (vanity of the stitcher coming out). Oh well, great excuse to go shopping in our local bookstore.

I'm an OC stitcher. *shrugs*. Sue me.

Frustrating Day

Early sunday morning, I bugged my Dad to join me as I tried assembling my new floor stand/lap frame. We were done with making it into a lapframe within an hour... it took a bit longer because one piece of hardware "lost it's thread" (how ironic... that it's to tighten a screw for a cross stitch frame).

Pounds trying to help open the box by nibbling on it. (Yes, he's smaller than a purse and him being 6years old).

My Dad helping me make sense of the chinese directions.

Anyway, after it was done, I proudly marched it into my room, placed it on my bed, ready to gloat and take pics of it only to find out it didn't fit my fabbie. It was too small. Sigh. Good thing we also ordered the extender bars for it. So... even without my Dad (who had parked his butt back in front of the TV), I went and started converting it from a small to a large lap frame. That's when I found out that it took up more than half of my little single bed.

Nuh-uh. This can't be. So I decided to turn it into a stand frame instead. This meant I had to rearrange furniture in my room. First I had to build it into the stand frame...then push furniture around.

After almost more than an hour of doing this, I had it standing proudly at the end of my bed ( I still will be stitching on my bed... with me sitting at the edge). I placed my fabbie on it only to find out: 1) It will kill my back to do this, 2) It will kill my arms to stitch the upper left (I'm on page 1), 3) I can barely see my 28ct at this range.

So off the stand my fabbie went and into a hoop. I realized a 4" hoop is enough for one page. I stitched on this for awhile until I gave up and placed my fabbie back on my Q-snap. Methinks I shalt go back to the floor stand once I have an entire row or two finished so my arms don't have to stretch that much. AND once I have a bear hug pillow. (It's the pillow that look likes the upper half of the sofa so it can support my back).

Basically, my entire Sunday was a trial and error. Sigh. What a waste of stitching time.
Also... I just realized I didn't snap a shot of it while it was in lap frame mode. And I'm too irritated with it to take a pic of it in floor stand mode right now. Maybe later....

I want something like this. So my back has support while I stitch in bed.

ORT UPDATE: Jan 2012

Here's ORT! :D Update for my TUSAL jar (and my update on my Chess Match at the same time).

Ort Jar is nice and fed. No ulcers for this guy. Hehehe. What I did notice though is there are hardly any threads left to feed him with my 28ct project. I end up using up to the last inch or so of the thread on my needle. So I guess Ort's on a diet...

... I should be too. Sigh... I noticed in our pictures that I'm errr... more huggable now than my Panda. That cannot be. I must lose some inches before I see him in 2 weeks. Gulp!

(**Haaaalp me diet fairies. I know you're out there. Please leave the super models and come to me for a bit.)

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The holidays screwed with my stitching schedule. Dagnabbit. But I'm actually not complaining. I've had my Panda with me since Dec 18. We've been going out a lot... having dinners, shopping and I usually go home late. Too sleepy and tired to stitch. He finally went home yesterday. Sigh...no more Panda... I'm gonna miss holding his hand and getting my bear hugs. But!!! I get to see him in 2 weeks!!! Yeeha! It'll be my turn to travel to Sing to see him. :)

In lieu of stitching, I did start on my bobbin winding. Since my Panda gave me a little less than 300 threads for Christmas, I've got a lot of bobbins to wind. I do a few at a time now at night, just before I pass out. I'm not in a hurry to finish "BOBBINIZING". It'll fill in the nights when I'm either to sleepy or lazy to stitch.

But now, since I can't stitch much, I'm happily surfing other peoples blogs or looking at the folks doing the Crazy Challenge. :) I'm actually finding new patterns I want to stitch!!

I'll hunt them down. Slowly. That's the problem with living here... only a limited number of selections to choose from. Thank heavens for online shopping!!

So far... I'm slowly building up my HAED collection... I wonder when I'll EVER have a chance of stitching them. LOL! As it is, I've started my first HAED but I've been hoarding patterns for quite awhile.

I do have to admit... I have this uber lovely beige 25ct lugana that I'm so tempted to start making into the FLYING SWANS STORYKEEP.... sigh... must avoid temptation. Focus... I need to focus on the Chess Match.

(I have to confess...it's confetti heavy and it's driving me nuts. And I'm just on the tops of the trees!!!)

Fur-baby

This is my Dollar. :) My lovable, sweet, happy Chihuahua. Who sleeps on my bed. Keeps me company while I stitch. He never sits, meddles or touches my cloth or thread. :D He's the perfect stitching companion (other than my Panda who's usually on SKYPE with me as I stitch).

We have another dog, Pounds, who belongs to my mum and sleeps with them in their room. We also have cats... Harvard and Eton, Shrek and Stitch (They're identical twins! Though one is now fatter than the other), Rum, Memeh (because she doesn't meow..she says "meh"), Pauly and Smithy (after my favorite brand of bags Paul Smith), Speedy (because he moves like speedy gonzales) and Chaplin. That's 10 cats in total.

Plus 2 yellow lovebirds named Disney and Pixar who live in a cage in my room. Whose cage by the way is WAAAAY pimped out. Yeah! Uh-huh! :D I keep waiting for them to lay eggs and multiply but... I think my mum got me two boys. Shucks. Should've named them Bert and Ernie then...but oh well... Disney and Pixar they remain.

Thought since a lot of you post pics of pets, I might as well include our own little zoo. But Dollar is my main man. I call him Babah. Coz he's my baby. :D

Oh and he's saying "ARFY NEW YEAR!" in this picture as I took it a little past midnight on new year's eve. :D

Me Crazy for your Crazy.

So many new patterns! Every bloody cross stitch group on facebook has been posting their Crazy 15 (or 31) patterns and I've been drooling. Just like a vamp in front of red cross.

Sigh... as much as I want to take the bit and go ahead and start another project, I know I shouldn't. I NEED to focus on my HAED or my Fairy Idyll first. I wish I was like the others who have gotten the hang of rotating their patterns or those who stitch fast that they can actually finish a project per month. But I'm not like that. At least...not yet. MAYBE I can in future. But right now, it's beyond my capabilities.

BUT!!! I do have an update. :) On my haed at least. I can now see trees and part of a pillar. :)
Halleluyah! I've graduated from white. (at least on THIS page) (The next page has MORE sky...shucks). Just a couple of days more and I'll actually finish page 1!! WOOHOO!!

Can I just say... I LOVE TENTING! I may never go back to full stitches ever again. :D Tenting has spoiled me for life.

My only problem is ... 22, 25 or 28ct cloth is almost near impossible to find here in the Phil. I may have to grab mine from Singapore. Good thing my panda loves spoiling me with stitchy goodies. :D WHEEEEEEE!!!