Just Ghastly

Yesterday afternoon I felt just ghastly (said the only way it can be correctly said – in a really, really far back English accent).  I awoke feeling a tad headachy but thought maybe I’d just slept funny (resulting in a stiff neck) and it would wear off but no by 11ish it was settling in for a performance.  However I thought maybe I can cut it short so I took some extra painkillers and at lunch time felt okay enough to take Bud card posting to various neighbours.

I’m not taking Buddy too far at the moment since we had a few slides and slips whilst out walking on Sunday.  B was with us and Saturday it hadn’t been too bad – I just insist on going out in the snow – as it was so fresh but as it’s been compacted it gets slippier and so there was a few ouuuuuhs, a bit of swearing and at least two hugs – one extremely one sided since my sheepskin mittens were caked in snow so B agreed on a hug as long as I didn’t hug back!  There was one ‘jar’ as well on the neighbours’ drive which has all of a 2” kerb which was disguised in the snow.  I think I was read that on expeditions most accidents happen on the way back and close to base as people can get careless!  So needless to say I spent some of Monday half expecting to collapse in a heap everytime I stood up.  Yes I know it was just muscular aches and pains but who out there with bone damage hasn’t thought something similar?

It’s just a matter of time before we’re out again – we just have to wait until B forgets he advised me against it – it’s not so much the risk of fracture I’m concerned about but the endless ‘Well if you’d listened to me…’ that would ensue.

So back to yesterday. By 15:00 I was feeling ghastly (you’ve got to say it out loud as well – you can’t just think it – it’s not the same), sickly, migrainey, wanting to nod off.  I had picked up a survey report to type, it’s quiet at the moment, it always is leading up to Christmas so I couldn’t pass it up and I slogged my way through it eyes closing, head in hands, head over the toilet bowl when I through  my salmon sandwich was about to do an encore.  I took some more painkillers and an anti-sickness tablet and at 17:00 I finished the report I took my screen break.  I lay down on the settee and nodded off for ten minutes and awoke feeling a bit better.  When I finished at work at 18:00 I was feeling much better and after a bath, more or less back to usual and had some tea.

I’ve had migraines since my teens but what I’ve found since my SCT holiday is that when I get them they don’t last for three days like they did and I don’t get as many but I do feel decided queasy.  I don’t think my stomach has ever quite recovered from the trip and when watching something gory on the TV it’s the first to lodge an objection to the point where I gag!  Isn’t that nice for you to know.

Anyhoo, here’s what I was able to finish last night…

Placemats (in case you were wondering – sorry if the odd angle gives you vertigo – I had to stand on a step to get them all in the pic and its a bit warped)

Felt and cotton decorations

And I do like to keep a tidy sewing space…

well normally, I do.  If I was an elf I’d be getting the elbow!

You know the old saying ‘the apple doesn’t fall far from the tree’ and I don’t think I need to say which ‘tree’ in particular.   At 17:34 B’s brother turned up with the Christmas presents – we call at theirs briefly on Christmas Day but that’s by the by – now B is an extrovert, he will talk to anyone and everyone, once on a bus in Edinburgh he had a whole conversation with an old bloke who then turned round and said ‘I cannae understand a wurd yur sayin lad’.  So the doorbell went and I thought ohhhh, maybe it’s my hair clippers, because I desperately need a haircut.  I ordered them last week before I ordered B’s Christmas present, a garden vac, which arrived on Monday but so far no sign of the clippers and I’m starting to look like Ken Dodd.  I didn’t think it was that obvious but B said this morning that if they don’t arrive he’ll see what he can do with it!  Oh yeah, back to the door bell, I was still working, so B answered it.  I didn’t hear enough of the voice at the door to recognise it as B’s brother and then B was shutting the door – I’ve had longer conversations with men delivering garden vacs!

Oh and a word to the wise – apparently it’s not big or clever and certainly not funny, following a conversation with one’s husband regarding provisions for his mother, to write on the shopping list…

A loaf for Mary (sounds like a fair swap to me)

Made – 18/29 with 1 days to go

Panic level up and down like a yo yo – 5 – 6 – 2* – 8 – 8.5 – 5/10 (*stuff it lets buy ’em)

Machine Embroidery

 

My second etsy mom from the baby shower was having a girl and said that her husband didn’t do pink or frilly and they liked bugs and nature.   I had originally thought having guidelines would have made it harder to decide what to do but it actually made it easier.

So I thought a fleece with machine embroidered bugs would be good however I decided to digitise a ladybird myself.  I don’t know why I even contemplated this.  Since getting my embroidery machine at least 10 years ago me and the software have never gelled.  I’m normally quite good with computer software but not this.   I once managed a paw print for a fleece for Auntie Ann’s dog Ben, that’s it in 10 years – a paw print.  However the software means that I can buy designs on-line, download to a card and pop it in the sewing machine.  This saves loads of money on the pre-programmed cards so although I can’t get to grips with it, the software was worth buying. 

The machine wasn’t exactly cheap even though it was reconditioned.  We were coming home from our first trip to Edinburgh and I’d found this sewing shop that was in the opposite direction, not by much, and persuaded B to take me there.  They were really good and gave demonstrations and ran me through how the machine worked.  The machine had been bought by a lady just before a newer model came out and she brought it back and part exchanged it for the new one, so it looked brand spanking new with all the manuals untouched.  This was also the day I realised that if I wanted to buy something in which B had absolutely no interest that all I needed to do was keep him in a shop long enough and price became the last thing on his mind.  ‘If you want it, you get it!’  looking longingly at the door.

One of the first designs I bought was from Vermillion Stitchery – these are really detailed cross stitch designs which do take a while to sew as they are very detailed and have loads of colour changes but they do look fantastic.

The site I got the bug designs (and the previous pencil toppers and bracelets) from is Embroidery Library and they are great.  The designs are available individually or in packs and they have tons of special offer $1.00 designs and free ones too. 

So after about five hours my heart shaped ladybird looked like a fly and who wants a fly on baby stuff?  (Although these pics do show the actual colour of the fleece perfectly.)

    

‘I know’ I thought ‘why don’t I just buy some and why didn’t I just do that in the first place?’ 

So here’s the finished fleece without a fly in sight…

I stitched the designs on seperate peices and then appliequed them onto the backing, with it being fleece there was no edge visible and the back side of it looked neat too, so I didn’t need to add another layer to hide the seams.