Stash p0rn!

I am incurable! Luckily I won't afford new stash before spring so this stash p0rn will stop for a while after ALL that stuff I have ordered arrives to this side of the pond... and that is quite a reasonable pile of stuff.

But, without further ado: stash!

I managed to snatch two BEAUTIFUL Solos from Silkweaver's Facebook sale. Or three. I am not sure is that brown one solo or a regular, but it is really pretty too. Chocolatey brown with slight, but noticeable variation.

And apparently they think that I am a good customer as I got an extra with the fabrics:

And naturally I have received yet another envelope from One Star's Light (liquidation sale is still on, -40% with TheLastHurrah in your shopping basket!)

I have hoarded those LHN chart packs as they are practically free! What I have paid doesn't even cover the price of the floss so I had no excuse to leave them at OSL. *grin*
But admittedly all this saving is rather expensive... Anyway, I also ordered some HDF silks for "For This Child..."

"Robin Egg" and "Dragon Hoard" and I think I'll choose dragon one as Tiny is a dragon AND that is FAR more pretty.
Now I just need to decide on fabric... like for every Crazy January Challenge 2013 project. Even for Flora McSample one as one of the flosses is exact match for the fabric. Or maybe I change the green floss.

And now I am off to stalk our postie, there is a lot of stash waiting to arrive and I am certain that postie holds my stash hostage and fondles it without my permission....

It's raining stash, hallelujah!

It is an illness, remember.

Won some pretties at eBay...

And then noticed that my favourite DVD shopping place also carries second hand cross stitch books (and there are no shippings charges to EU)!

Then I caved in when I saw some pretty fabric at Silkweaver's Facebook sale... this time I am quite pleased with the pieces. That small one is actually exactly like the one I used for Futurecast.

And then... my 52 backordered skeins of white Sullivan's floss came!

And I may have bought few skeins of GAST for Alter Echo v.2.0 from One Star's Light... and those L*K's to justify postages... or something. *grin*

Tablecloth under all this prettiness is one I made while studying my artisan degree. It was on the table when Tiny finally had his name publishing party (I don't go to why it was just before he turned 7 months, you probably guess) and I like it too much to wash it...

Stash!

One of my mottos seems to be: "When in hiatus, buy stash."

Actually I haven't been in a stitching slump, or not that big at least. Well, ok, in a tiny slump. Life got on the way big time, even though funnily enough I do still have quite nice amount of free time in the evening when Tiny's in bed (why wouldn't I, I have been alone with him since he was born so I am used to this) - excluding last few days. He has a phase... my excellent sleeper has begun to wake up around 10 or 11 pm and can't get back to sleep without drastic measures. In this case he has started to sleep outdoors even in the evenings, well packed into his sleeping bag in a manner that makes me wonder how my hotblooded son doesn't feel uncomfortable in there. That same boy who started to protest against winter gear in April when it was still snow... and he was barely 2 months old.

Babies, you will never learn to understand them.

First, some non-stitchy craft stash: felt applique patterns I found from eBay.

Tiny loves cats and seems to like owls so I bought these in case I ever get into sewing them. You never know.

Gnome (in here they are not elves) design kind of stuck from one Finnish auction site and the mag is from Finnish stash group from Facebook.

Then some lovelies from Silkweaver.

Both fabrics reminded me of something I heard few days ago about Silkweaver's quality nowadays and I have to agree. Greenish one is almost ok, it has some blotches on the other end though, but the blue is almost even in colour and I am quite sure that is not what the picture has been as I only buy hand-dyed fabrics when they look like hand-dyed.

Then there's two envelopes of lovelies from 1-2-3 Stitch! ("Christmas to Remember" sampler is from eBay).

I am still waiting for meager 52 skeins of that white Sullivan's and when they arrive I'll have some floss dye fun here at Casa Insane.
And I have to admit that I didn't quite read the info on the WDW I bought and it turned out to be perle... oh well, you never know when you will need some.

Pretty, ain't?

And then to do some dishes and then bake a ton of cinnamon rolls, I promised to bake them and take with me to one meeting (for us odd people who use cloth diapers for their kids ) tomorrow morning. Woman's work is never done...

Stash Stash Stash

As I am still lacking of actual stitching content it's time for another unblogged stash addition: more goodies from 1-2-3 Stitch! (We all love our stash anyway, don't we?)

I just see myself using that linen band for some ornaments... little this and that here and there and it will look fab!

When it comes to blog related stuff... there are certain things I won't post to public anymore for reasons disclosed some of these days in a friends-only post, so if you want to keep in touch with everything that is going with my life you will need a LJ username and get on my LJ friends list. (Of course I need to kno who you actually are too. Demanding, aren't I?)
Not that there are that many of those coming or already protected, but still. And you can never have too many usernames in various places, can you? *grin*

Gingerbread houses and other stashy things

Late birthday gifts are always the best, I think.

 

1-2-3 Stitch! accidentally doubled my other order and I received two accessory packs and 2 x two skeins of Orange Charcoal Valdani and since I haven't heard anything from them after emailing them on Saturday I am beginning to imagine that I can keep the things *knocks on wood*, which is, of course, more than ok with me, free stash (even more when we are talking of pricey accessory pack) is always good.

I actually got these few days ago, but then fell sick (for the first time ever Hubby got sick before me, hence I got the cold from Him) and lost my will to live blog (and stitch). Luckily only for three days, which was surprisingly short cold in my standards.

Last week of my vacation is slowly coming to an end and I am starting to panick as I haven't done even half the things I imagined I have time for. Though I also tend to demand too much of myself, as I (should have) know(n) that there is still over a week in every month when I regress despite the medication - and lately I have been in regression anyway as, no matter that I take 50% higher dose than I should, the thyroid medication level is still far from optimal.
I am beginning to think that I have once again proved that one should be careful what one wishes for as I have a nasty feeling that my thyroid really is quite close of actually "dying". Or maybe it is just the change of season as when it was +35°C I was feeling (almost) completely fine, whereas now that it is under +20°C my basal temperature has dropped over .5 degrees in one month and all the nasty symptoms are getting back - I am not saying that the medication hasn't been good, it has and in general I feel better than I did before the medication, but after tasting the life of a person with functional thyroid all the symptoms seem much worse when they return, basically just because the regression itself is a bit depressing (even I knew it was coming).
And now I have started to worry about the doc's appointment next week, even I know that my bloodwork was far away for being hyper or even good and even I know that my endocrinologist is known to prioritize symptoms before bloodwork.
The question is will he believe my view about the ideal dose for the winter or not.

It wasn't me...

... it was a pink elephant, called Lou, sitting on my right shoulder...

...and Lou went crazy at 1-2-3 Stitch! some time ago.

Twice, actually.

And as you may have noticed from the picture with floss I still have my turquoise period: I accidentally ordered five skeins of Weeks Dye Works' Blue Topaz.

"Ooops", in a good way.

And that scrumptious purple linen - also by WDW - is something I just had to buy because of the colour - and it is cheap(ish) too! (There was also a beautiful shipment of gorgeous earrings from KittyAndMe's Etsy store - but I will share them later, when I am able to get a decent picture of them.)

In other news: thyroxine seems to be working! ^^

Monopoly SAL is now kitted

Flosses and the replacement fabric for Monopoly SAL came today so I am technically ready to start - technically as I am way behind my model stitching and I have to get caught with it before starting.
While I was shopping for the flosses I also decided to buy few nice variegated ones just in case...

The original pattern is charted for DMC but I made an Anchor conversion to be able to avoid using DMC. Don't you just love the colours?

As you know, I justified again...

Few days ago I noticed that I had accidentally received two copies of 1993 Schooler Santa and I soon invented a cunning plan: I suggested my mother that she could learn to stitch using that pattern as it is rather easy and has Santa on it (you know my mother's love for them). I even promised to "kit" it for her.
Luckily I have some 18 count aida in case she finds evenweave too difficult to begin with so I can provide her some selection regarding the fabrics.

Let the converting begin!

Mania? What mania?

I realized last night (after shopping at Silkweaver's Odds & Ends ) what is behind my stash shopping mania: I am having a manic phase. I am not overly active, but I spend money uncontrollably, which is one of the symptoms of a manic phase.
Luckily my scheduled dosage decrease is after two weeks and now I realize the mania, which makes me quite sure of being able to control myself now.

Nicer things: designing

Since I started sertraline I have been completely uncreative, but I got a word play idea yesterday after browsing 1-2-3 Stitch! for hours (that is one of the reasons why I window shop: it gives indirect ideas) and to my surprise I remembered the idea when I woke up today.
So, after waking up I sat and played with my designing software and voilá! It came out as small-ish, cute Halloween design and with luck I have just the right fabric coming for it from Silkweaver (and coming to think of it I ordered load of GASTs from One Star's Light Needlework Supplies and I probably have most of the colours I need coming from there ).

And actual stitching...

Since Stitch-a-Thon I was bothered by the fact that The Mother only had half a face... so, I stitched her face enough to make her look like the beautiful woman she will be.

It's amazing how intricate her face is without any fractionals or backstitching (notice that there's still stitches lacking from her face).

In need of some S.E.X.?

Pop by at Violarium and get yourself some really limited edition hand-dyed fabrics! Which happen to be dyed by me.

Yawn

After 18 hours of sleep (after being awake 26 hours) one almost feels like a human being again. And adds ability to sleep on the list of Advantages of what-ever-drug they gave me at spirometry (even though I got an allergic reaction from it).
And I got another reason to dislike that GP. I spesifically said to him that I can not use medication with any kind of starch in them and this bright fellow prescribed me medicine which has... corn starch, my worst enemy.
I know that corn allergy isn't one of the common ones, but you could imagine that a doctor would believe the patient noticing that he does not know me. I can take it if our regular Jane and John Does don't understand that I really am allergic and don't choose what I put in my mouth just to be nasty, but this guy is an actual doctor... When it comes to Ventolin(e) either the dose could be bigger or I have to learn the finesses of discus, but at least I got no symptoms from it (unlike from Nasonex, my eyes are itching - known side-effect) and it's nice to breathe freely again.

Anyway, retail therapy... I stumbled upon fabric sale and came home with two plastic bags full of fabric (click the thumbnail as usual):

 

My reason to go into a fabric store was that little tan piece on the upper right, as I need it for model's lining. Others... well, they just wanted to come with me.
The blues on upper left were the expensive ones, but I couldn't leave them there... rest of the fabrics in the big picture were in One bag full of fabrics only for 10€ sale so I just picked up everything I thought could be useful for me or my mother. (That white webbed fabric for example will end up in dye pot and after that I will sew couple of airy home tops. Those flowery fabrics end up serve my shirt demo - and rest of them... who knows, they would be great curtains, for someone who likes lighter shades (like my mother).

That ant fabric (who could resist a black fabric with metallic red ants on it?! Even less when it was in One bag full of fabrics only for 10€ sale...)) will probably end up being something more comfortable, I actually can see it as a dressing gown, and there's so much of that fabric that rest will probably end up being nice, short, "airy" nightie... just to have a matching set, you know. *grin*

And the books: 'Dictionary of Jewish Biography' ($43.80?! I paid $16.5... and mine was bought from a Finnish store and they had to order it for me (odd thing for a sale book, don't you think?)) and 'Hand-stitched Boxes' ("List Price: $24.95", I paid ~$10, and this one had to be specially ordered too).
I have to say that based on short browse that box book is really worth those 7 euros it was in sale. Imagine book filled with instructions for several dirrently shaped and sized boxes made of fabric and there's instructions even to those beautiful sewing cube boxes I have been drooling all over 'net.