Assisi table cloth.

My latest eBay win - Assisi cloths are not commonly found - I rarely see them here anyway, don't know about overseas. Detail of the lovely stitching.

Two opshop finds from a friend!

A good friend who also collects linen and tours opshops regularly, keeps an eye out for unfinished things for me (she doesn't stitch). She found these - this Fautleys doiley with cross stitch deer, one end nearly complete - and a Lanarte unstarted cross stitch kit.

UFO/WISP Challenge report for February.

Here he is...with a couple more of the fluffy white balls completed, and a mistake fixed! (a friend spotted a small area of colour which 'didn't look right', and when I checked the pattern, I could see where I had fudged it. Fortunately only half a dozen stitches to unpick and redo).

Two Centrepieces/large doilies

Here is one end of this lovely doiley. As usual, I didn't get around to ironing the creases out before I scanned this one!

Latest additions to the collection.

This is one end of the centrepiece of a duchess set. One of the matching doilies is here too.

What's on the go, and what's in the pipeline.

What is on the go, is my Indian Chief UFO. Late last year, I put my name down as a participant in a UFO/WISP challenge (UFO = Unfinished Object. WISP = Work In Slow Progress). My chosen project was the Indian, and now that I have completed my Valentine Heart for Nicole, I can go full steam ahead with the Indian. Today, being another day unsuitable for anything except staying inside with both airconditioners working overtime, I phoned my friend L. to invite her over here to do some stitching. L. lives in a house that has no airconditioning, and a steel deck roof like ours, which means the indoors temperature on a day like today can be up to 35 deg.C - very uncomfortable. She is an occasional cross stitcher, i.e. only when I am around to motivate her! So she was happy to spend the day here and stitch along with me in between cold drinks and cups of tea.
What's in the pipeline is a photo or two of some lovely doilies I received from my friend M. in Queensland, who happened to mention my passion for linen to her local Vinnies lady. I said I would happily pay the cost plus postage, and last week unannounced, I received a COD package, which at first I was going to refuse, but when the post office staff told me who the sender was, I twigged - M.'s Vinnies friend had found some linen!
It is not far off midnight as I type this, and still dreadfully hot and steamy (it rained for a few seconds earlier), and I just can't get up enough energy to scan the Indian and my new doilies, but at least I've written about them so you can expect piccies here in the next day or so.

Valentine Heart Swap for Nicole.

I hope Nicole doesn't see this before she receives it - otherwise it will spoil the fun of unwrapping a mystery exchange gift! This is what I stitched for Nicole for the Valentine Heart swap.

New links on the sidebar (unrelated to stitching.)

The trouble with surfing the Internet is the more you look, the more you find. The same applies to blogs, to the point where sometimes you lose track of old favourites because you are finding so many new ones all the time! I love cooking and cookbooks, and there are some wonderful foodie blogs around the world, including this one by Miss Eagle of opshopping-with-Gina-fame. Do have a look - Miss E. is a whiz with her digital camera, and I have begged to accompany her on her next trip to George's Food Hall in Melbourne.....YUM....

Announcement regarding Swap Cards Blog.

Yup. I have finally got around to creating another blog to show my swap card collection to those who have asked about it. I have named it Patra's Swap Card Collection for obvious reasons and you can find it here.

Goals and lists...

Chelle has written a lengthy piece on her blog about making lists and setting goals. I'm like Chelle, in that I love to organise stuff (see my post about organising other people's pantries, on Patra's Other Place on Jan.12th)), and I am also a List Person. I could not survive in the supermarket without a shopping list; in fact if I get there and have left my list behind, I get right back in my car to go home and get it!
I have kept a record of my stitching on my PC as well as on Webshots, so if my PC crashes, at least the information will be out there in cyberspace so I can find it again! But I do want to create some kind of a written/picture journal as well, and I started to do that with a spiral notebook. Couldn't get organised enough to go far with that, but I recently thought of creating an index card file, one card for each project. I could put a photo on one side, and the details on the other. Mmmm...give me another six months to find the time to actually do it.
As for goal setting: again, I had a notebook in a bag with my current stitching projects, with all the things I was committed to doing last year (and the year before). It worked to a degree, I suppose - I checked it now and again to remind myself of the dates things had to be finished by, and I crossed them off as I finished them. But I like Chelle's idea of doing a spreadsheet thing on the computer! Now all I need to do is take a course at our Living & Learning Centre on how to create spreadsheets and all that stuff!

Crinoline lady centrepiece

This is one end of a centrepiece I found in an antique shop last weekend while we were away. I showed it to some friends yesterday and one of them asked if it was patchwork! She didn't realise the orange dress is made up of tiny individual stitches.

Our IKEA DVD cabinet.

It is probably not everyone's idea of storage for DVDs etc. but it suits us perfectly, especially our budget. We could have gone down the track of our friends who have had really stunning shelves and cabinets custom made, but well over the $1000 mark which is way out of our price range. As you can see by the picture, the DVDs sit end up so we can read the title. Each drawer holds about 100, and three drawers are full, with the fourth one half full.

New apron for my collection.

This cute apron arrived via eBay yesterday. As I had nobody to model it for me, I had to tuck it into the chest of drawers to photograph it. Now that I know how to work my digital camera, you can expect to see more photos of the larger items in my collection that I have not been able put on here previously. In fact, I think I might set up a few separate blogs for different items, as once I get going, there are going to be literally hundreds of photos. My ultimate goal is to create a kind of online museum of my collection, as I will never have the money to set them up physically in a building of any kind for people to visit.
My ideas for categories are (1) Aprons (2) Tablecloths (3) Teacosies (4) Duchess sets (5) Table runners (6) Doilies and other small items. I could also create blogs for themes, as I did for Peacocks. Crinoline Ladies is the first category that comes to mind, but here I have a dilemma; I have them on every kind of linen item in the collection! So, for instance, my "Aprons" wouldn't be a complete set of Aprons if I didn't include the ones with crinoline ladies on....help! Well, it's all in the thought process stage so far, so any suggestions will be greatly appreciated. Incidentally - Nicole, I haven't forgotten you wanted to see more of my swap cards! That will be ANOTHER blog...

More opshop finds..

This time, it is a pair of cross stitched vintage cars - perfectly stitched on fine Aida, mounted and ready for framing. What went wrong then? Why did they end up at the op shop for 50 cents each?? Well, if the person who stitched these gorgeous little pictures is reading this, be reassured that your work has found a loving home. I am going to have them framed, and they will hang in the gallery in my linen room. Just wish I could put a name to them.

Duchess set

I found this duchess set at the local Salvation Army opshop. It goes perfectly with our dressing table, which is dark woodgrain veneer, so that's where it is right now!

Little Christmas bonus!

I think most of us have friends who we only see occasionally, and swap Christmas cards with every year, writing the same message year in, year out: "Hope to catch up with you in the new Year!" Well, one of my 'occasional' friends always pops a little surprise in with her Christmas card to me, and this year it was this beautiful handkie with my initial embroidered on it! This friend doesn't have a computer, so it is no use me thanking her publicly here, as she will never see it! But I still wanted to put it on my blog as an example of old fashioned embroidered handkerchief.

Magazines from Pam.

Goodies from Amy.

Lots of goodies arriving from Blogger Friends!

In the last month or so, I have been receiving some lovely surprises in the mail from some of my Internet friends, and tonight I decided to get down to business and scan as much as possible to show off what I have. There was one item I couldn't scan because I ate it....Yes - you read it right, and that is not a typing error! Ashleigh from Holland sent me a piece of her Christmas cake after I sent her some of mine. It arrived today and I had it with my cuppa tonight after dinner. Ash, it was delicious! Thank you so much, that was fun. Ken was watching me and said "Isn't it stale, coming all that way around the world?" Men...
OK, let's have a picture show. Firstly, Amy (who was here in Oz last year) sent me a parcel of lovely things in return for a parcel of Tim Tams and other Aussie chocolate delights I had sent her. She sent some gorgeous hand embroidered runners, a dozen embroidered handkies, some lace hearts, and three magazines including a copy of Sampler & Antique Needlework Quarterly pictured here. I have been after a copy of this since I've seen them mentioned on some American blogs - you can't buy them here (not that I'm aware of anyway). Thanks again, Amy!
Pam Kellogg and I have been doing a deal with magazines too. She loves one of our Aussie craft magazines, so I sent her a few of them last year, and have some more to mail off shortly. In return she has sent me several Christmas themed cross stitch mags, this lovely "Happy Holidays In Cross Stitch" book, as well as the new Zweigart magazine "At Home With Needlework". I haven't seen any of them here either, so I am tickled pink to be getting them, as the Zweigart mags in particular are simply stunning, as well featuring many of Pam's own designs! Thanks again to you too, Pam!

Happy New Year!