
Another little update of my stitches and life in general.
I’ve been working on Jack this week, but most of that’s not been on Jack himself but on the samplerish side-cloth where I’m testing out ideas:

I’ve sketched out the colours and fill ideas for each area, but it’s not till I’ve tried it with different threads, strands, textures that I know which one has the best chance of working. While stitching my last project, I spent a lot of time unpicking and re-doing areas. I don’t mind that so much, but having a side-cloth to test things on gives me more freedom to try variations side by side and compare them, and then choose the one I think will work best. I still foresee some unpicking, but hopefully less.
Anyway, I’m having fun with the side-cloth as well, so it’s all goof fun and learning.
Here’s where Jack is currently at:

I’ve settled on some larger fill areas now after playing on the side, so the next update should be a bit more colourful. Oh! And I did my first ever ‘laid work’ in the little blue triangle fill area, so I’m pretty proud of myself. π Even if it’s just a tiny bit, it was fun and something new. Jack might turn into a large sampler at this rate :-O
Out in the real world, we have a menagerie of creatures that inhabit (or visit) or bustling street: galahs, corellas, lorikeets, the occasional rosella, possums, bats… and over the last couple of weeks: ducks!

I love ducks. They aren’t very exotic, I know, but we don’t see them often, and these ones are so tame! I had to step over this guy when I was going for a walk. Crazy!
I’ve been hideously busy with work. I tripped to Sydney and back yesterday for two meetings. The meetings went well and aren’t worth relating here, but I had two hours between when I had some time to wander the city.
My first meeting was down near the water somewhere. I don’t know the area, but it was beautiful in the morning sun:

And then over the lunch break I wandered in the city centre.
The Strand arcade is beautiful:

And then I had lunch at QVB, and took a few photos, but this one is the prettiest:

And then off to my second meeting followed by a train to the airport and then home. It was a long tiring day.
I shared some of the silly patterns I’ve been making in my last post. I’m afraid to report that I’ve just been getting sillier and sillier with them. I borrowed a stylus from a friend, it’s made iOrnament a whole lot more fun π
Interleaving fours:

Girls with scarves and mittens (clearly the cold has been getting to me):

Cat faces:

Mooses (meese?):

Ducks. Or rabbits. Or rabbitducks:

That’s enough silliness from me π