Stenciling along...

Well, I rashly agreed to sign up for a stencil-along challenge over at Hoppo Bumpo.

"Yay, this is really exciting! I love stencils", I thought.

And then I got busy. Really, really busy. Tired, sore feet and down-at-the-corners-of-my-mouth busy, with job hunting. Applications and networking and emails and phone calls and endless scouring of job ads, and more soul searching, and lots of shadow-boxing at the gym (okay, maybe not lots, but enough to make me grin a bit again). It's no secret that the job hunting game is depressing, and I'm starting to find it hard. I hate admitting it, but it's just the way things go.

A bit of stenciling did happen in between everything else, and generally in short bursts late at night, and I'm almost ready to reveal what I've made. See, I had to keep the lid on it till October because it's for Posted Stitches.

So, what does a girl do when she's blue? Well, today I bought some shoes. That counts. And chocolate - I splurged on one single raspberry milk chocolate cream from Haigh's, Melbourne city. Yuuuum. And the gym (dancing and very silly boxing). And last night, some tea and stitching on the sofa. Tonight I have a big urge to watch Howl's Moving Castle for approximately the 63rd time. If anyone's looking for me with fabulous job offers this evening - I'm on the sofa.



Okay, so back to the stencils. I struggled with the freezer paper, folks. I was wondering what on earth I was doing wrong, and then... it struck me... I haven't got freezer paper - I've got a slightly different product! So now I'm a shadow-boxing, blue, dim-witted dingbat. Doh. Just crossed wires, really, as they sell a wider range of Reynold's papers in Canada, and somehow we discussed the wrong one. I didn't keep the box, so I hadn't realised until today, when - Bam! - I worked it out. Time to find some real freezer paper before trying again.

In the meantime, two yummy books have crossed my path and have been gobbled up:

- The Lollipop Shoes, by Joanne Harris. This is the sequel to Chocolat, and it's damn fine for cold evenings and for pulling you out of your troubles into the swirly, spangly, slightly suspenseful world of the witches of Montmartre. Get a shawl and some fuzzy slippers before you start this, because you'll be up late!

This one's still in the process of being 'gobbled':
- Things to Make and Mend, by Ruth Thomas. I picked this up on Sunday at BookTalk Cafe on Swan Street (about which more anon), no doubt attracted by the stitching theme. The main character is an embroidery artist who works in a quick mending shop. So far, so good. And I love the fact that someone actually embroidered the cover - Faber and Faber logo and all - which is photographed for the book!

So here's a sign-off from me, the footsore stencil flop with a sitting up late reading penchant. I'm sure I'll be back on cheerful form soon to tell you all about my adventures and the tiniest bit of progress that I managed to make on the Summery Quilt this week.