DSC_0026, originally uploaded by Nordie.

I’ve been putting some time in whilst waiting (still waiting!) for an engineer to turn up.  Of course it’s gone 6:30 in the evening and he still hasnt turned up, and I had to take a day off to wait for him.  Gah!

The cross stitch is still a work in Progress, but I’m getting there. It’s now at the stage I hate, where there are little stitches here and there that need to be done, followed by the rest of the back stitching. I hate it because I’m always chopping and changing, and no matter how often I think I’ve checked, I always find a rogue stitch missing somewhere!

And sorry for the apparent shake of the image – for some reason my camera is playing up and refusing as often as not to take a picture.

So Christmas day has come and gone, and it’s now Boxing Day/St Stephen’s day. Therefore it MUST be the sales, right?!

I havent gone to the Bricks and Mortar shops yet, that comes later when I return home. I’ve had a quick look around on the internet, havent seen anything I like as yet. Did go onto one cross stitch site, who do have a sale on, but no threads and none of the charts that I would fancy getting are in their sale. I have enough to be going on with, so it stops me buying I suppose!

Ebay will be a good place to be loitering for a whole range of things for the next few weeks or so, as people get rid of the things they got but didn’t want. I’ve just been on there, and the lenses for digital cameras still seem to be a little expensive – I’m sure I can pick up the same thing for a similar price on the high street, and not have to pay postage and insurance from the US either. I’ll think I’ll wait for those as I’m in no big rush for extra lenses.

Out of curiosity, I was just looking at the “Completed cross stitch” section, and the starting prices seem to vary quite a lot – one item 3.5 X 7.5 inches has a starting bid of $20, which is nothing really in sterling (although the item is quite small). I dont know if I could ever sell something like this on ebay……..although there is of course etsy.com

I’ve had one of my photographs of Birmingham (titled “Iron Man“), accepted into the 4th edition of the Schmap Guide to Birmingham. Quite chuffed in a way, as it’s the first thing of mine to be included in anything.   Photo was originally posted to flickr, which is where they found it  and contacted me for permission.  Don’t get paid for it, but that’s no real bother

OOOOh!  I’ve just found another potentially dangerous website for me!

It’s called Blurb, and it’s one of the websites that can make books out of your photographs, blogs etc. I had thought about making one up of all the photos for my brother’s wedding as a Christmas present, but realised that perhaps I dont have enough to show the whole thing (e.g. I dont have copies of my family photos) which is a bit of a shame.  Now I have to think of other things to print!

I was tidying up my flickr contacts the other day, and I dont know where I found her, but I really like the photos of Carrie Musgrave, a Canadian freelance photographer. As someone who has had a mixed fortune with taking photos at music gigs, I am very jealous of her ability to get great photos of musicians in full flow. Her flickr album is here

By some fairly random clicking of buttons I also found Dave Gorman, who takes some really rather good photos. Certainly a talented photographer, I must keep going back and checking his work to get some kind of inspiration

I met Annulla – a New Yorker and a 9/11 survivor – quite a few years ago now. To my shameI cant remember if it was before or after the twin towers came down. In fact, I’ve just gone looking for her blogger account (I get the occasional livejournal update from her) and have found she’s moved over to wordpress! Yay!