Post 130 flannel flowers, friends and food.

I went to Frewville Foodland late this morning to get fruit, the ingredients for my muesli as well as parsley and a lemon to make the gremolata for my lamb shanks.

It's such a pleasant place to shop - both in terms of the range of products, and the layout, with plenty of space to move and look.

My only gripe is that they have no grapes.  While I accept their argument that the season has finished, and they are not importing from California this year, Metropolitan Fresh at North Adelaide is still selling grapes from Menindee in NSW.

News from Watford
I had a lovely long email from my friend Christine in Watford waiting when I woke up this morning. I was thinking of her yesterday when I heard  news of the opening of hairdressers in England.  I knew she would be ready to go.

Here's her hair story.

First the hair cut - today was ‘Independence Day ‘ in England - at last some lifting of restrictions but only in England - and haircuts at last (some hairdressers opened at midnight and are working two shifts of staff to cope)- I knew there would be little hope of an appointment at my hairdressers for a while so had already asked my neighbour down the road (a retired hairdresser who still did some cutting for friends and relatives) if she would add me to her ‘client list’

So we had an appointment in my garden (to cut down on risks ) with face masks on as well this morning. We had to put my kitchen chair in my side alley to have an electric point available for her clippers and I flung my sports towel around my shoulders and off we went - very al fresco - we both agreed it felt very world war 2 like as if I was having a haircut on a bomb sits after the blitz - but it worked and I am 90% happy with the result until I can get an appointment with my usual hairdresser in a couple of months time and she has earned some useful money - she has a long list of relatives visiting her garden next week and is visiting two elderly friends in their gardens as well for haircuts

 In addition, Christine has been working on a project from Hazel Everett's Gold Work book.

In Christine's words:

The butterfly is about 3 inches across and being worked on ultra suede ready to be cut out when finished and mounted in a 3 D way - so getting there with the chipping now with all the pp edging work complete

Lovely, isn't it? 

Unmentionable
This is another project I worked on over the last few weeks. It was a gift for a friend whose birthday is today, so I didn't want to give the game away by talking of it in this blog.  The hand-towel is about  45 cm x 90 cm. Pink isn't the colour of my first choice, but at the moment my choice is limited.  The cross stitch design for the flannel flowers - Actinotus helianthi - is from Gillian Souter's book of Australian Cross Stitch.


Flannel flowers, for those who are not Australian,  are so called because the petals look and feel like flannel - almost wooly.  They are native to the Sydney area, where my friend and I first met aged 10. They are creamy white with a tinge of grey-green. The flower is 5cm across.



It was fairly slow work on the aida panel - the crosses are much smaller than is initially obvious.









After the first motif, I thought I might cheat and only embroider a single flower in the centre.

However, after finishing the left hand spray I changed my mind. It was working so well it needed the full thing to do justice to the design.


Only way to go.






So satisfying.





The lamb shanks were successful.

I made fair progress on the ribbon on the Oranges. I also tidied up the rope stitch stems.  While it will be great to block this and attach it to my chair, I shall be sorry to finish it. It has been such a rewarding, pleasurable project to stitch.