Post 216 Rain, Knots, Scanning and Rosella

 The Rosellas appeared to know the rain was coming about an hour before it arrived. There was a fair bit of bird activity and this rosella alighted for a decent feed.Within an hour it was bucketing down and there was no sign of a bird anywhere. I had a plan to go to Frewville for a few supplies and lunch, but gave up.

Early in the day I finished off the first tassel and attached it to the embroidered mat. Now I have some  I  idea  of what I am doing I got up a bit of a rhythm and finished it without hassle. It just takes time.  I began the second tassel and worked out a bit of a system - preparing the strings of knots in lots of 80 but not cutting or assembling the lengths until I have the four sets of 80 necessary for one tassel. One you reach 80 knots on the thread there is a greater chance of the thread tangling.  After the second set of knots I made them in sets of 40 knots - the number in each of 8 bundles in each tassel.  Altogether i made 1000 knots before beginning to assemble the tassels.

I rook a break to prepare the next lot of photos for scanning. I am about to tackle the 1990s - the decade for which I have the most printed photos. It is a bit sobering and confronting to find how much I have forgotten. Photos, of course, act as an aide memoire, but there are some people and events for which I have no memory at all. There is also sometimes the question of whether I could have done that better. I now have piles ready to scan and some to throw away.

Speaking of memory, my brother and sister-in law are currently hoidaying on the NSW north coast, near the town where as children we spent a holiday each year from the ages of about 7 or 8 until I went to high school.  Our father had two weeks holiday a year. He took them in March, took us out of school and hired a clocottage where we swan and our parents fished. One ritual was a visit to65 a nearby town, where our parents fished from the shore while we explored the rock pools. One year we were promised a visit to the cinema around the corner from their fishing spot at the the end of the day. However, I fell over in mud while playing and got mud on my clothes, so the cinema was cancelled. Today my brother sent me a photo of the cinema, which is still there - and looks very much the same! I hope he goes to see see one of the movies currently showing to make up for the one he missed some 65 years ago!  

The knots provide a steady focussed rhythm and a product at the end that is very reassuring and predictable, for the moment at least. I have no doubt I will not remember how to do these in a few months time. But at this stage I have no plans for making more of them! I had hoped to have the four tassels finished before posting this blog tonight, but I'm also trying to post it by 11pm, so I have to make do with two tassels finished and two to assemble in the morning. 

I still do not like the new Blogger tools but I am adapting to what is possible. For those of us who use photographs with text as a way of blogging this is nowhere near as good as the old interface. I am not the only one complaining! I  have also not found a way to review the whole post as it will appear in a browser, so again, apologies for any layout glitches.