It reached 38.1C today in Adelaide - just as we were leaving the Guild after the Counted Sashiko class. The sunflower responded well, but will need a big drink tomorrow morning.
I was pretty well organised this morning. I found the interfacing, wadding and cotton I needed for the class and made my thermos of coffee.
Before I went to bed last night I had worked out that my magnetic needle keep was exactly the diameter of the end required for the project. Rather than cardboard to stiffen the ends, I used the plastic from a milk bottle and traced them out.
My first job at the class was to do the row of double back stitch all around. It took me well over an hour. I realised I had used the stitch before and it does make a good sharp edge. 
By the end of the class, I had the lining in and the ends ready to stitch together.
It was another good class. Carol worked hard, visiting each student individually to explain things and check on work. Carol gets excited to see the variety of projects. Everyone's is really different. Many are working on samplers, but they are all very different. It is, in my view, a testimony to how good a teacher Carol is. She really teaches to individuals.
There is also a really good atmosphere in the class - cooperation and sharing - even laughter!
At home after the class I stitched the lining to the main piece and the end circles together. Again, it took a while, stitching between each of the back stitches.
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I am pleased with the result. I could easily not have worked out. The red fabric could have been a disaster. I even think it will be useful for taking perle cottons to classes at the Guild - a not infrequent requirement.
Oddly, working the Counted Sashiko led me to think about Alan Garner's The Owl Service. My brother planted the seed several months ago when I was embroidering the Owl bag. He commented "She wants to be flowers, but you make her owls'. I hadn't thought of that for decades. For those who have not read the book, it takes the Mabinogion story of Blodeuwedd, a woman made from flowers, and creates a modern parallel. Garner was inspired by a plate he found, designed by Christopher Dresser (1834-1903), part of Dresser's Owl Dinner Service..
This example of the plate is held in the Dorman Museum in Middlesbrough.
Counted Sashiko led me back to this by the way the design shifts dramatically when you add, for example, a diagonal row, or remove a component of the geometric design. It alters what we see quite dramatically, and produces an entirely different pattern.
It led me to reflect that we choose how we see things, how we represent things and what we focus on. In Counted Sashiko this results in a wide range of patterns on both the front and back of the fabric, some quite floral, some flowing, some rigidly geometric.We choose.
Garner's full comment in The Owl Service is
"She wants to be flowers and you make her owls.
You must not complain, then, if she goes hunting."
This is a metaphor for many things in our society. It is a message that needs retelling in every age.
I'm thinking I might try embroidering the pattern of the plate with the words in the centre for the upcoming Guild Exhibition themed 'Nature by needle'.
Perhaps my encounters with doves have infiltrated my brain.
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