Post 274

Driving home from the Guild’s Certificate Course Workshop this afternoon with ABC Classic FM on my car radio, I heard Yvonne Kenny singing Martini’s Plaisir D’amour and was transported back about 60 years to an open air twilight concert in Hyde Park Sydney with my father and hearing it sung by, if memory serves me, Rosemary Hocking. I was used to hearing my father’s opera records - even sometimes on the beach 200 metres from our house but I had never heard anything as sad and beautiful as that song surrounding me as we sat on the grass in the gathering dark. I haven’t been able to find any trace of Rosemary Hocking  online but there are a few musical Hockings. The song still overwhelms me with its longing.

At today's class there was a pause to acknowledge the achievement of Jean, who has completed the Certificate Course. Her final submission was the quilt displayed on the back wall of the Gallery.

Today's workshop was on Large Cross Stitch Projects - meaning projects that have up to 60 pages of charts , up to 260 different colours and no fabric uncovered by stitches.

I am never going to work one of these projects, but I learned quite a lot of useful things from this workshop. The first tip was about how to draw up a grid - and the imperative to do so. It took me a few attempts before I got the grid right, but I got there.

We also looked at different techniques for keeping ordering and keeping track of work. In this example I was using five needles, each threaded with a different colour and worked one line at a time, parking the threads when not in use.

In this one I was using one needle, which I rethreaded with different colours. I worked across a 10x10 thread space, colour by colour.

There are techniques that work across large blocks of squares.

I don't intend to take this any further. but I am very pleased to have attended today.I'm sure I will use what I learned somewhere along the way.

Back at home I worked a couple more oak apples. I might finish this panel tomorrow.

What's left to do requires more attention than I can give it while talking so I didn't take it with me when I went to dinner at Katherine's. 

Instead I decided to prepare and set up a panel of Sashiko, hoping it would progress quickly. I backed the fabric with a form of interfacing and a square of cotton before starting to stitch. 

I didn't quite finish it tonight but don't have far to go. I'll finish it tomorrow and talk about what I'm planning to do with it.

Susan Monk's death notice was in today's paper.

I had a phone call from my friend Carolyn to let me know Wednesday morning's Mozart at Elder concert has been cancelled in the light of our Covid outbreak. We both admitted to being relieved. Neither of us feels very inclined to venture too far out of our current bubble.

Niamh and Veronica are being confirmed tomorrow morning at a 9.00 am service. As it's after midnight, I'd better get to bed!