Post 199

I read a few more chapters of The Bird Way this morning, the section on Play, which deals mainly with ravens and Kea, both of whom display extensive, but different, play behaviour. I think the author would have benefitted from discussions with early childhood educators.

I stopped reading to finish the first round of the Caterina embroidery project.  I did quite a bit of unpicking. It is so easy to make a one thread error on such loose weave fabric. I’m quite excited about the next stage of this, which amounts to whipping to fill in the gaps between the running stitches.

My major goal for the day was to get a start on scanning the rest of my 1980s photos. It took me more time than I’d hoped to work out how to operate the flatbed scanner with the new operating system on my laptop. It’s a bit of a messy process, even without the challenge of software and storage.

I eventually got 35:photos scanned from one of our Heysen trail walks and a visit Tom the Great Ocean Road.

It takes longer to scan using the flatbed than it did with the PhotScan App but the result is better.

I have been researching the most recent scanners. Choice  recommends a batch scanner which retails in Australia for around $660. It does sound efficient although there are a few reports of jamming and quality lower than traditional flatbeds. It’s tempting when there are several thousand photos to scan.



On balance I decided to continue with the one I have and see how I go.

There was lots of bird noise around this afternoon but I didn’t see the perpetrators. The ‘black’ geranium has enjoyed the rain which got heavier as the day wore on. It looks like a wet day tomorrow.

Dinner at Katherine and Anthony’s tonight. Both Katherine and I got a bit of knitting done

I managed a little test of the second round on the Caterina project.

I’m not at all sure I don’t prefer it without the gaps filled! 

Post 198 Laptop, scanner, Yeh!

It didn’t go below 28C overnight last night. In my Sleepy Merino pyjamas, even though they are supposed to be comfortable in Summer as well as Winter, I think this might apply to the regular 100gsm products, not to the 200 gsm nightshirt I was wearing.  Consequently I opened my blind at sunrise.

The young dove arrived , but is too nervous to stay if I open the door. I put out some seed and he/she returned a bit later to sample it.

I was due to pick up Jennifer for SitnStitch at 12.30 . I rang the Apple Centre at Norwood late in the morning to check how they were going with my computer and scanner. They were still working on it. As I wanted it for this blog tonight, I either had to pick it up before I picked up Jennifer, or late this afternoon after I’d dropped her home. When they rang me around midday to say it was ready I rushed off to get it - much better than having it on my mind all afternoon and a deadline at the end of the day.

It delayed me picking up Jennifer  by 25 minutes,. The laptop is tidied up,  has an up to date operating system and connects to the scanner. Yeh!  The staff were helpful and took care to explain what had been done and how to use the new interface.  It’s a relief to have it back and working. I’ll try the scanner out tomorrow.

Susan made cheese scones again - fabulous! There was lots to catch up on. Jennifer is getting about a bit. She is still having dizzy spells . She worked today on cutting out the background fabric to mount her COVID embroidery. It’s going to look amazing.

When I got home, three young men were exercising in the Square. One was practising tight-rope walking on a band stretched between two trees about a metre off the ground. He got on to it by jumping from the ground. He fell off a lot, but kept practising until he stayed on and kept going.









The lorikeets were out in force in the evening. The trees are beginning to bud, obviously very attractive to the nectar-seeking birds.












Now I have my laptop back I can publish a couple of the shots I took yesterday of the Rosella.

The succulent flowers are also coming along nicely.

As I’ve been writing this I’ve been (half) watching Gardening Australia which ran a story on the stobie pole art in Rosetta St . I wasn’t fast enough to photograph the screen. For those not in South Australia, stobie poles are an Adelaide invention. Because there was not much timber in Adelaide, a man named Stobie invented replacement for wooden telegraph poles, by using two discarded railway tracks with concrete between them.

In the 1980s community projects engaged artists to paint the poles.  The practice continues. Gardening Australia covered the poles and the community plantings in the streets streetscapes of the Charles Sturt Council area.

Altogether, a productive and satisfying day. I progressed my knitting  and the Caterina mat but not enough to take photos. My early start is catching up with me!

Post 197 Missing my laptop

Today’s post is short on photos. This morning I took my laptop and scanner to Macworld Norwood and left it with them to fix the scanner connection. After a bit of an inspection the issue seems to be the need to update the operating system on the laptop. They were hoping to have it done today but that hasn’t happened. Hopefully it will be done tomorrow.

While I can compose and post a blog from my phone or iPad, I can’t control the layout or the size of photos so will limit what I post. Usually I shape my narrative around photos. Can’t do that today.

Myrtle turned up this morning and shared seed with her shadow. Turtle turned up later in the day. 

I dashed from Norwood across town to Pilates, then did a bit of fruit and veg shopping at North Adelaide. 

The builders have dug a pit where previously they put in cement columns. Mystery to me.

As I was bringing in the washing late in the afternoon the Adelaide Rosella was announcing his presence from the nearby tree. I got some photos in my SLR but can’t download them until my computer is back.

It still feels like a Friday. After years of Pilates on Friday it’s going to take a while to adjust.

I had a phone catch up with my brother and progressed the Caterina project.

This is fairly slow progress but I can see the open, lacey effect emerging.

Hopefully I will have my computer back tomorrow and can resume formatting photos.

Post 196 WES Group, scanning and birds

I was up relatively early to get organised for the World Embroidery Study Group meeting this morning. We were discussing Icelandic Embroidery and I had books, a PowerPoint presentation, my thermos of coffee and my Icelandic Endless knot bag to take to the meeting.

While getting ready I noticed Myrtle and a young dove on the balcony, the young one coming quite close to my glass door. which was open with the screen door pulled across. This was the best I could do to photograph the new bird. I reckon it is the young adolescent that Myrtle and Turtle chased away a couple of months ago. I reckon it could be their last year's fledgling now accepted as sufficiently adult to forage here. There may be other explanations. It will be interesting to see how it develops.

Incidentally, those delicious looking grapes I bought on Monday have not lived up to their promise - good looking sour grapes!

We had a very good WES Group meeting; nine of us, two new to the group. We had a Covid Marshal and tables are set out to ensure we stay 1.5 metres apart. It's a good arrangement and everyone cooperates. Out Icelandic embroider discussion was, in one member's word 'inspiring'. Lori had worked her own design using the two most used traditional Icelandic stitches, long-armed cross stitch and eyelet stitch in perle cotton. As Lori pointed out, these stitches, but particularly the long-armed cross, are great solid filling stitches.

Margaret is working a much finer version of the Endless Knot design, also interesting.

Barbara brought along a number of Korean wrapping cloths she had made several years ago. The large on is for wrapping a table!

These are machine stitched with a particular  narrow enclosed seam.

Back at home I attempted a bit more scanning. After I'd scanned 30 photos, the app ceased to scan. Eventually I looked for a solution online and discovered this is a common fault of the app. After 150 or so scans it frequently crashes. At least I got 233 photos out of it! The solution is to remove the scanned photos from the device you are using, delete and reload the app and then continue.  This is disappointing. Not sustainable for the number of photos I am dealing with. There is also a fair bit of discussion about the quality of the scans compared to a flatbed scanner.

So I gave in. I rang the Apple service shop at Norwood and asked if they would remove old drivers from my laptop, check the connection to my flatbed scanner and either restore the connection or let me know that it is no longer compatible and suggest an alternative. If I can drop the laptop and scanner in tomorrow morning they will do their best to have it sorted by the afternoon for me.
Nothing like doing it properly!

Late in the afternoon I heard the tell-tale cooing. There on the back balcony was the young dove again. Curiouser and curiouser.

It flew away, of course. I then noticed the unfolding aloe.






















On the front balcony this morning I noticed that the native bush I bought a couple of years ago at an Australian native plants expo  is finally blooming. It is labelled as a Meuller's Daisy but doesn't look very daisy-like. I'll check it again tomorrow to see if the flowers change shape as they open.


This evening's work on Caterina has progressed the project. The thread count, however is out by two threads as I reach the centre line. so I will need to track the error tomorrow when I am less tired and have daylight.

Post 195 Mostly photos

Today's goal was to buy photo archive boxes and begin to organise the photos I am scanning. I had found the boxes online at a company called Albox, in Manton St Hindmarsh, not far from where we lived for 30 years.

I drove past it at first. It is buried in a complex under the (literal) banner of Signarama - a franchise of sign makers. Preview plastics is also located there.  Compatible businesses.

The polypropylene box is what I had hoped, and they also make polypropylene dividers.

The reception area of the complex is full of signs - mostly about about Covid. This seems to be another of the minority of industries whose products have been in demand as a result of the pandemic.








I bought four boxes and four sets of dividers to get me started and enable me to work out what I will need.

From there I went to Norwood to pick up the last two books I had ordered for last week's birthdays.

While there were people about, and the car park pretty full, it did not seem crowded.



The weather was dull and overcast,  nowhere near as warm as yesterday.





Back at home I labelled dividers for the 203 photos I have scanned so far and placed them in a box to see how much space they occupied. They take up no more that 20% of the box, so I think the box will hold at least 1000 photos.

Next I went through all my photo albums and sorted them, putting sticky labels on the spine to help me. As I expected, there is another whole album covering the 80s.  Since I began here I have opted to scan this album next.  I removed all its photos   - about 310 in all.

I think I can cull some of these as I go. Some scenic shots, and the terrible photos of birds I attempted to take can go. There are, however, many memories amongst these photos. There are also a couple of documents that I will need to accommodate.

So I calculate this first box will hold at least two decades- but will chew up the dividers.

Now I can dispose of two albums.


I set the photo organising and scanning aside when the sun set and shifted to embroidery. I realised tonight that the name 'Serenity' which appears on the cover of Inspirations along with this project, refers to the Issue and not this project, which is called Caterina. I need to amend my blog post references to it.

I am beginning to get the hang of Caterina. It requires constant checking of thread counts and the relationship of each part, but it's possible to do this as you go.

I'm encouraged by completing the first round of the outside row for one quadrant - essentially a quarter of the stitching for one quarter of the mat!

Tomorrow the World Embroidery Study Group meets to discuss Icelandic Embroidery- should be interesting.

Post 194 Warm and windy

I went shopping at Frewville this morning for bread and a few snacks for the kids this afternoon. They had Australian grapes - not sure where from. I'm guessing Stanthorpe in Queensland. They look fabulous.















It was very warm and windy - a good drying day as my mother would have said. I washed all my merino trousers, possum wool socks and a jumper. I tried to capture them blowing around, but without a lot of success. It was good to open the apartment up and get a breeze right through.

The daisy I bought the other day is opening up beautifully. I love the pointy petals as the flowers first open. So crisp.


Niamh came around 1pm from the orthodontist where she'd had her bands fitted and the others arrived singly throughout the afternoon. Very relaxing for me.

I scanned most of the rest of the 1980s photo album - adding 69 more. I have about half a dozen left to scan, ring-ins that don't belong to the 1980s. The app is proving successful. It doesn't have an edit function for improving the quality of photos so that needs to be done separately.

I phoned an archival box manufacturer in Adelaide this afternoon and they have the photo storage boxes I want so I shall call there tomorrow. In the meantime, however, I can dispose of one empty photo album!

I did not get out of bed this morning when the coo-ing started, but I did put seed down as soon as I was up.

Turtle visited this afternoon and devoured quite a bit. He seems to have a feather out of place - or ruffled - but behaved normally.

This evening I managed to work another pattern repeat on the Serenity project. It is still tricky and requires concentration.  Fortunately I have seen (at least once) the episode of Midsomer Murders I've been watching at least once and can afford to concentrate on the stitches!





It will, I think, get a bit quicker and easier but it will never, I think, be automatic or easy. Very interesting though.

The temperature only reached 29C today, lower than predicted. It is nearly 11pm and still 25C. Tomorrow however, is predicted to only reach 19C.  Fine by me!

Post 193 sitnstitch

It was a fine Spring day in Adelaide today. A bit cool to begin with, but 24C by the afternoon.

Turtle appreciated it and visited several times for seed.

I spent the morning preparing Lemon Chicken for tomorrow. I cook the chicken whole in the liquid so like to allow it to stand  and cool overnight so I can skim the fat off the liquid and remove the bones from the chicken.


I picked Jennifer up at 12.30 for our Sit'nStitch at Grange. Susan had made a stunning cheese and onion pie for our lunch.  Both Jennifer and Susan are working on knitted blankets at the moment. I was rectifying the centre markings I had made last night on the Serenity mat. I discovered this morning several places where I had stitched over one or three fabric threads instead of two. I wasn't using a magnifier and working at night on such a loose weave fabric was a mistake. It took me a couple of goes to get it right.


Traffic was low when I got home and the Square bathed in light.

I checked out my front balcony plants.
The begonia cutting I've been nursing for months now has 8 sturdy leaves,



















and the geranium cutting I bought at the Guild Christmas market has turned into a strong plant with flowers forming.

To get these parrot shots I photographed  the screen of my television during a documentary called Australia Remastered: Parrot Paradise. I was watching it while embroidering before dinner.

The top one is a female King Parrot and the lower ones are Palm cockatoos. The one on the right is a male. They are a pair, together for up to 50 years.

If you get a chance the documentary is worth seeing.

I worked on the Serenity project for the best part of two hours and this was my progress. I found it quite difficult. The pattern is repeated all the way around so hopefully it will become imprinted on my brain and I won't have to check the pattern every stitch. The loose fabric threads are hard to count. They move.

I think this is going to take quite a while. I am going to balance it with knitting.







Tomorrow is forecast to be 31C - then 17C on Tuesday.


 Dust is forecast for tomorrow evening but tonight's sunset was clear and calm.