Post 247 Spoilt for choice

 

Turtle showed up this morning, looking plump again and strutting around looking for seed. He tolerated my opening the door but flew away when I reached for the seed. I was reluctant to distribute any this morning as the balcony was due to be washed down.

However I relented a little when he returned half an hour later. He was still large. I distributed a small amount, most of which he consumed eagerly, with a few breaks to survey the outside scene while looking back at the seed as if weighing up the risk and reward.

He consumed most of the seed before departing. I swept up the rest in readiness for cleaning.

These photos are, of course, composites. There was only one visitor. It was a bit windy which seems to be the trigger for Turtle looking stocky.

The jacaranda has begun to turn purple. I do hope the marigolds last a while. They are going to look fabulous against the jacaranda when it's in full bloom.

I had a fight with my printer this morning, trying to print a couple of articles I had found on Viking and Anglo-Saxon Embroidery. I had tried to print them double-sided and the printer rebelled. I thought I would have to call for back-up, but in the end I sacrificed the double side saving and emerged triumphant with two single-sided printed articles. Not, however, before I had ink under my fingernails that will take a while to remove. I'm expanding from the Icelandic workshop into related areas.

I didn't block the Rabbits this morning. I decided to wait until the other is finished and block them together. I'll need to handle it to ensure a match with the next one, so might as well wait. I tried them on the chair (without ink on my hands)  to see how it will work before setting up the hoop for the last one. 

I forgot to mention yesterday that I had posted another Baby Boomer Teacher Conversation.

On Wednesday I discussed with my stitching friends the project I had been planning in January to create an embroidery about the bushfires. I had managed to source both fabric and threads within Australia - no mean feat - and had created a design outline. Then Covid hit and rather overshadowed the project. The Guild exhibition for which it was intended was postponed until next year. I put it aside to think about whether to abandon, adapt or continue. My friends' advice was that it was important to tell the bushfire story. So today I got out the project to re-examine it.

I did quite a good job of gathering the materials (some of the woollen threads no longer in production, from eBay) but I think the design needs a bit more work!

While getting this out I came across more than a few projects in a similar state. I might be a finisher once I start something, but I am also a conceptualiser who often buys a kit or assembles materials but doesn't start the embroidery at all. I've now got too many choices!.

Dinner at K&A’s tonight. Fionn and Veronica at friends’ places. Lots of meat and meaty discussion. There were a few families out trick or treating. Not something seen here until the last decade or so.

At home I caught the end of Endeavour and the end of the Queensland election summary. Two female leaders behaving and responding well.

I’ve progressed the shawl. It's about 90cm across the needles at the moment. Reckon there’s about a third of the ball of wool left, so I’m guessing around another 15cm in length.

Time to make a concerted effort to finish.

Post 246 Sunflowers, rabbits and lunch is back on.

 A lunch group of five women, to which I belong, met today for the first time since February. We normally meet at least 4 times a year, trying different restaurants around the city. It simply hasn't been possible to meet until now. We went to Chianti, not far from where I live.  It was closed to diners for months, serving takeaway meals to order and delivering them to cars in the street outside. 

Today it was as busy as I've seen it. Maria was everywhere - greeting, behind the bar, serving, checking, delivering hand sanitiser to our table when ours didn't work. We were in a bit of a noise pocket, but managed to make ourselves heard enough to catch up. I had Orecchiette pasta with Port Lincoln sardines, cauliflower and pine nuts, followed, of course, by affogato.  So good to see friends.

I had planned to go to Norwood before lunch but, as usual, tried to fit in too much beforehand, so I went after lunch, back to Beads on Parade - the shop that was closed on Sunday -  to try to get something to crimp the ends of the necklace that stuck in my neck.  When I arrived, the shop was empty except for the two assistants, both beading at the workbench. They immediately provided advice, found beads to fill the empty spaces on the cord and offered to crimp it for me! I was a bit overwhelmed but fell into line quickly. I strung the extra beads, one assistant helped the three customers who came in and the other crimped my ends. Can't complain about service! 

 Last night's rain didn’t continue throughout the day. The sunflower is still looking spritely with more buds and flowers coming.

Tonight's sunset had a different colour palette to most. The white spot on the left one is not the moon, but a bird. This is a live shot and the white shape moves across the sky - in a way no plane moves.

Ten minutes later the colours were more conventional - but still soft.

The remainder of the day was spent working on the rabbits. Now that I am on the third one of these I'm having a relaxed time playing with the colours. 

I now need to make the fourth set of Rabbits at Dawn match up to this one seamlessly.

I'll  block it tomorrow and start on the last one. The feathers are still waiting to be attached to the chair,  there are a lot of hexies pinned to a quilt on the floor next to one of the lounge room chairs and a bag with the shawl on the coffee table.  

Did I mention I've had a few ideas about Christmas?

Post 245 Mostly botanical

The little bit of rain overnight was enough to refresh the daisies on the balcony's edge but not for the sunflowers. I needed to water those, even though more rain was forecast.

 

 

I managed to get organised to go to the TNT depot on Richmond Road on my way to Pilates to pick up the parcel I wasn't here to receive yesterday. As I guessed, it was the second volume of my blog in print.

Once again, I am pleased with the quality. It serves, however, as a reminder that I still haven't succeeded in ordering the third volume, in spite of several emails to the support line. 

As usual, Pilates was good. I enjoy the Thursday sessions with only one group - four students and the instructor, rather than Friday, when there are two instructors and eight students.  The studio garden is looking particularly lush at the moment. The fig tree has new leaves and there are strawberries on the numerous  strawberry plants.

I diverted to Unley Village on my way home to dispose of a bag of soft plastics and get some ingredients for Monday dinner. I ended up buying some scones - and two sausage rolls from the Dulwich Bakery for my lunch. It was 3pm by the time I got home, and two sausage rolls, a tomato and two scones ended up serving as both lunch and dinner.

The  strawberries in the Pilates garden reminded me of the strawberries waiting to be added to Rabbits at Dawn, so I left the hexies pinned to the quilt and got to work on the rabbits and strawberries.  There was, however, only one strawberry, and rather a lot of hillock to be finished before I could move the hoop on to the strawberry plant. 

The sun came out late in the afternoon, picking out the leaves of the red-leaved begonia.

The flower on the one on the left also comes into its own in the late afternoon.

I had a delivery of a top I bought online. It fortunately fitted into the letterbox - along with a Piecework Magazine returned by whoever I had lent it to. I wish I could remember who that was! My sincere thanks anyway.

I finished a rabbit and the strawberry plant, using the photo taken this morning as a bit of a colour guide,  while watching the 1980 version of The Mirror Cracked from Side to Side, with Angela Lansbury, Elizabeth Taylor, Tony Curtis and Rock Hudson. It was interesting enough to keep me watching. I enjoyed the performances of Edward Fox, Angela Lansbury and Tony Curtis.

It's now raining fairly steadily. Hope my sunflower is benefitting! 

Post 244 Friends, food and flowers

The Guild exhibition next March is themed “Nature by needle”. There are too many possibilities! These photos I took yesterday of the gazania on my balcony would make a great embroidery with texture and padding. My list of possibilities is too long, as is my list of works in progress.

Today two Guild friends and I went to lunch at the Glenelg Surf Club. Margaret has split the head of her clavicle, has her arm in an immobilising sling and can't drive. Junette picked me up, then we went on to pick up Margaret.  The Surf Club is fast becoming a favourite place. 

                            We sat inside, but the view is just as good. We get to catch up, laugh a lot and watch the ever-restful sea.

We parked a block away and on the walk back to the car we found a couple of Pohutukawa, New Zealand Christmas bushes. Both my friends were born and grew up in New Zealand and, as they remind me, you can take the girl out of New Zealand but not New Zealand out of the girl.

The Pohutukawa is truly spectacular. 

And I still miss NSW Christmas Bush.

Back at home I had missed a TNT parcel delivery, so organised to go and pick it up from their depot tomorrow on my way to Pilates. It's been a warm, sunny day. I settled on stitching on a few hexies and managed six.

Stormy is the only dove I’ve seen for a couple of days. He has grown over the Spring. He still gets seen off the premises by Turtle when detected, but those occasions seem to be coming less frequently. I’m wondering if I'm seeing the changing of the guard.

In the evening I switched to the Rabbits at Dawn linen. It seems like slow progress but progress it is.

I'm looking forward to working on this again.

Post 243 Flowers, phone, family, friends and finish.

This is not my embroidery (wish it were - I’d be very proud). It was done by Sandra, one of my stitching friends who has been in some level of  lockdown in Manchester for months. At the moment she has a 'bubble' with her son and his family but can't move outside that. 

She began these embroideries in preparation for doing a Trish Burr class in Appleby next July. Unfortunately that’s no longer happening. Seems to me that if and when you get to attend, Sandra, the class will benefit enormously from your presence. Thanks so much for sending them to me.  They are superb.

I had a slow, lazy start to the day. It was a chilly morning. The sunflower has dried out again. 

I have agreed to prepare a workshop on Icelandic Embroidery for the Certificate Course in May next year. I spent a bit of time today thinking about this and adapting the PowerPoint I made for the World Embroidery Group. The focus for the Certificate needs to be on what the Group could work as a sample, or adaptation. It also needs to focus on the surface stitchery components rather than counted. Barbara wants to emphasise creativity, so I'm thinking about how I could get students to design and work their own example. One option is a floral composition,  the other a human figure. The stitches are different in the two options.

While attending to the drooping sunflower, I was inspired to attach the macro lens to my SLR and take some photos. I'm very pleased with some of the results. These are a couple of the sunflower.

There are quite a few more of the daisies, gazanias and marigolds - for another day.

.

By these pursuits I managed to get to 2.30 pm without lunch and without threading a needle or pinning a feather to a chair. I settled in with what I was itching to do - finish the Deruta sampler.  I have (almost) squared it off so the samples are more centred. This involved pulling a new thread on one side and shifting the pulled thread on another side - not too difficult.

Late in the afternoon I called a friend to check a detail about our lunch appointment tomorrow. 70 minutes later we got off the phone. It won't cramp our style tomorrow!

Midway through the conversation a postman brought a delivery which turned out to be the first volume of my blog book. I’m pleased with the quality. 

It is lovely to have a reminder of our time in Stratford in print form.

My brother also rang. It was good to hear his voice and catch up on his news. They have been able to spend a few days in the Blue Mountains. The launch of his new book is next Monday.

I watched the sun go down at the western end of the apartment a few minutes before I saw the moon rise at the eastern end.

I have finished the edge of the Deruta sampler. I had considered adding tassels or beads on the edge to make it into a food cover, but I don't really use covers.  Once it is washed and ironed, it will become a liner for one of my bread baskets.

Happy with that.

Post 242 Adaptation

 

It was a high activity, but low photography day. This is part of the pot of sunflowers I bought last week. There are lot of buds coming out - provided I can keep up the water. It's in a 20 cm pot but is incredibly thirsty. It droops as soon as it is not damp. I'm watering it twice a day at the moment. It's not even hot at the moment. The plant is lush and laden with buds. It just seems to need lots of water.

Turtle put in a couple of appearances, finishing off yesterday's feed. I didn't have opportunity to observe bird behaviour. It was Basics to Beyond today and I wanted to get there to get some advice on the hem of the Deruta project from Saturday's workshop. I knew Gay would be able to help. 

However, I also wanted to get the pasta bake for tonight's dinner made before I left.  I had made the ragu but needed to cook the pasta, add the ragu and cover in cheese, ready to put in the oven this evening. I got it all done by 10 am and got to B2B around 10.45. 

There were only 4 students, plus Gay. After she attended to the other students (the ones actually in the Basic course!) Gay spent about an hour helping me figure out the instructions for the hem. Gay was also in the class on Saturday, so figuring it out will eventually help her too.

The linen provided has a thread drawn on all four sides. The solution to the problem became obvious once we worked out the hem is worked inside the drawn thread border, not outside it. I might have eventually worked this out by myself but was struggling. Two heads are definitely better than one.                                                                                          Brigid is home studying for final exams so I had offered to transport the dinner and the younger children to their place tonight. She was getting so much done at home on her own that we decided to feed everyone else at my place and send hers home with them. This seemed to work well. It was a relaxed meal with interesting conversation.

I've got quite a long way to go around the edge, but I completed a few centimetres in order to  see what it looked like when completed. It will take me a few hours, but I now get it. 

I have postponed my hairdressing appointment tomorrow. I don't think my hair needs cutting, or even trimming, for at least a couple more weeks. This gives me a whole day to either finish this border, or stitch the feathers on to the chair. And there is still my tax to organise. And the photo scanning.

For now I'll sleep on it.

Post 241 Friends, Feathers and Doves

I opened the blind this morning to see a very plump Turtle waiting patiently on the rail. It was a cool and very windy morning.

His feathers opened up in the wind. He allowed me to distribute seed and helped himself while I had a shower. He was gone by the time I returned.

A couple of hours later, Blush turned up. Her feathers too, were lifting in the wind. She wasn’t, however, puffed up.

This photo is a poor capture of the moment Stormy arrived (very top left corner) and Blush (lower right corner) paused, then walked to the edge and flew away.

Stormy made himself at home, ate the remaining seed, explored the whole space then  flew off.

I left for my book club. We had a good meeting. I came away with a list of books I want to read - and a discovery that three of the five members of the group are stitchers.i had hoped to visit the bead shop to get some crimps for my necklace repair, but it wasn’t open. I’ll need to go back during the week. 

 I went on to Grange to Sit’n Stitch. Susan has made some of her delicious pasties and pies and Jennifer brought bubbles. Jennifer knitted Mrs Claus’s cape, Susan worked on Anna Scott’s Songbird. I redid the Deruta diamond then moved on to cutting out feathers. I have now finished folding and tacking the edges down. I figured it will be easier to stitch them on to the chair if the edges are not being folded as I go

I’ve placed them on where I think they should go. It’s quite exciting. To stitch them on I need a day with nothing much else on . Tuesday might be possible.

It was about 6 pm when I got home from Sit’n Stitch. Turtle was waiting for me. He stayed in place as I gave him some more seed. He made himself at home, in spite of the wind.                                                                                                                                                A dovey kind of day.