Post 338 A new research task and a couple of wins.

 

There was an exploratory visit from Black Tips this morning. I had not put out any seed or replenished the water, although I had hung out washing. 

I had an imminent appointment on the street outside so attending to the doves had to wait.  My appointment was with a friend I had worked with about 15 years ago. We continue in touch  through social media. She got in touch last week to ask if I was interested in having access to her collection of family embroidery. Her family is from Bulgaria. She now lives in the Barossa Valley.

I was very interested, so this morning she brought me this box on her way to an open garden in a seaside suburb.

I now have this box of treasures for a month or so. I hope to photograph and document it. 

We have not done enough in South Australia to document and preserve our heritage of embroidery and textiles from non-English speaking countries and I want to do what I can to rectify that.

The box contains embroidery by my friend's mother-in-law, her grandmother, her mother and her piano teacher.

I have only had a quick look at the contents, but thought I'd provide a teaser with this detail from a runner worked by Vala Georgieva, my friend's mother-in-law.

It is extraordinarily beautiful.

I have been searching for resources on Bulgarian Embroidery. There are not many published in English, but fortunately, the Embroiderers' Guild Library holds copies of those, so I need to get to the Guild Library this week.

One Bulgarian researcher, Daniel Montiglio, has published a bit online about  traditional motifs and their 'secret' meanings.  One of these is a tree of life, which features in this runner.

According to Daniel Montiglio, this was used in Bulgaria to represent the world, the heavens at the top, the earth in the stem and the underworld in the roots. It is used by the Deity to climb down to illuminate human life and mark beginnings. Red, according to him, symbolises mother's blood and continuity of life. It is protective.

I have a long way to go in learning about Bulgarian embroidery, and may well end up with a differing information.

It's a privilege and exciting to be at the beginning of this learning journey.

On my way home last night I almost stopped for petrol. My tank was only 20% full, and petrol was at the lower end of the roughly 20 day price cycle that we endure in most Australian cities. It is, apparently, a marketing strategy and has nothing to do with the wholesale petrol price. It drives me nuts. Last night petrol was $109.95 a litre at 9pm. I decided to wait until this morning as I wanted to get home to write my blog.

When I checked prices this morning, petrol at the same station was $1.58 a litre. I don't usually get sucked into this battle, but it got under my skin this morning, and I drove 5 km to an independent petrol outlet where it cost me $114.5 a litre. I was heading to Unley Shopping Centre anyway, for milk and fruit, The detour added about 4.5km to my trip. It also lowered my blood pressure and made me feel more in control.

Back at home I prepared the pasta bake for tomorrow's dinner. I bought a bunch of multi-coloured carrots at Tony and Mark's at Unley, and added some of them to the sauce, along with celery. It was improved by a couple of cups of red wine and a litre of passata. Towards the end I added mushrooms and parsley along with the pasta.

I always mean to photograph this favourite but forget. Now I've done it I promise not to do it again.

Another photographic success today was to capture a bird in the sunset photo.I don't know what kind of bird it was, perhaps a magpie, given the size.

I gathered the threads for my last Nicola bird, which I'm working as a Western Spine Bill. I've modified the beak accordingly. This will go on the Kangaroo Paw fabric.

I haven't done anything today with the Blue Wren.

I did, however, finish yesterday's square of Myreshka. Christine warned us yesterday that this was a lot of work - and she was right. It took quite a while. I watched 7 episodes of Scottish Vets Down Under while doing it. (Yes, I've run out of Midsomer Murder spisodes on ABC i View).

I'm feeling a bit tired today. The sun set on a lot of unfinished projects - but the pasta bake is prepared, I have a full petrol tank, the washing is put away, there's water for the doves and I made progress on the sampler. 

Sufficient.