post 371

The Guild's Crewel Work group was due to meet on Thursday this week, but there is still not much interest so I worked this next section of the Aesop Frame at home. It was an interesting one to work, with Renaissance Wools as well as Appletons and a little silk.

 I think I can say that the World Embroidery Study Group meeting on Bulgarian Embroidery was a success. People were very interested in the background information and in Sheila Paine's books, but mostly they loved the chance to see a collection of genuine examples of such high quality. 

There was a lot of discussion and engagement. We rarely get the chance to see so many varied examples of what we study and members made the most of it. I'm so grateful to have had this opportunity.

After the meeting I went to the Tennyson Centre for a bone density scan, my first in eight years. I have the preliminary results which mean little to me. I will get full results when I see my doctor early in May.           

On Thursday some rain was forecast and my feathered visitor was bunkering down in a few rays of sunshine when I left just before nine to get my first Covid vaccination at a Respiratory Clinic opposite the Frewville Foodland Shopping Centre. On the advice of my doctor, I parked in the shopping centre car park and walked across the wide, busy intersection to the clinic. It was very organised and controlled. Patients are told not to arrive until 5 minutes before. Signs on the door warn not to touch the door. On cue, the door swung open, a young man appeared and called my name. Inside he inspected my Medicare card and drivers licence and put a sticker on my poncho. 

The venue was, until last year, a physiotherapy and pilates studio - part of a very large medical practice on the site. The studio has been moved out to another venue to accommodate a dedicated Covid clinic. There are 3 small injecting rooms (or, in the afternoon, testing rooms) each staffed by a nurse who asks questions, checks ID, gives information, then waits for the doctor who circulates between the three rooms. The injection is only given in her presence after she has checked and asked more questions. It was friendly, helpful, cautious and professional. On leaving the injecting room, you go to another desk in a large waiting room to be given  information about the next steps before taking your seat and waiting to be timed and called with permission to leave.

I noticed the photo board which no one was using. The assistant was only too happy to take my photo as I left - sanitising his hands before and after touching my phone. 

I went on to Officeworks to get some acid-free tissue, to Create in Stitch for a frame, North Adelaide for some fruit and lunch before going to Pilates. I got home to find the letter with my $634 fine for using my phone while driving last week. I paid it straight away - hope that is now behind me.

It wasn't until 12 hours after the injection that I felt suddenly tired, then achey and shivery. I couldn't get warm in bed, so put on socks and took a couple of Panadol. I slept well and woke up a little achey but fortunately that passed because I had arranged to meet Jennifer for lunch at Louca's Fish Restaurant two blocks away. I took this photo of the next door building work progress on the way.

We had a very nice lunch and a good catch up. Jennifer is back from a month in Queensland visiting family - and says she has come home for a rest! She is now on a roll with a book about the 

acre of land on which her family reunions take place. 

In between this activity and the Aesop I have finished  examples of Icelandic embroidery for the Certificate Course workshop in June.                       

I finished the sample of 18th Century Icelandic embroidery and removed the Sulki. It worked really well. 

I have included a counted design, although the workshop is not focusing on counted work. Some students may wish to practice long-armed cross stitch, so I worked the examples for good measure.

This workshop is now, I think, fully organised and I can pack it away until June.

I spent much of the weekend researching on two fronts, more family history and my next embroidery study on Viking embroidery. On the latter  I have begun my PowerPoint as a method of getting organised. I have quite a lot of information, but am  trying to figure out how to borrow Margarethe Hald's Ancient Danish Textiles from Bogs and Burials from Flinders University library without having to drive there and navigate the sprawling, outsider-unfriendly parking. No luck so far, so I might have to plan an excursion. In the meantime I ordered this book and another on Anglo-Saxon embroidery. 

Small steps.

On the family history front, my fellow researcher Melanie and I have hit a bit of a wall in my grandmother's mystery. We  have a lot of it worked out but our newsagent ancestor seems to disappear around 1935 with no death records fitting. Melanie is still in pursuit. We've had more success with the 1820s connections of my paternal grandmother Ada. We now have numerous links between my 3xGGrandmother Sarah Attlesey and the Isaacson gang, 7 of whom were transported to either NSW or Van Diemen's Land between 1798 and 1840. Melanie is doing more of the heavy lifting on this than I, but we continue to work and share our finding in relays dictated by time zones.

I've also done some proof-reading for my brother, had dinner with family on Saturday and tonight with friends after having my hair mercifully permed this afternoon.  It has become lank and oily, needing to be washed every day. The strange stare is the result of taking a photo in the hairdresser's mirror.

 

Perhaps my biggest achievement this week has been to reduce the emails in my inbox to 25, from around 270 a fortnight ago. I've attended to overdue subscriptions, read articles waiting for a rainy day, filed useful embroidery bits, unsubscribed from numerous retail companies, replied to way-out-of-date emails and requests for family tree information. 

I read Dr Basil Willing Golden Age book by Helen McCloy for NetGalley. It's a fairly engaging read for Golden Age tragics. I also finished Campling's Devonshire Mysteries series, which I like a lot .  I'm now reading another Ann Cleeves Ramsay series mystery.

I've had notice from Feedburner, the service that manages the email distribution of these blog posts that they will be discontinuing their email service in June. As recommended, I have downloaded all the email addresses of subscribers and await information about a replacement service. I'll let you know as soon as I have more information.

Till next week.

Through the download exercise I discovered over 1000 spam subscriptions to my embroidery blog, all taken out in 2017 when I was not paying attention to it. I have deactivated all of them - one at a time! Fortunately it  has a good spam filter.