Post 395 More Birds, Blooms and a bit of entertaining

There was a lovely sunset last Wednesday, after a warm and breezy day. In the morning, the World Embroidery Study Group met. Barbara gave us a good presentation about Native American beading - lots of information about technique, colour and heritage. There were 9 of us there - well distanced, but with no barriers to discussion, which flowed smoothly.

It was timely that, while looking for something else, I rediscovered these badges/brooches I bought as gifts some years ago from the National Museum of the American Indian in Washington DC. I think I bought more than this and didn't give them all away.  Now I've rediscovered them, I must use them on a project or two.

On the way home, I stopped off at Bunnings to buy some potted colour for my back balcony. I also bought another bowl planter. The shape seems to work quite well for me on that balcony. 

I did a bit of cleaning up and rearranging on the front, West-facing balcony too.  There's more to do and it's the time of the year to do it.   

The finishing touch was to replace the palm, barely hanging on in the indoor position, with a bromeliad. I am not good with palms. I had tried following the advice of the receptionist at Pilates, who tends the fabulous palm in the studio, but to no avail. She did tell me that her palms at home don't thrive at all, so maybe there are other factors operating!

My wool fabric from Sweden was also waiting in my letterbox for me on Wednesday. I've now got most of my props for the Viking Embroidery workshop in February. I need to put it all together in a way that makes sense for the WES Group next month before preparing the projects for the Certificate Course in February 2022. The WES feedback and advice will help.

On Wednesday evening there was a bit of drama with the carpark door jamming, meaning that cars could not come in or go out. Katherine and Anthony, who park in one of my spaces, had to get a taxi home. I didn't know until they contacted me. My phone was (unintentionally) on silent. We eventually got notification that 2 parts were needed to fix it and it would be out of action until Thursday afternoon. I cancelled Pilates.

Just after midday on Thursday I got a message it was fixed. In fact, when I took my car out, the doors were fixed open. More work needed tomorrow but the door would be left open. I drove to the Guild to give my Bulgarian samples and notes to Margaret Adams who has generously offered to chart it using her software program.

I did a bit of supermarket shopping then went home and worked on my Viking Embroidery presentation and notes.  As well as embroidery motifs, I found some useful maps of tribal divisions in Britain before and after the Romans left, and before and after the Vikings arrived, then a contemporary map of population by DNA, which corresponds closely to the original Anglo-Saxon map. Interesting.

I have cut a piece of brown wool twill and traced the design from the Mammen cloak on to Solvi. I'm hoping this will be my workshop example. I largely finished the student notes and I am now working the samples.

This is where I'm up to. I'm documenting the process on my embroidery blog, and will include a link next week.

On my way to Sit'nStitch on Friday I called at the Hamra Gallery to see the Guild Exhibition. The Gallery is attached to the West Torrens Council Library. I had difficulty finding it, not helped by the Gallery not being open! It is managed by the Community Centre, not the Library, and no-one had opened it up when I got there at 12.45pm (opening hours are 10am-6pm!). Eventually the Library staff obtained permission to open it and I was able to browse.

It is a really lovely gallery space , with curved walls and a large central open space. The photo is a composite of two wall sections.

These are some of my favourite pieces - Lori's bushfire, Margaret A's seahorse, Margaret M's  Aotearoa punga (hope I got that right, I cut it off when I photographed it), Raelene Draheim's The Shawl Weaver, and Gwen Deare's extraordinary blackwork depiction of the Adelaide Oval scoreboard.

It was Susan and I at Sit'nStitch and we had a very fine and restful time, stitching, pondering and talking. 

I got home to find a flock of about 12 lorikeets feeding in the tree near my back balcony.  

My DSLR yielded several good photos, but I'll only inflict a couple on readers here.

They make quite a lot of noise - a cheering sight and sound. 

I went to the Markets on Saturday morning to get some fresh chicken livers to cook for friends coming to lunch on Sunday. I also picked up cream, milk, duck and truffle pate, and a tart for desert. It's a long time since I've wandered the markets on Saturday, and I did enjoy it. The rest of the day was spent working on the Viking embroidery. 

On Sunday I dashed out to Unley for bread before my 3 guests arrived. We had a very pleasant and relaxed afternoon. The food worked well and we grazed all afternoon.

I had intended to buy Enzo's lasagne ready made for Monday dinner this week, but the chicken liver shop also had duck legs, so I bought ten and planned Monday's meal around them.  I dug out a recipe for duck a l'orange, which I haven't cooked in decades.  It worked out reasonably well. I made too much sauce and didn't thicken it enough, but the flavour was good. Lots of broccolini, bok choi and potatoes with bacon. Again, I was too busy serving it to photograph. 

In between taking parent-teacher interview calls from Fionn's school Anthony drained my dishwasher for me and explained the process. I was panicking a bit because it hadn't drained properly from the last use. I thought I might need a plumber. It appears to be fixed and working again as I write.

 While I was out buying the bread for Monday night's dinner, I missed the attempted delivery of my parcel of kits from Marie Wallin, so dashed back out to pick it up as soon as I got notice it was at the PO. It was a pretty big parcel - just fitted in the boot of the car. 

Inside were three boxes. Inside each of those was a compostable bag. Inside the compostable bags were the kits, packaged in the distinctive (and to my mind, attractive) Marie Wallin bags. I had hoped to finish my shawl before these arrived. I'm on my last ball, so it shouldn't be too long now.

This is where I'm up to as of today, with one 25gm ball to go, It's pretty big, easily 6ft long.  It will be finished just as soon as I resist fiddling with Viking embroidery!

Thanks everyone for the feedback on the email service. It seems it will continue, but without any maintenance by Feedburner. I am posting a bit earlier, so I can see that it has worked before I go to bed. That should enable me to manually post if it fails.