Post 345 Mostly getting organised

 

Cleaning this morning - for a short while there are no threads on the carpet, or chairs.

It was the first Junior Embroiderers meeting of the year, but Niamh had for not put it in her diary and had arranged to catch up with a friend from last year. That left me with an unexpected whole day free, so I decided to use it to do some preparation for the workshop I've committed to give to the Guild's Certificate Course as well as constructing the bag with the Western Spinebill.

I used as lining a piece of snake fabric I bought from Aboriginal Fabrics in Alice Springs a while back.  

I used it for the sides as well as the lining. 

I think it blends well with the spinebill, and works well in a pocket on the reverse side.

Once again, I haven't ironed it yet. I figure I'll do that when I'm ready to enter it into the Guild Exhibition. It's only going to need to be done again then anyway.

I read all the books I have on Bulgarian Embroidery and made notes on each of them. I need to get some background context before I start to examine the collection that Nelly has lent me. So far the most interesting bits relate to the layers of historic migrations and the persistence of symbols and beliefs from pre-Christian times.  

This symbol, for example, according to Daniel Montiglio, is a Katanitza, an ancient symbol of family strength, harmony and balance.

From there I returned to my Icelandic Embroidery workshop and reread Elsa Gudjonsson's Traditional Icelandic Embroidery.   I modified the PowerPoint a little and played around with some examples of designs from old Icelandic embroideries that I might be able to use for students to work in the original stitches.

I ran my printer's cleaning program which restored it to print. This enabled me to enlarge a couple of the examples in the book and trace out the shapes. I think these will provide enough for students to get the idea. They can use these, or components of them, or design their own.

I now need to diagram the stitches and put it all together into a set of notes. 

Yesterday I contacted the Adelaide City Libraries, to see if they could obtain a digital copy of Margrethe Hald's book Ancient Danish Textiles in Bogs and Burials  for me from Flinders University Library, which holds a hard copy.  After much transferring of phones and emails, they told me they do not have an arrangement with Flinders. It looks as if I will need to contact Flinders directly and hope they will deal with a non-member of the University.  I want this for the session I have promised to take on Viking embroidery for the World Embroidery Study Group, but it would also be useful for Icelandic Embroidery. I'll follow up on Monday.

I'm pleased, however, with the progress I made today. I'm beginning to feel a little organised.

Anthony barbecued pork chops, meat patties and sausages tonight along with roast potatoes, carrots, parsnips and broccoli. I caught up with the netball news and a lot more. Fionn has football assessments tomorrow.

Katherine is making progress on her Adagio Mills shawl and I now have 5 pale blue circles to work with. 

Progress.

Post 344 Stitching wherever you look.

 

Before I went to bed last night I cut out the Western Spinebill and pinned it on the Kangaroo Paw fabric, ready for stitching this morning. I had hopes of stitching it on, embroidering the legs, cutting out the bag and stitching it before I left for Sit'nStitch just before 1pm.

It didn't work out like that.

I did a bit of housekeeping - washing up, cutting the stems and 

re-vasing the small white chrysanthemums I bought on Monday, watering plants and rotating my sheets.

I then got down to stitching on the bird. It was, predictably, tricky. The narrow parts of these birds is difficult to turn under and applique. I can't turn under a wide margin of fabric on the tail and beak, and a narrow margin frays as I stitch. I have to turn it under with the needle as I stitch. I could manage it on the tail, but the beak was a challenge. It is very long and very thin. In the end I did it by couching down across the threads and then embroidering it again in black.

In the end I took it with me to Sit'n Stitch and finished the legs and feet. This is the fabric that I plan to use both as lining to the bag and the sides. I think it will work well, even though it is mixing fabric origins. The colours as well as the flora and fauna are compatible. I now need to do more measuring and cutting out.

At Sit'n Stitch Jennifer worked her Sophie's Universe, which is really progressing. I know some of the readers of this blog have bought Sophie's Universe. Jennifer says to warn you that Round 20 is difficult!

Aren't the colours fabulous?

Susan is tracing one of Margaret Light's designs to Solvi to go in the centre of a very ambitious embroidered quilt. It's a huge, time consuming task - but will look brilliant when finished.

After the Western Spinebill legs, I worked on pink crochet circles. Last time I reported, I had, I think, completed six pink circles and the plan was to do ten, one for each of the colours I am using. Here are my beige circles, one with a pink border worked. I now have ten pink circles as well as a pink edge on one of the original beige circles. I have now added two blue borders and worked the first of the ten blue circles I am now starting on.

They are coming along.

It was overcast, very windy and rained for some of the day. It made for a gentle. glowing sunset.

I still have quite a lot to do to finish the Western Spinebill bag, the genealogy chart to finish and a lot of embroidery projects to finish. I have to be up early for the cleaner.

More importantly, tomorrow is the first JEMS session for the year. 

Post 343 Another lunch and bag

My main commitment today was late lunch at Jolley's Boathouse Restaurant in the city. This was my birthday lunch with 3 friends. We have lunch for each of our birthdays.  Jolley's has been renovated during a Covid lockdown and has a new chef. It's a favourite of mine and I wanted to try the new look and the new cook. 

No pain in my mouth so time this morning to return to the Nicola Jarvis Blue Wren and create the bag. There wasn't time to finish it, but I could get a good start. 

I cut out the Blue Wren and appliqued it to the Bottlebrush linen and worked the legs and feet.

Yesterday I had found some fabric in my stash that I thought would make good lining.

I got the bird appliqued and the bag cut out before I left for lunch.

This is a stock photo, from Jolley's website.  I didn't think to take one while there. We were  sitting at the table in the middle, obviously with four chairs, and there were people on other tables.                                It was raining today and the windows were closed. It was a little noisy at first but quietened down. 

The food was superb, as was the company. I have no qualms about stretching my birthday celebration out over a month. An early January birthday in Australia has always place limits on celebration, with friends away on summer holidays. I'm not fussed. I would, however, always choose to celebrate my birthday in a place on the water - ocean or river. It's one of the things I like about the Mitre - which incongruously still appears on the heading of this blog. 

I was home about 5 pm (yes, a long lunch) and set about constructing the bag. I needed to use plain linen on the sides and base. The lining fabric was short of the depth of the bag, so I supplemented with calico in the base. I think the colours and theme of the lining work well. 

There was enough of the lining fabric to put a pocket on the back. It's handy, I think, on shopping bags (or totes, if you prefer).

As can be seen, I haven't ironed this yet, but I think it has worked - both as a useful bag, and as an item for the Guild Exhibition next month.

The rest of the evening was spent working on the next bird. The Western Spinebill is ready to cut out tomorrow and applique on to the Kangaroo Paw linen.

Once again, I will work the legs directly on to the bag. 

I might get it done before our Sit'nStitch afternoon.

For now, another salt water mouth rinse and bed.

Post 342Lunch with Lorraine in Stirling

 My apologies to those readers who receive my blog posts by email. I don't know why yesterday's email didn't go out at the time set (between 11pm and 1am Adelaide time). It was posted just after 11pm Adelaide time - about an hour earlier than most recent posts, so should have been easily picked up in the timeframe. Usually I check before I go to sleep but I was very tired last night after the dentist. My thanks to the friend who alerted me this morning, enabling me to reset it to go out - albeit 12 hours late. I'll monitor the email post tonight.

Obviously I slept well! I have got through the day today so far without taking any pain relief and I have kept up the salt water rinses as instructed. 

I had organised some weeks ago to have lunch today with my friend Lorraine, whose birthday is next weekend. As I was away on my birthday last month we arranged this to celebrate both our birthdays. Lorraine has not been well for a year (I wrote about her in Post 170 and 273) but is recovering slowly and steadily. 

When my dental appointment was brought forward I didn't want to cancel today's lunch unless I had to - even if I didn't eat much. As it happened it was fine so I picked Lorraine up from her home in a retirement village in leafy Myrtle Bank.

At her suggestion, we went to the Stirling Hotel in the Adelaide Hills - only about a 15 minute drive from Myrtle Bank.  

I hadn't been here before. It was very pleasant, - spacious  and airy with a lot of greenery inside and out. 

Neither of us chose the specials. I had salt and pepper squid, which was excellent, and quite easy on my mouth. Neither of us had alcohol - my mouth instructions say none for a week to facilitate healing.

We had a really good catch up, two and a half hours of relaxed discussion in a very pleasant space.

Once back at home I made a start on the family history chart. Yesterday I bought an archival pen. The linen proved quite difficult to write on.

It does, however give a useful view of family - one not easily obtained from an online tree. I completed the Maternal side of my own tree. There are 8 names in the ninth generation and 12 in the eighth. It readily shows where there are gaps. 

I'll have a go at the Paternal side another day before too long.

This evening I've made progress on the Western Spinebill. The tail and outlines to go.  It's nearly time for me to make the two bags on to which this and the Blue Wren are to be appliqued. I'm planning to put these into the Guild Exhibition next month. The theme is Nature by Needle, and these seem to fit.

Covid restrictions have just been reinstated in Victoria as the virus has apparently escaped from hotel quarantine. Western Australia has a similar situation.. 

In South Australia we have cases in hotel quarantine from returning Australians but so far no community transmission. Nothing, however, can be taken for granted. 

I'm sticking to my stitching - and exercising that much vaunted abundance of caution.

Post 341 Extraction and distraction

I had to be at the periodontist by 9 this morning - four blocks away.  After about 8 injections , Andre did a deep root surface debridement on the right side of my mouth and then extracted the upper back molar. The whole process took 40 minutes. Readers will be pleased that I didn't think to ask him to let me take a photo of the extracted tooth. 

I left with a gauze plug in the gap, and a set of instructions - the first of which was to bite on the gauze for an hour. 

I was home again at 10am settled into my favourite chair with a book - Skeleton Dance, an Aaron Elkins treat to distract me from the gauze and the anaesthetic wearing off. My instructions were not to eat or drink until it had worn off. The coffee I made when it did, around 12, was wonderful.

From 7am this morning, the builders were busy erecting a scaffold for the next storey of the building next door.  It became immediately clear why there is a courtyard at the back of the building - without it, the builders would have no space to erect the scaffolds they need to erect the back wall of the building, which presumably will have windows and /or balconies.

There is a similar arrangement at the front, which will also, it seems, project about a metre beyond my balcony wall.

The scaffolding at the back brought the builders very close to my balcony as they erected their safety fencing. After my coffee I took the opportunity to water my plants and say hello . They were looking forward to 3.30 - when they knock off!

By 3.00 the coffee and paracetamol had done their work sufficiently for me to drive to Unley to pick up the top I had ordered, and replenish my supply of black Russian tomatoes.

My other visitors arrived after 4, when the building site was quiet, reclaiming the territory  and cleaning up the seed. 

I managed to eat a cutlet with salad without disturbing the extraction site. Tomorrow I begin salt water washes. 

This evening I managed a little more on the Western Spinebill. A long way to go, but it's taking shape. I'm happier with it tonight.

 

It's been a long day.  I think I'll sleep well with the help of a couple of paracetamol tablets.

Post 340

As I anticipated, the package awaiting me at the post office was the three genealogy charts I had ordered. I had a message from the PO to say they were ready to pick up around 10am this morning - so no need to decipher the postman's handwriting.

It is on a heavy linen-like fabric. The book on the left edge is A4, to give some sense of the size. My idea is to fill one out with myself as the starting point, then one beginning with my daughters and one with my grandchildren.  I will then develop books of stories that incorporate the many photos on my Ancestry tree. An online tree has many advantages, but stories and a holistic view are not among them. 

Now I need to try out a couple of archival pens. I've decided against embroidering the names!

And in case you look closely, 'paternal' is mispelled.

From the PO I went to Frewville to buy my muesli and some bakery items for this afternoon's visitors. I then went to the Guild to see what I could find in the library on Bulgarian embroidery.

This is the standard DMC account, mostly a collection of motifs and colour instructions.

This one, interestingly is the catalogue of an exhibition held in Adelaide at the Migration Museum in 1986

while this one has useful information about some embroidery and textile traditions.  There is also some information in Mary Gostelow's Embroidery: Traditional Designs, Techniques, and Patterns from All over the World.

It's enough to get me started. All I need to do now is read them, in between the other tasks I've set myself!

I had a reminder this morning that I have undertaken to give a Certificate Course Workshop on Icelandic Embroidery in May and need to have instructions in by April, so I borrowed the Icelandic books as well to update my PowerPoint and notes.

The building grew apace today. I think it is clear that the building does not go to the boundary of the block. The side wall went up this morning (left) and by the end of the day the corner had been turned and a return wall erected.  These, I'm assuming, will be the walls that continue for 9 storeys, leaving a lower courtyard at the back.

It will shave a little off my view, but nothing like I was fearing if the building went to the boundary.

I also heard from my periodontist today, offering me an appointment tomorrow morning at 9.00am, which I have accepted. The tooth is not aching today, but was over the weekend, so it's better to get it done - even if it means two lunches I have organised later in the week are less comfortable than they might have been.

It's a return to Monday night dinners tonight. Niamh and Veronica finish early on Mondays so were here about 2.40pm. It's been a very relaxed afternoon. Brigid is spending her gap year working at her old school as a PE assistant and appears to be much in demand as a swim instructor and supervisor and coach of several sports. Fionn is preparing to perform in front of SANFL selectors on the weekend. 

The pasta bake turned out very well and there wasn't a lot left.

I began work on the Western Spinebill this evening. There's a long way to go. I need to add more black to the head - I may even have to make it solid. I'll have a better idea once I put the eye in. I'm pleased with the bill.

Up early for the dentist tomorrow.

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.