It's been a fairly busy week. Last night's family dinner of Chicken Maryland, Eggplant parmigiana, potatoes with bacon and Greek Salad went well. It was nearly late because Veronica interviewed me for a school project and I lost track of time. With Easter and the school holidays, Monday evening dinners are suspended for three weeks.
After I picked up my five items from the Guild Exhibition last week I found a spot for the Owl Service under the barometer just inside my door. I will use one or two of the bags myself and give two or three away.
On Wednesday a couple of Guild friends and I had lunch at the Glenelg Surf Club. Junette picked me up on the corner of our apartments and I took this photo of the crane working on the building next door. It was lifting the next round of wall panels in place.
The Surf Club is a great venue - a lovely view over the water and no pressure to leave. We stayed three hours.
You might remember last week I played with the Scheepjes wool to make a shawl. I also ordered a pattern and the Noro wool to make this shawl. It arrived while we were at lunch and I picked it up on Thursday before heading to the Guild.
It gave me a chance to talk to Christine Bishop about the requirements for her upcoming classes and also about the kit I'm putting together for the Certificate Course class I'm leading in June. This resulted in Christine bringing me 30 count Belgian linen and a metre of doctor's flannel on Saturday. I will measure up and tack the linen at next month's Basic to Beyond but the kit for the Certificate Course workshop will take a lot more preparation. The workshop is on Icelandic Embroidery and I want the participants to work on wool, either working on a 16th Century couched figure or an 18th Century split stitch piece. The latter was usually on black. A friend has given me some very dark navy wool, which I also plan to use. 
I planned another concession to the twenty first century by using some solvi to transfer the pattern. At Create in Stitch, where I went to buy a metre of Solvi, Samela showed me a new product she has acquired but not yet tried - printable sheets of solvi that adhere to the fabric without ironing. Of course, I had to try it.
I think it is fit for my purpose. I can give students a choice of either the 16th or 18th century design already printed on the stitchable solvi sheets, or they can use regular solvi to design their own.
My next challenge is to put together some bundles of appropriately coloured Appletons wools to get them going - and to stitch an example of each design.
While all this was occupying hours of my time, my newfound family history collaborator Melanie and I have been working on our shared family tree, examining the certificates of births, deaths and marriages we ordered last week. This week we discovered that one of Ada's brothers spent time in an asylum with significant mental health issues. From the case notes it appears this might have been related to syphilis. It also seems that at least one of his children was impacted and that his (and Ada's) father may have had similar issues. Ada was the youngest of her family. She was only 5 when her father died. There are more death certificates to come. It testifies, however, to a lot of suffering, perseverance and resilience.
It also looks as if we may be very close to solving a major mystery around my other grandmother, Nell, whose family baptised and married under one surname and used another on decades of the census. This photo of her was taken in 1917 when she was 25.
Melanie has done some extraordinary detective work to come up with a very likely explanation. We have ordered more certificates and I will report when we have some more information.
Both my grandmothers' stories are worth telling and I am hoping to write about both of them later this year.
So far the aloe flower is too small to attract the Noisy Miner. I'm considering covering it with a net bag when it begins to open.
As a follow-up to my doctor's appointment two weeks ago I had my fasting blood test. My GP has followed up with a phone call this morning to ask me to have another one, without fasting, to check electrolytes again. She would not be concerned, she said, if I had 2 kidneys, but since I have only one she wants to double check. So another test tomorrow. I also have an appointment for a bone density scan and a mammogram - and, yes, my first Covid vaccination appointment on 15 April, to be followed by a flu vaccination on 5th May.
Last Saturday's Certificate Course Class was by Di Kirshner on invisible hem finishes. The instructions were to bring a piece of homespun 110cm x 25 cm. I was well out of my comfort zone - measuring, ironing, folding, ironing, tacking, ironing, then finally stitching, to create 6 pleats which we then stitched. To my horror, when I asked why the fabric piece was so long, the answer was because we might want to keep going and do more! I thought she had rocks in her head.
Di had brought along a steam station iron. I, who am at best an indifferent ironer, was impressed.
I went home, finished the six examples, marked up the rest of the piece of fabric - and ordered a steam station iron! I have now finished 12 rows. The iron arrived today and I have just quickly tried it out on the piece.I marked the names of the stitches in archival pen. I've got an idea for using the sampler. I will write this up for my embroidery blog and post a photo of the finish next week.
At Saturday's workshop I also discussed my Design Online idea with Barbara Mullan, who is running the course. I've now got an idea that relates to my Icelandic class.
The Embellish magazine issue on Madagascar arrived. It is really inspiring. I think this will make a great study and presentation for the World Embroidery Study Group in 2022. Dale Rollison has an article on wild silk - so I ordered some for a couple of us to play with and test out.
Finally, along with the iron, these half-metre pieces arrived from the Aboriginal Fabric Gallery in Alice Springs. They had a 15% discount offer and I thought these would come in handy.So ideas everywhere - and not a single finish this week. Looks like a goal for next week.
