It has been a fairly busy week again, one way and another, although I have had the weekend largely to myself.
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The birds are still active, especially on the native frangipani, which is now in full bloom. Unable to resist, I snapped away at a couple of lorikeet acrobats among the branches on Saturday morning. In some of the photos the bird was almost vertical - perfect for bookmarks, so I played around, converted 3 of them and sent off a bookmark order to UDesignIt. While I was about it, I converted 3 more to cards and ordered them from Officeworks. 
Wednesday was the monthly meeting of the World Embroidery Study Group. Maria gave an excellent talk on the origins of Blackwork. Unfortunately, the projection completely failed, in spite of the relentless efforts of Margaret, our tech guru. Maria adapted quickly, working from memory and painting brilliant word pictures. Spanish Blackwork, it seems, did not originate in Spain and was not introduced to England by Catherine of Aragon, although she did play a major part in its popularity. There was a lot of discussion - everyone was interested and engaged. The Guild is mostly about doing embroidery, so I too get nervous when presenting history, but experience shows this group is really interested. 
On Thursday, while doing Pilates, I watched a dove in the fig tree, positioning itself to remain partially hidden, while catching the sun. I had dinner at friends' place. It was, as always, a truly relaxing time. I picked up Ken's travel pants for mending and set to work on them on Friday. It was quite a challenge and took a couple of days. Ken hasn’t seen them yet, so I will save that story for next week. 
Between Pilates and visiting friends, I called at the Yarn Trader. Since they carry Jamieson and Smith wool from Shetland, I thought I’d have a go at knitting this year’s Shetland Wool Week beanie in their colourway. Shetland mills each produce their own colourway for the beanie, but the time and cost of mailing wool from Shetland is discouraging. The Yarn Trader website indicated they had 5 of the six colours Jamieson and Smith colours..After much searching through their stock, we found 3 and substitutes for the others. Now if I can just finish the shawl….
Niamh and Veronica had a 16th birthday party for their many friends on Saturday, so I did not go for dinner. They bravely invited friends from Netball, from school and from their old Primary school. They were excited to report that people mixed well and had fun. There are lots of photos being developed. I had a weekend of preparing for Monday dinner, some Christmas shopping, finishing off the Advent Calendar I've been making for Brigid and mending the travel pants. I am pretty pleased with all the results. The making of the Advent Calendar can be found in my embroidery blog. 
I may have made a mistake by changing to my summer quilt. We have had several cool days and colder nights this week, so I have been using the Huck throw I made a few years ago in addition to the quilt. There have been plenty of moments of sun. This was the view from the window next to my sewing machine as I worked on the calendar and pants over the weekend. It's warming up for the next few days, but dropping again on the weekend, so I won't put the blanket away just yet.
My music friends may be interested in a review of last week's Festival of Choirs Finale, published in In Review.
They also had a much better photo than I managed, taken from the balcony and showing the five choirs performing the last number together with Carl Crossin conducting from the centre aisle. I can just pick out Katherine and I.
The shawl is coming along slowly and with another fairly busy week coming up it may not be finished this week. Still, there is a lot to show for this week's activity.
