Post 516 Into 2024.

The bats have been out in force each evening this week. Presumably the figs are ripe and there is an end-of-year bat fig festival happening in the trees around the city. This was their last flight to the fig tree in 2023

I've enjoyed a quiet week. My cleaner came on Thursday for the first time in a month. He has come up with a better arrangement for 2024, moving to Tuesday afternoons, so I don't need to worry about clashes with WES Group. 

Later in the afternoon I made another batch of corn and zucchini muffins, this time using the feta recipe without the cumin, which I didn't have. This is becoming my go-to recipe.

I have been busy reading and building a presentation on Mexican embroidery for our February WES meeting. I knew very little about Mexican history other than the names of Montezuma, Cortez, and Diego de Riviera, and not much about embroidery except bright red flowers. The 1976 The Embroidery of Mexico and Guatemala by Frances Schaill Goodman is very helpful.

I've now got enough to share - and to know there's more to learn. I've also ordered a blouse from ArteOtomi.

The V&A have a Mexican collection and a lot of information, including a free pattern for a bag sampling Mexican motifs. I might give it a go. 

On the other hand, my original pink mandevilla is blooming again,  and the photo would make a very decent imitation of Mexican floral embroidery......

In the meantime, I've cut out a couple of tote bags to embroider and construct. I try to keep a couple in stock as gifts and exhausted my supply over Christmas. I'm very much looking forward to working some new ones. I began stitching one of them on Monday. I wanted to begin 2024 with embroidery, so I set the knitting aside for a few days. This is the fabric I ordered from Tessuti back in September. I have pencilled in some quotes and I am getting a lot of practice in my Quaker stitch!  I hope to have it finished by next week. 

When I had the cabinet made for some of my embroidery gear in 2022, I requested a glass top so that I could put an unfinished piece of mother's embroidery on top.

My mother began this when I was about 6 or 7. She worked it with great care but found it challenging. She would pick it up from time to time, but never finished it. I considered finishing it, but decided to keep it as it is. When the cabinet arrived I couldn't find the embroidery. I searched everywhere but in the end stopped looking, hoping it would turn up one day. 

Yesterday it turned up, tucked into a bag in a drawer of spare bags I was rifling through. Another plus for 2024!

I have progressed the prayer shawl I mentioned last week. It took a couple of false starts before I settled on one I was happy with. Attempt 1 used a fine 1ply mohair but after a couple of inches I realised I had cast on too tightly and it would never block straight. I undid it back to the cast-on, but decided my friend would be better off with something more solid, so switched to  a long green wrap that is coming along nicely. 

Unfortunately Aquafit was cancelled this morning as the instructor was sick. I set out to do some shopping but the carpark door was jammed, having, it seems, previously hit a wheelie bin on the way down. It was fixed around 4pm so I dashed out and stocked up. The supermarket shelves were somewhat depleted but it was easy to park. 

This is the moon rising at one minute after midnight on New Year's Day. I was trying to capture fireworks but much prefer Luna rising on 2024.  

The Mayans and Aztecs, like the Romans, saw the moon as a goddess.