Post 580 April is a cooler month…🙏🏼

Wednesday was unusually busy at the Guild, with the library team working to make up for a day missed because of the way the April calendar plays out this year. It's been a long time since I’ve overheard cataloguing conversations. The Guild group, comprising, for the most part, trained amateurs working together with guidelines, had more interesting discussion than my memory of professional cataloguers. We also had embroidery discussions. It’s a great group.

I try to give more books to, than I acquire from, the Guild library’s sale of surplus books, but today I was unable to resist a copy of Sheila Paine’s now out of print Embroidered Textiles. It’s a large, heavy, hardback format.  I resisted, but it has considerable information on Evil Eye embroidery not readily accessible elsewhere. I came home with it.

Apart from bringing in the bins from the curb and emptying the internal Guild bins, there was not much call on my time, so I got most of the blanket stitch border done on the Mountmellick pouch and finished it at home. 

 As the Library team was there and the Office Manager had left for the day, I also left early to visit Beacon Lighting with my bed lamp. It suddenly stopped working, and the base holding the globe inside appeared to be broken. It turned out the glass of the globe had completely broken away from the its screw base. The cheerful young assistant manoeuvred the screw out of the fitting, got me a new globe, Voila! I was delighted to admire her skill and laugh at my poor diagnostics.

On  Thursday, apart from time out for Pilates, I worked on the Mountmellick inner border of herringbone and linked chains. By evening I had the piece finished and ready for blocking. As a result my hands were sore. The thickness of Mountmellick fabric requires quite a bit of effort pulling the needle through.

I opted to get out my knitting rather than my Sashiko while watching tv that night- much easier on my hands. I now have in excess of 350 stitches on the needles and continually increasing. At the moment each row takes around 16 minutes - so progress is slow to show..

This year's Shetland Wool Week beanie pattern was released this week. I bought a digital copy but have no plans to work on it as yet. None of the colourways are available here in Adelaide at the moment. However, in a Q&A , the Shetland Guild of Spinners, Knitters, Weavers and Dyers has instructions for converting the pattern to two colours. I might have a go at at that, but I have a lot of higher knitting priorities!

I’m pleased to report the daytime temperature has dropped to low 20Cs (although back to 30s next weekend). Weather Bureau figures released this week indicate the 12 months to 31 March this year was the hottest 12 month period on record in Australia, and March this year was also the hottest on record. I was right to put off repotting plants.

Friday was Fionn’s birthday, and a family dinner for 9 at Sunny’s restaurant in Prospect. The food was good and everyone in good spirits. An uplifting privilege to be part of it.

My audiologist cancelled again, giving me a free day to construct the pouch. Details in my embroidery blog.

Saturday was for sleeping in, changing over my quilts, washing the summer one,  blogging and shopping for Monday dinner. Not enough lamb shanks at the butcher and none at all in the supermarket, so Osso Bucco.  Preparing it took care of much of Sunday morning, along with washing clothes. As I put the clothes in my front-loading washing machine I felt some resistance but didn’t check. I had, of course, forgotten all about hanging out the quilt when I returned from shopping on Saturday! It’s quite light, and had wrapped itself around the drum. It is now very clean, but the resulting large load gave me some drying challenges, solved with the help of my rarely-used clothes horse.

Since I had an extra hour, I turned zucchini,  bought earlier in the week, into muffins, checking a few recipes, then launching into my own version with the ingredients I had; self-raising flour, eggs, butter, honey, yoghurt and cinnamon. I ate three around 11.30 - whatever meal that was, and at 2.45 (really 3.45) put out the rubbish and headed to Prayer for the Wild at Heart for a meal while reading Louise Penny’s A Better Man. 

By sunset at 6.30pm (right)  the kitchen was clean, washing away and I was half way through A Better Man. Finished it at 9.30 - don't think I've ever read through Antiques Roadshow, The News, QI and Vera  before.

I think I got value out of my extra hour!

I slept well and on Monday awoke to Venus (white dot in top left quadrant between cloud and tree) rising ahead of the sunrise. 

Around midday the electrician and apprentice turned up to inspect the exhaust system in my bathrooms. I so admire their scientific method and skill. They were here for well over an hour. It seems the current extraction from bathrooms and laundry channels into the air-conditioning ventilation system. It works but isn’t strong. Since my ceilings are directly under the roof, which has two whirly-bird vents to the exterior, I can have extra exhaust fans installed. Quotes are being prepared. I’ve also asked for a quote to replace my kitchen extraction fan - and for Shaun-the-Geek to check my modem. Very happy.

There were 5 of us on site for the Osso Bucco, and a take-away for Fionn. Another hugely privileged time.

Early this afternoon I headed out to fill the car with petrol, pick up some graph paper, some Haigh's Chocolates and a copy of the Mountmellick Bible from Create in Stitch.  As I hoped, this has a good history, as well as very clear instructions for the stitches and several projects.  I am very pleased that the pouch I made did not include the fringing that was traditional for Mountmellick. It would not have appealed. I might try another pouch using a pattern from one of this book's projects. One day.

Right now I'm playing with knitting patterns, using the graph book I bought today. If anything comes of it I'll report back.