Post 633 Quite a busy week.

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WES Group was well attended last Wednesday with 16 people to hear Janet talk about Japanese Fukusa. There must have been 50+ varied examples. My favourite were those depicting the Takasago legend of the old couple, Jo and Uba,  who appear from Lake Takesako, to spend time under a pine tree setting the world to rights. She sweeps away the old pine needles with her broom while he rakes in good fortune.  

The Fukusa are beautifully decorated cloths placed over ritual presentation gifts. Most are woven and many embroidered.

In the gap between our meeting and the afternoon help session, Margaret helped me examine and make notes on an embroidery collection belonging to a work colleague of a family member. Most of it will, I think, end up on the Guild trading table.

I was too focused on ensuring the Gallery was left in the condition we found it to remember to check the supply of hoops on the trading table, which had been renewed the day before, so I returned after Pilates on Thursday and indulged in ten small presentation hoops. I may never use them, but my supply is depleted by the Celtic symbols I embroidered for the Early Medieval Period talk, and the hoops have proved really useful for displaying such small items. 

I felt, however, the urge to move to a larger embroidery project, so dug out the needlepoint Poppies cushion I bought last year. 

The only reliable way to tackle it is on my slate frame and Lowery, so I spent a couple of hours setting it up. It takes up quite a lot of room but is not difficult to move. Progress is slow. It’s 18” square and 10 thread count. I reckon this is at least an 85 hour project, given the time it takes to identify, choose, thread and stitch each colour. It’s also a little awkward to work, demanding regular posture adjustment. So far I've stitched a section 8"x 2' which took 4-6 hours. 

I shopped on Friday but couldn’t get lamb shanks anywhere at my local shopping centre. It was a big football weekend in Adelaide, with multiple games being played at several venues, and road closures around the city. The sky turned on a celebratory rainbow around 4pm. 

I tracked the lamb shanks down online at Frewville, fortunately in the opposite direction to the football venues. As most of the family had tickets on Saturday night, Katherine and I enjoyed a quiet meal down the road at The Greek.

Our Book Club met at Magill on Sunday. I plotted a ring route to avoid the many road closures on the more direct route, and got mildly lost. I hadn’t read the books, but there was still plenty to talk about and 62 books added to our database. I’ve ordered a second-hand copy of The Hawk is Dead by Peter James for our May meeting. The other two suggested books are thrillers, which I avoid and I am interested to check out how a fiction book is constructed around living people. I have a feeling I may not get to the meeting anyway, as I have a commitment well on the opposite side of the city later the same day.

The lamb shanks turned out well. I experimented with the vegetables (broccolini and bok choi), leaving them in iced water,  draining and tossing them into the lamb ragu at the last minute and removing from the heat after 1 minute. It worked well. The ragu was still a bit too liquid but no one seemed to mind. There was bread to soak it up.

The books I've ordered to help with my August talk are still arriving roughly on the expected timeline. There are snippets of information in each one, helping me to build the picture I want. Much of it is things I've forgotten from Uni studies decades ago. The Old English word man, for example, is gender neutral, meaning 'person' or 'human' and people are frequently referred to in early texts as 'weapon person' or ' weaving person'. 

This morning’s coffee meeting didn’t happen as my friend was ill, so I took the opportunity to drop into the city and buy a replacement for my kitchen scales.  Recommended by Choice, the new ones are slightly larger than the old and have both a high capacity (10kg) and a precision pad. It still, however, fits in my available storage space. The old one did its work for at least 20 years and is now awaiting the next curb side pickup.

Caleb turned up around 3.30pm to examine my TV, quickly finding a broken aerial cable inside the back of the TV, which, he is sure, must have been faulty. He made a temporary repair with tape and the signal was restored. After consulting with the boss, he disconnected the cable, headed to the wholesaler, returned and replaced it. My TV is now working again! I can now watch South Australian News in Adelaide time, rather than streaming from NSW in Eastern Standard Time! I celebrated with a non-alcoholic margarita.

The Chapter and Skein shawl is coming along nicely. I've used 40%-50% of the first of two skeins.I'm still not sure if I will need to use the second skein. It's relaxed knitting - a 6 line pattern in which only one row isa true patterned row. It's nice yarn to handle. 

Shane, my drip entry-point-finding hero, is due at 8am tomorrow. I have a lot of faith in his skill and persistence. The difficulty may come in getting agreement on an intervention beyond plugging the latest hole. I'm a bit buoyed by the television fix today - and grateful that I have such tradies available to help.

Better get some sleep.