Posr 365 A long weekend, birds, and research.

It was a bit of a bird week. These were all taken just after sunset, the top two of birds returning to roost in the many trees in the city parks and gardens. From their flight direction I suspect they were headed to the Botanical Gardens. The lower two were lorikeets descending on the Square to have a final feed before nightfall. They made a lot of noise and fought each other for the best positions to get the opening seed pods.  

This was Sunday's sunset (right)

and this Monday's. Monday was a public holiday in South Australia - for the running of the Adelaide Cup, which went ahead with 5000 attendees, rather than the usual 14,000.

The Embroiderers Guild Exhibition is now running. I visited on Saturday. It looks good. There are some stunning entries, but photography isn't allowed. I am on duty there tomorrow, so will try to get a general shot or two of the room to show include next week.

There was a bit more development on the Bulgarian Embroidery front. 

Genevieve sent me a link to a really interesting article published in French on the National Bulgarian Radio website.about martenitsi -  tokens given on 1 March, the first day of Spring, or Baba Marta Day, signifying renewal. This photo (left) of embroidered martenitsi is from the article.I found photos of these tassel figures,  which are  traditionally given in pairs, one male, one female.

Nelly dropped in the embroidered clothes she had found in her wardrobe, including this dress. I can't wait to show the World Embroidery Study Group  .

On Friday the Sheila Paine book on Amulets arrived. I have browsed a little but not read it as yet. It's going to be really interesting. While there are several referenccs to Bulgaria, the main interest for me will be much wider.

One of my three frangipani trees is blooming. It is lovely to see. Regretably, it doesn't have a strong scent. I will need to wait another year or so for the latest one I bought to bloom for the scent.

In a moment of madness in January, I enrolled in an online design course being run for the Guild by Barbara Mullan. It is the first online course the Guild has run. It trialled last year. I think it's a great idea and wanted to support it, so I enrolled. The second assignment arrived last week - and I hadn't done the first, which focused on beginning to think about a design. I dug out the project I began a year ago - to produce a narrative embroidery about the Bushfires we were experiencing - before Covid hit. I had sketched a design and purchased a hand-woven scarf to use as a canvas and sourced a good range of Australian-produced threads (not easy). As 2020 progressed, the project seemed less and less appropriate. I have now revived it as the basis of my project for this online course. I want to simplify it. The course should provide me with a framework.

The major achievement this week was the completion of the new edge on my winter hexie quilt. The detail on how I got to this point is covered in my embroidery blog.

A couple of family history puzzles occupied me for a number of hours over the long weekend.  One was a straightforward request for information I had about the marriage of one set of my paternal 3x GGrandparents, both of whom made their separate ways to London from Ireland during the famine. It's a while since I researched this, so it took time to refreshing my memory.  I had concluded that they either did not marry, or married in a London Catholic Church whose records have not been digitised. Probably the former. The enquirer turned out to be an Australian currently in the UK researching and hoping to visit Ireland to follow up on research. Pretty amazing. I hope she succeeds. 

I also spent a number of hours following up on the enquiry I received last week. Melanie, the researcher who contacted me has come up with an alternative ancestry for a shared ancestor in the 1820s. We either have a 2x GGmother who was the sister of 2 convicts transported for larceny, or a 3xGGmother who had 2 children by one of those convicts. I had traced the line to the latter, but after hours of checking and digging, I think Melanie might be right.  I need to do more work and then spend time adjusting my tree.

I have begun a Turkman pouch. This is the one I cut out a couple of years ago, because Jennifer was wanting to make one and I was going to help by working one alongside her. She didn't need my help and is now helping a group in her apartment block to make theirs. I've agreed to meet with them to help with stitches, so thought I should revive mine.        I'm making good progress. The pattern calls for button-holed circles in the marked squares, but given my lining I thought I'd do Ghiordes Knots.  It seems to be working.  

Also over the long weekend, I did an early proof-read of a chapter of my brother's next book. Always interesting.

I've also done all the usual things - shopping, mostly for fruit, Sit'n Stitch last Friday, dinner at Katherine's on Saturday. Niamh had a friend to sleep over. There was lots of animated discussion of school activity and interactions. Katherine's front garden is beginning to look terrific.

Today I picked up a parcel of books from the Post Office. These are from Can Do Books. I couldn't resist these small handbooks of textile patterns from the V&A. So many beautiful patterns. I don't have any immediate practical use for them, but they are lovely to hold and to browse.

This one might prove very useful when considering the 3 drawers of wool I have to use up.

Jennifer is flying to Queensland tomorrow night for 4 weeks, visiting her family and attending an annual family reunion, so we had an extra Sit'n Stitch today. I still haven't photographed Susan's Margaret Light square. It is beautifully fine. Jennifer is taking her Sophie's World with her to work on in Queensland. It is amazingly textured - crocheted stumpwork!

This is where I finished up today on the pouch. 9 more Ghiords knots to go.                    

Finally, the wall next door rose by one more panel this morning. It was great to have a break from building work over the long weekend.

It hasn't deterred the doves.

Post 297 Shopping, doves and frangipani.

 This morning I sorted out my Christmas presents and then went to Norwood to drop of my soft plastic recycling, and get a couple of small items including a few bits at the supermarket. I also went to the bead shop and dropped off a coral and turquoise necklace that has been waiting to be mended for several years. I intended to learn how to mend it myself - but recently decided to just get the bead shop to mend it. Somewhere I think I have a bag of necklaces to be mended. If I find them I will take a class on necklace repair.

Coles had this little fir tree for sale. It was the only one they had. I had looked at larger versions of these at Barrow and Bench a couple of weeks ago. On impulse today I bought this one. I need to keep it out of full sun, which might mean keeping it inside in Summer. If I manage to keep it (and myself!) alive for 10 years, it should reach 1.3 metres.

I came home via Jenny McWinney's shop to buy a copy of Margaret Light's new book, A Fine Tradition. It is a beautiful book with some lovely projects. Every one is appealing. This needle case is my absolute favourite. I certainly don't need any more projects, but you never know....

When I got home, and sat to look at Margaret's book, Black Tips took up position, alert to some sounds of building on the site next door. It makes such a great image, I can't resist photographing it.

I managed another square while catching up on the latest news of border closures and virus spread.

Today would have been my mother's 95th birthday. 

In Sydney this afternoon my brother visited the resting place of our parents' ashes. The magnolia tree has grown quite a bit. The frangipani blooms are from a a tree my brother has grown from a cutting we took from one of the huge frangipani trees our mother nurtured in our Botany home. It in turn came from a cutting given to her by her sister in about 1955. 

I took it into my head this afternoon to make some more large gift bags. I have had some pieces of batik on my sewing machine for some time, intending to make myself more Summer pull-on pants. I've now decided that fabric without stretch is bad news for pants for me, so on impulse I cut a couple of the batik pieces into quarters and turned them into large bags. I have quite a few large bags waiting to be used, but these bags are bigger still. I have a feeling they are going to be in demand. 

From my sewing machine I can see on to my back balcony. While I was stitching the bags, Blus arrived and had some seed. Within a few seconds Black Tips was there . They then went through the dove courting ritual - looks like kissing. it went on for a while, followed by mating and a kind of silent companionship before they resumed eating seed and exploring. Pretty extraordinary. At least I now know that Blush is female and Black Tips is male!

I spent the evening adding the drawstrings to the batik bags. Now I'm prepared for all contingencies - and ready for bed!

Tonight was the Summer Soltice. This is about as far south as the sun gets at sunset. 

Unfortunately I didn't get any Crewel work done today. A shame, but there was quite a bit going on.