Post 211 Crewel and Pilates

My main goal today was to get to the Crewel Work Special Interest Group at the Guild. I had been to one meeting of this group last year and intended to be a regular attendee this year to work my way through the various printed linens I have purchased from the Crewel Work Company to fill the gaps on my Crewel chair. Corona Virus put paid to that plan until today.

This is only the second time the group has met since the Guild reopened. Like many of the Special Interest Groups, the returning numbers are lower than pre-Covid. There were only 3 of us today, but a couple more sent apologies and intend to return soon.

I decided to work on one of the Rabbits at Dawn pieces. As I did not buy a kit, I don't have a colour chart to work from. For this first one I chose colours close to the illustration on the Crewel Work website version. I have three more of these to do, so I can vary the colours as I go to get a development going.

I didn't realise that the group continues until 2.30pm from its 10.30 start and had to leave at 12.30 for a 1.00pm Pilates class. In future I will make sure I don't have a Pilates class on the fourth Thursday of the month.
There was a little dove drama again this morning. Myrtle arrived and polished off some of the seed I had put out.









When the Stormy arrived, Myrtle abandoned the seed and drove Stormy off the balcony rail.







Interestingly, at the end of this altercation, Myrtle appeared to be much larger than she had started out. Although I haven't found any confirmation, it seems to me that one trigger for doves swelling is aggression.

As she returned to the seed, she reduced in size. By the time she flew off, she had returned to the original size.






I'm glad I voted ahead of time for the Strata AGM at 6pm, obviating the need to attend. It was raining and cold at that time.

I put the crewel rabbits aside in favour of Caterina. I managed to work the border line and two of the corners. I found the corners, working on the diagonal, quite difficult.

Nevertheless, I like the effect.

Pilates was pretty good too!

Post 208

A leisurely day today, a bit unusual for a Monday. Tomorrow is Niamh and Veronica's birthday, and since the Netball trials are on and can't be missed, we went to the Ky Chow for dinner tonight, so I had a holiday from dinner preparation.

I went back to Norwood to a shop that was not open yesterday when I was there. I wanted to get a piece of jewellery for each of the girls. The maker of the jewellery was managing the shop today and just about to put the pendant she had made on the weekend into the display case. It was exactly what I wanted - a nice piece of serendipity.

I also managed to find some sugar-free biscuits and sweets at Norwood. Niamh had bands on her teeth last week and is off sugar for a while. I ran into Lorraine and Tim young in Coles. It was a real boost to meet someone I know in a supermarket and talk to them (socially distanced) for 10 minutes.  Such a simple thing, but so uplifting. The simple act of connecting is so important to our well-being.


The lisianthus I bought the other day are looking  full and lovely. Even so, I indulged in an orchid from Coles.

I did a bit of getting organised for the next round of scanning. I discovered pages of photos from 1988-89 at the beginning of a 1990s album. I could slide them out of the album undamaged, so did so and scanned them - 120 photos, which went through the scanner in 5 batches in about 20 minutes including storing and labelling.


It's a strange feeling, scanning photos on this scale. There are events, people and experiences that I have forgotten, like this article. I'm tempted to contact the Advertiser and suggest they do a follow up! Except, of course, that like other print media, the Advertiser now has few, if any,  journalists to do such work.


There is also a sense of how much has happened in my life, so many activities and so much energy.
The kids came here after school as usual, then, at 5.30, put their bags in my car and we drove to the Markets where we parked while dining at the Ky Chow. It was a pleasant, relaxed meal.




This evening I have finished the first round of running stitch on the inner row of Caterina. I'm pleased to be nearly through the counting. I still have a little bit of filling to do in the four corner spaces.











For now I am working the return row of double running on the inner round I have just finished. There's still a way to go on this project, a hemstitched and backstitched edge and some very complex tassels.

Post 205 Photo Extraction,Young Doves and Friends Stitching

The young dove with the dark breast was back around 7.30 this morning, on its own, alert and surveying the scene before dropping to the balcony floor to eat the seed I had already put out in anticipation.

Once again, it was a windy day. The dove's feathers were continuously ruffled by the gusts.He or she ate quickly, consuming 80-90% of the seed in a short space of time, before flying away.

I have a feeling I will be seeing more of this bird, so I have decided to call it Stormy - because of its storm-cloud coloured breast.


There were no other birds trying to muscle in, or monitor Stormy's behaviour. I replenished the seed because I thought others might want some

About an hour later, the other young bird, with the pink breast appeared and repeated the act, eating uickly and thoroughly before flying away.  I am going to dub this one Blush. Again, no other birds interfered.Perhaps the older birds were holding a meeting and the younger ones took advantage - qor perhaps they have been anointed by the elders to visit and forage. Are they sharing or has the baton passed to the younger generation? Watch this space.



I returned to the 1970s albums and set about removing photos from the large album. with the help of my butter knife. There are batches of high-quality black and white photos from 1972/3 that won't come off without damage. Most later photos will come off with care and time.

After removing about 60 photos with great care, I thought of looking for advice online as to the best way to remove them. An archivist has a video that gives two main methods. Her first choice is to use a very fine blade, such as a medical instrument to prise them up. The second is to work dental floss under them. I hunted down my dental floss and tried it. My butterknife is better.

The third method mentioned is to lift a corner and spray underneath with one of the those sticky label removers. I tried this on one stubborn photo and it worked a treat. We'll see how I go tomorrow. I scanned most of those still stuck on using the PhotoScan App.


This afternoon was Sit'nStitch with a couple of friends. Jennifer has finished her bag, which is truly splendid. I'm thinking of writing up the story of this Covid bag for the Guild Newsletter. It is a testimony to beauty perseverance and survival.

Back of bag

Susan has finished her most recent blanket, also splendid.

On the way home I noticed the Jacaranda street trees greening up.










It was a cloudy sunset.



I'm tired writing this. It has been quite a long, but enjoyable and productive day.








I did another ten rows of knitting at  this afternoon's Sit'nStitch and this evening I managed another quarter of first pass of the inner row of Caterina.


My cleaner has asked if we can swap tomorrow morning for Sunday morning. I agreed readily. I can now sleep in tomorrow morning before I begin scanning!

Post 203 Days of Dove Lives and scanning

The young dove arrived this morning and began pecking very quickly at the seed. He (or maybe she) was very alert, pausing to listen every few seconds.









He ate about half the seed then hopped on to the rail and looked carefully in all directions.











While he was  on guard, 

another young dove arrived.



I think that the bird I have been calling 'the adolescent' is in fact two young birds.













They can be seen here - one on top of the balcony rail, on the flower box and the other on the lower rail

It was at this point that Myrtle arrived and scared them away.

I think I have a new pair of young doves interested in my balcony in competition with Myrtle and Turtle. Whether one of them is their offspring or not I can't tell, but it's quite likely.

Myrtle returned, briefly, and sampled the seed. The first young bird returned later still and gobbled a bit more. Still on alert.  It will be interesting to see how this plays out throughout Spring and Summer.

I looked for anymore 1980s photo albums without success. There are about 6-7 albums covering the 90s and two for the 70s. The earlier of these is a large one with sticky pages. I decided to start with this. Unfortunately, when I began to remove the photos, I was unable to do so without tearing the photos. The adhesive on the pages is very effective. The album has 50 double-sided pages, at least 600 photos that will not go through my new scanner.  The options are to lay each page on the flatbed scanner or use an App.
I decided to try the PhotoScan App, just in case it had recovered and, lo! it worked! I managed to scan, over about two and a half hours, 155 photos before the App began to slow. I am hoping that if I rest it overnight it will revive again tomorrow and I will be able to use it to scan the album in 4 batches.
I don't think any of the other albums will present the same problem, and I will be able to return to my super scanner for the others.

I did not get to enjoy much of the warm sun today but it is much more pleasant to be indoors scanning when the sun is shining in ( at 27C, not 46!). I had promised to do some research for my brother earlier in the week, so used the App crash to move to that. Still chasing some information, but have made a good start.


This evening I had to choose between Lewis and Midsomer Murders to progress my Caterina inner row. I've seen both so could focus on counting threads while listening and occasionally glancing at the screen. Lewis won, but I caught the end of Midsomer Murders.

I'm still making mistakes and either unpicking or compensating, but I'm pleased with the progress.

Rain is forecast on most of the next seven days, so a good thing I washed bed linen yesterday and my clothes today.

Post 201

The morning light showed the tiny succulent flower to good advantage. I doubt I'd have put the pink and orange together in threads but it is very effective.

At the same time, cloud covered the Hills. It had lifted by mid-morning.

That was about the time the young adolescent dove arrived, closely followed by Turtle, doing his following routine again, this time accompanied by a repeated two note call. He effectively drove the young bird away - again without any violence, but the message was clear.

Turtle then ate the seed until Myrtle arrived to collect him- or that's how it seemed. As soon as she arrived they flew off together.



I went shopping at Frewville. I had four items on my list and came home with 3 supermarket shopping bags full. I do like that supermarket - probably a good reason to shop elsewhere!

There were only five of us for dinner. Anthony is in Whyalla for work and Fionn had football training. Niamh and Veronica had school photos taken today. There was much discussion about the photographer's insistence that all the girls sit in the front row in all the photos - 'for symmetry'. None of us could work out what this meant. As the tallest girl in her class, Niamh thought height would have been a better organiser. I agree.
I set the scanning aside today and cleared the table. I'll return to it in tomorrow or Wednesday.












I used my time to progress the Caterina project. I got two more quarters done. It's slow work, but is working quite well at the moment. A bit less than one quarter to go - then it's back to running stitch on the inner layer.

Post 199

I read a few more chapters of The Bird Way this morning, the section on Play, which deals mainly with ravens and Kea, both of whom display extensive, but different, play behaviour. I think the author would have benefitted from discussions with early childhood educators.

I stopped reading to finish the first round of the Caterina embroidery project.  I did quite a bit of unpicking. It is so easy to make a one thread error on such loose weave fabric. I’m quite excited about the next stage of this, which amounts to whipping to fill in the gaps between the running stitches.

My major goal for the day was to get a start on scanning the rest of my 1980s photos. It took me more time than I’d hoped to work out how to operate the flatbed scanner with the new operating system on my laptop. It’s a bit of a messy process, even without the challenge of software and storage.

I eventually got 35:photos scanned from one of our Heysen trail walks and a visit Tom the Great Ocean Road.

It takes longer to scan using the flatbed than it did with the PhotScan App but the result is better.

I have been researching the most recent scanners. Choice  recommends a batch scanner which retails in Australia for around $660. It does sound efficient although there are a few reports of jamming and quality lower than traditional flatbeds. It’s tempting when there are several thousand photos to scan.



On balance I decided to continue with the one I have and see how I go.

There was lots of bird noise around this afternoon but I didn’t see the perpetrators. The ‘black’ geranium has enjoyed the rain which got heavier as the day wore on. It looks like a wet day tomorrow.

Dinner at Katherine and Anthony’s tonight. Both Katherine and I got a bit of knitting done

I managed a little test of the second round on the Caterina project.

I’m not at all sure I don’t prefer it without the gaps filled! 

Post 196 WES Group, scanning and birds

I was up relatively early to get organised for the World Embroidery Study Group meeting this morning. We were discussing Icelandic Embroidery and I had books, a PowerPoint presentation, my thermos of coffee and my Icelandic Endless knot bag to take to the meeting.

While getting ready I noticed Myrtle and a young dove on the balcony, the young one coming quite close to my glass door. which was open with the screen door pulled across. This was the best I could do to photograph the new bird. I reckon it is the young adolescent that Myrtle and Turtle chased away a couple of months ago. I reckon it could be their last year's fledgling now accepted as sufficiently adult to forage here. There may be other explanations. It will be interesting to see how it develops.

Incidentally, those delicious looking grapes I bought on Monday have not lived up to their promise - good looking sour grapes!

We had a very good WES Group meeting; nine of us, two new to the group. We had a Covid Marshal and tables are set out to ensure we stay 1.5 metres apart. It's a good arrangement and everyone cooperates. Out Icelandic embroider discussion was, in one member's word 'inspiring'. Lori had worked her own design using the two most used traditional Icelandic stitches, long-armed cross stitch and eyelet stitch in perle cotton. As Lori pointed out, these stitches, but particularly the long-armed cross, are great solid filling stitches.

Margaret is working a much finer version of the Endless Knot design, also interesting.

Barbara brought along a number of Korean wrapping cloths she had made several years ago. The large on is for wrapping a table!

These are machine stitched with a particular  narrow enclosed seam.

Back at home I attempted a bit more scanning. After I'd scanned 30 photos, the app ceased to scan. Eventually I looked for a solution online and discovered this is a common fault of the app. After 150 or so scans it frequently crashes. At least I got 233 photos out of it! The solution is to remove the scanned photos from the device you are using, delete and reload the app and then continue.  This is disappointing. Not sustainable for the number of photos I am dealing with. There is also a fair bit of discussion about the quality of the scans compared to a flatbed scanner.

So I gave in. I rang the Apple service shop at Norwood and asked if they would remove old drivers from my laptop, check the connection to my flatbed scanner and either restore the connection or let me know that it is no longer compatible and suggest an alternative. If I can drop the laptop and scanner in tomorrow morning they will do their best to have it sorted by the afternoon for me.
Nothing like doing it properly!

Late in the afternoon I heard the tell-tale cooing. There on the back balcony was the young dove again. Curiouser and curiouser.

It flew away, of course. I then noticed the unfolding aloe.






















On the front balcony this morning I noticed that the native bush I bought a couple of years ago at an Australian native plants expo  is finally blooming. It is labelled as a Meuller's Daisy but doesn't look very daisy-like. I'll check it again tomorrow to see if the flowers change shape as they open.


This evening's work on Caterina has progressed the project. The thread count, however is out by two threads as I reach the centre line. so I will need to track the error tomorrow when I am less tired and have daylight.