Post536 Mostly Art and Crafts

Much of the early part of the week was spent catching up appointments postponed because of COVID. Wednesday was a car service, Thursday optometrist and Orofacial pain doctor. 

In between appointments I visited the Himeji Garden. Even though there was a wedding taking place just outside, once inside, tranquility reigned. It is extraordinarily calming , even for 10 minutes, which is all I stayed. The sound of water is a big part of the tranquility.        

        

Both medicos are pleased with my progress. It looks as if some mild left-side headaches I’m having might be the result of the way I use my left hand in stitching. I’m now monitoring. 

Friday proved busy. I took the city loop bus in and out of the city for my haircut then drove to Melbourne St to look at the art works on offer at the upcoming Elders auction before going to Unley for a big grocery shop for Monday. My brother was interested in a couple of things so I went to check them out for him.

The Create in Stitch webletter advertised a new line in clamps that looked as if they might be able to be fitted to my "flexible" seated stand. While I find the stalk of the stand very flexible, the clamp is inflexible, so on Thursday I bought one of the new clamps. The fit wasn’t perfect, but good enough to be a substantial improvement. I took it out to show Simela on Friday. She, of course, got out her toolkit and made a few improvements. It now means I can attach a roller or frame, not just a hoop, to the stand. Yes!

The Elders auction was on Sunday. While checking things for my brother, I noticed two bark paintings. I am a sucker for vintage bark paintings. I registered to bid online and bought both of them. Family members will be interested in them. I hope to go and pick them up tomorrow, along with the two my brother bought!

Over the last few days I made 52 gift bags. The bags I cut out in January, from fabric bought at the Guild's trading table, have been sitting on my sewing machine ever since. I decided it was time to make a move on them. Tonight put the finishing touches on the last of them. Details, of course, in my embroidery blog.

While I am now free of Covid, I still have what appear to be symptoms of a cold - a cough, sneezing and a little congestion. This is, apparently, common after number of viral infections, including Covid. Advice seems to be that it is my immune system ridding my lungs of fluid and I am not infectious.  It should clear up in the next couple of weeks.  I am trying to rest, drink warm lemon water and take things easy. I didn't go to Aquafit today and stayed inside for most of the day.

I did go to Katherine's place for dinner on Saturday and hosted our family dinner yesterday, a lively and entertaining time. I had a busy day, beginning with fasting blood tests at 8.30am, shopping, cooking and meeting Barbara who had kindly collected my gallery purchases for me. I get the results of the blood tests from the nephrologist on Thursday. 

As well as family,  I have been visited most days by doves. On Friday they kept up a loud conversation. The rhythm of one of the calls sounded like "It’s Zeffirelli!". Once I got that into my head there was no eraser.

Just as I was wondering whether it would be wise to cancel my early morning coffee appointment tomorrow, Panayoula suggested the same, as there is Covid in her family. Seems it's everywhere. Instead I'm hoping to go and pick up the art works from Sunday's auction, then make more progress on the Inca cardigan. 

Post 291 A bit of Christmas Shopping

I ventured to a shop called Ecolateral this morning, about 5km away. I had not been there before but had ordered some things online a couple of months age that were delivered from there and thought I should check it out. I have been buying my eco-friendly fruit and veg bags and makeup from a shop in Perth. It would be good to find one in Adelaide. I had a couple of Christmas present bits I thought I might find there. I was right, but then I also found what I wasn't looking for - a small, heavy, neoflam  pan and some BonAmi. I haven't seen the latter in years. I've been using Gumption to clean stainless steel, and jumped on the BonAmi. I've been using a much larger Jamie Oliver pan and wishing I had one just big enough to fit a one person meal. Now I do.

I ran into a friend in Ecolateral. Adelaide is indeed a small place.

From there I took myself to Create in Stitch with a list that included some orangy-gold Appletons wool - the range I am missing for Lady Anne's Flowers,  the two DMC Etoile colours I have almost used up and the tin of the latest DMC stranded colours. Samela is waiting on a couple more colours for the tin, so I've ordered that. No hurry. I just like those tins and find them convenient.

Back at home I checked off the bits of Christmas presents I had bought and noticed that there seem to be two doves visiting on and off, youngish ones, one with a dark tail and one lighter. Light Tail seems to know where the seed is kept and stands by or on the container to give me the message. I don't respond.

I made a booking at a Golf Hotel at Normanville in January, the same week as my Adelaide family are staying at nearby Carrickalinga. Most accommodation inthe area is in holiday houses, mostly booked out, and not designed for a person on their own. I have no intention of playing golf!

One of the young assistants at Ecolateral this morning gave me instructions about curing my new pan. I followed the instructions and then used the pan to cook salt and pepper squid for my dinner. It worked well.

I've been working on the last of my sashiko squares today. I decided to work it from the diagonals, which gives a lovely rope pattern. To connect between rows I ended with a circle and a flower in the mix. I just love the way different patterns are visible at different points of the process. It really is an exercise in changing perception.

I had a lovely long email this morning from my friend Christine in Watford England. She has finally had her cataract operations after a tedious and lengthy process of travelling alone, by bus, in the fog and rain, to have Covid tests 3 days before each operation, then back for the operations themselves. She can read large print at the moment in her Tier 2 lockdown.  She is a right trouper! Hopefully her embroidery, drawing and reading will be restored to her soon.

It's been a very warm and windy day here, grey and overcast for most of the day. Sunset, however, thanks to the dissipating cloud, was a treat. Only 29C tomorrow. My window cleaner is coming at 8.00am so I need to be up and dressed in time. Year 12 results are also out tomorrow. 

Post 223 Mostly fabric

Today's focus was on an afternoon helping Brigid to turn one of her school uniforms into an outfit for  her end of school Celebration Day. This is, apparently a tradition, not just at her school, but at many girls' schools in Adelaide. It wasn't a tradition when I was a principal, but that, of course, was an eon ago.

I needed a pattern for her idea (which I can't reveal, but will try to post a photo on the day) and sourced one at Spotlight Melrose Park (gone are the days when you could get a full range of patterns at any fabric shop in town) so headed off around 10.00am. There were quite a few people about but all mindful of their movements and distancing. 

I've also had an idea about Christmas, and was after seersucker. No joy at Spotlight, which no longer stocks it ('old fashioned') so I visited Trish's Fabric Warehouse around the corner. Again, people were behaving well, although it is much harder to distance here because there is barely room to move. This photo is from Trish's website. I didn't think to take one today. There were maybe another 5 or 6 people there and we managed to dodge each other.

Trish came good with seersucker, though only a choice of two.  As she said herself, they are not the most exciting colours, but I accept the challenge! More on this later.

From Trish's I called at Create in Stitch for a few more skeins of Appleton's wools. I've been working with what I have for the Rabbits at Dawn, which is working quite well, but I have four of them to do, and want a bit of colour variation in my greens in particular.

There was a group there stitching with Di Kirshner - so good to see women sitting, well distanced, relaxed and sharing. 

Brigid and I had a bit of fun creating her Celebration  outfit. She had a clear idea of what she wanted, which always helps.  I look forward to sharing the results when the day comes. 

Tonight I finished most of the second hoop of my second Rabbits at Dawn. 

It is good to have a few more choices of shades of green from my purchases today.

I have moved the hoop on to the last bit - an extension so the piece will reach to the edge of the seat of the chair.

I'm conscious that some who read this blog are not able to do some of the things I am able to do - like visiting shops or a friend's home, or having lunch at a cafe or restaurant. We are very fortunate here in South Australia. We do live with restrictions, and I, and most people I know (who, other than family, tend to be in my age group) are cautious and very restrained in where we go and what we do. We think carefully about every activity, every trip outside our doors. 

I had an email a few days ago from my friend Sandra in Manchester saying that reading of my freedoms gave her hope. This is a huge relief to me. I would hate to appear to be blasé about it . I take nothing for granted and evaluate very carefully where I go and when. I am, however, grateful, for all I have - especially my friends in many places and over many years. Even in isolation those friendships keep me sane and grounded.

Post 138: Getting Organised

Turtle turned up this morning, waiting for seed and allowing me to distribute it and take photographs from one metre away.










I needed to be at the Toyota service centre by 10.30. It was well organised, distancing measures in place, and the coffee's still good. I got them to adjust my clock back from daylight saving (yeah, well...), restore the voice on my GPS and give me advice on the dent I put in the back passenger-side door when avoiding a mad woman in February.  My service guy, Mason, was patient, courteous, obliging and unfazed.

I now have the name of a crash repairer.

I got quite a bit of knitting done while waiting - finished the plain band and began the next lace band.




Afterwards, I went to Officeworks to purchase some more document boxes. I have decided to use them to organise my Appleton's threads. I bought 5 of them, 4 coloured, with a view to using the colours to separate and organise the threads.

From there I went to Create in Stitch to pick up a few bits and pieces. Di Kirshner had a class going. It's great to see people distanced, enjoying themselves and concentrating.

Since it was now nearly 2pm and I was hungry, I stopped at Mr Nick's and had an excellent calamari lunch.

Back at home, I tackled my old Appleton's storage system.










I managed to divide them into four main colour groups (cleverly aligned with the box colours!) and then arrange them in rough number order.


I suspect I should have gone for the wider storage boxes.

They do, however, just fit. The advantage of this system is that I can see the numbers through the box and it is easy to pick out a set of blending colours.
















That left the clear box for me to use for the threads I need for my current project and the fill-in bits for my Crewel chair. .


I didn't start the Oak Apple Tree tonight. I wanted to get the next (lace) band done on my shawl. I managed that.


I have a window cleaner coming at 8am in the morning, so I'd better get to bed.