post 371

The Guild's Crewel Work group was due to meet on Thursday this week, but there is still not much interest so I worked this next section of the Aesop Frame at home. It was an interesting one to work, with Renaissance Wools as well as Appletons and a little silk.

 I think I can say that the World Embroidery Study Group meeting on Bulgarian Embroidery was a success. People were very interested in the background information and in Sheila Paine's books, but mostly they loved the chance to see a collection of genuine examples of such high quality. 

There was a lot of discussion and engagement. We rarely get the chance to see so many varied examples of what we study and members made the most of it. I'm so grateful to have had this opportunity.

After the meeting I went to the Tennyson Centre for a bone density scan, my first in eight years. I have the preliminary results which mean little to me. I will get full results when I see my doctor early in May.           

On Thursday some rain was forecast and my feathered visitor was bunkering down in a few rays of sunshine when I left just before nine to get my first Covid vaccination at a Respiratory Clinic opposite the Frewville Foodland Shopping Centre. On the advice of my doctor, I parked in the shopping centre car park and walked across the wide, busy intersection to the clinic. It was very organised and controlled. Patients are told not to arrive until 5 minutes before. Signs on the door warn not to touch the door. On cue, the door swung open, a young man appeared and called my name. Inside he inspected my Medicare card and drivers licence and put a sticker on my poncho. 

The venue was, until last year, a physiotherapy and pilates studio - part of a very large medical practice on the site. The studio has been moved out to another venue to accommodate a dedicated Covid clinic. There are 3 small injecting rooms (or, in the afternoon, testing rooms) each staffed by a nurse who asks questions, checks ID, gives information, then waits for the doctor who circulates between the three rooms. The injection is only given in her presence after she has checked and asked more questions. It was friendly, helpful, cautious and professional. On leaving the injecting room, you go to another desk in a large waiting room to be given  information about the next steps before taking your seat and waiting to be timed and called with permission to leave.

I noticed the photo board which no one was using. The assistant was only too happy to take my photo as I left - sanitising his hands before and after touching my phone. 

I went on to Officeworks to get some acid-free tissue, to Create in Stitch for a frame, North Adelaide for some fruit and lunch before going to Pilates. I got home to find the letter with my $634 fine for using my phone while driving last week. I paid it straight away - hope that is now behind me.

It wasn't until 12 hours after the injection that I felt suddenly tired, then achey and shivery. I couldn't get warm in bed, so put on socks and took a couple of Panadol. I slept well and woke up a little achey but fortunately that passed because I had arranged to meet Jennifer for lunch at Louca's Fish Restaurant two blocks away. I took this photo of the next door building work progress on the way.

We had a very nice lunch and a good catch up. Jennifer is back from a month in Queensland visiting family - and says she has come home for a rest! She is now on a roll with a book about the 

acre of land on which her family reunions take place. 

In between this activity and the Aesop I have finished  examples of Icelandic embroidery for the Certificate Course workshop in June.                       

I finished the sample of 18th Century Icelandic embroidery and removed the Sulki. It worked really well. 

I have included a counted design, although the workshop is not focusing on counted work. Some students may wish to practice long-armed cross stitch, so I worked the examples for good measure.

This workshop is now, I think, fully organised and I can pack it away until June.

I spent much of the weekend researching on two fronts, more family history and my next embroidery study on Viking embroidery. On the latter  I have begun my PowerPoint as a method of getting organised. I have quite a lot of information, but am  trying to figure out how to borrow Margarethe Hald's Ancient Danish Textiles from Bogs and Burials from Flinders University library without having to drive there and navigate the sprawling, outsider-unfriendly parking. No luck so far, so I might have to plan an excursion. In the meantime I ordered this book and another on Anglo-Saxon embroidery. 

Small steps.

On the family history front, my fellow researcher Melanie and I have hit a bit of a wall in my grandmother's mystery. We  have a lot of it worked out but our newsagent ancestor seems to disappear around 1935 with no death records fitting. Melanie is still in pursuit. We've had more success with the 1820s connections of my paternal grandmother Ada. We now have numerous links between my 3xGGrandmother Sarah Attlesey and the Isaacson gang, 7 of whom were transported to either NSW or Van Diemen's Land between 1798 and 1840. Melanie is doing more of the heavy lifting on this than I, but we continue to work and share our finding in relays dictated by time zones.

I've also done some proof-reading for my brother, had dinner with family on Saturday and tonight with friends after having my hair mercifully permed this afternoon.  It has become lank and oily, needing to be washed every day. The strange stare is the result of taking a photo in the hairdresser's mirror.

 

Perhaps my biggest achievement this week has been to reduce the emails in my inbox to 25, from around 270 a fortnight ago. I've attended to overdue subscriptions, read articles waiting for a rainy day, filed useful embroidery bits, unsubscribed from numerous retail companies, replied to way-out-of-date emails and requests for family tree information. 

I read Dr Basil Willing Golden Age book by Helen McCloy for NetGalley. It's a fairly engaging read for Golden Age tragics. I also finished Campling's Devonshire Mysteries series, which I like a lot .  I'm now reading another Ann Cleeves Ramsay series mystery.

I've had notice from Feedburner, the service that manages the email distribution of these blog posts that they will be discontinuing their email service in June. As recommended, I have downloaded all the email addresses of subscribers and await information about a replacement service. I'll let you know as soon as I have more information.

Till next week.

Through the download exercise I discovered over 1000 spam subscriptions to my embroidery blog, all taken out in 2017 when I was not paying attention to it. I have deactivated all of them - one at a time! Fortunately it  has a good spam filter.

Post 368 The ideas, the tests and the certificates keep coming.

It's been a fairly busy week. Last night's family dinner of Chicken Maryland, Eggplant parmigiana, potatoes with bacon and Greek Salad went well. It was nearly late because Veronica interviewed me for a school project and I lost track of time. With Easter and the school holidays, Monday evening dinners are suspended for three weeks.  

After I picked up my five items from the Guild Exhibition last week I found  a spot for the Owl Service under the barometer just inside my door. I will use one or two of the bags myself and  give two or three away.

On Wednesday a couple of Guild friends and I had lunch at the Glenelg Surf Club. Junette picked me up on the corner of our apartments and I took this photo of the crane working on the building next door. It was lifting the next round of wall panels in place.  

The Surf Club is a great venue - a lovely view over the water and no pressure to leave. We stayed three hours.

You might remember last week I played with the Scheepjes wool to make a shawl. I also ordered a pattern and the Noro wool to make this shawl. It arrived while we were at lunch and I picked it up on Thursday before heading to the Guild.

I planned to go to the monthly meeting of the Guild's Crewel Work Group from 10-12.30 then on to my 1.00 pm Pilates. The Pilates class was cancelled and I was offered a 12pm class, which I refused because of Crewel. However, when I got to Crewel, the convenor had called in sick and I was the only participant/ I ended up minding the Gallery station for members to collect their Exhibition items while those on duty attended a meeting. I progressed the Aesop piece a little but not as much as I'd hoped.

It gave me a chance to talk to Christine Bishop about the requirements for her upcoming classes and also about the kit I'm putting together for the Certificate Course class I'm leading in June. This resulted in Christine bringing me 30 count Belgian linen and a metre of doctor's flannel on Saturday.                                                                                                                                      I will measure up and tack the linen at next month's Basic to Beyond but the kit for the Certificate Course workshop will take a lot more preparation. The workshop is on Icelandic Embroidery and I want the participants to work on wool, either working on a 16th Century couched figure or an 18th Century split stitch piece. The latter was usually on black. A friend has given me some very dark navy wool, which I also plan to use. 

I planned another concession to the twenty first century by using some solvi to transfer the pattern. At Create in Stitch, where I went to buy a metre of Solvi, Samela showed me a new product she has acquired but not yet tried - printable sheets of solvi that adhere to the fabric without ironing. Of course, I had to try it.

I think it is fit for my purpose. I can give students a choice of either the 16th or 18th century design already printed on the stitchable solvi sheets, or they can use regular solvi to design their own. 

My next challenge is to put together some bundles of appropriately coloured Appletons wools to get them going - and to stitch an example of each design.

While all this was occupying hours of my time, my newfound family history collaborator Melanie and I have been working on our shared family tree, examining the certificates of births, deaths and marriages we ordered last week. This week we discovered that one of Ada's brothers spent time in an asylum with significant mental health issues. From the case notes it appears this might have been related to syphilis. It also seems that at least one of his children was impacted and that his (and Ada's) father may have had similar issues. Ada was the youngest of her family. She was only 5 when her father died. There are more death certificates to come. It testifies, however, to a lot of suffering, perseverance and resilience.

It also looks as if we may be very close to solving a major mystery around my other grandmother, Nell, whose family baptised and married under one surname and used another on decades of the census. This photo of her was taken in 1917 when she was 25.

Melanie has done some extraordinary detective work to come up with a very likely explanation. We have ordered more certificates and I will report when we have some more information. 

Both my grandmothers' stories are worth telling and I am hoping to write about both of them later this year.

So far the aloe flower is too small to attract the Noisy Miner. I'm considering covering it with a net bag when it begins to open.

As a follow-up to my doctor's appointment two weeks ago I had my  fasting blood test. My GP has followed up with a phone call this morning to ask me to have another one, without fasting, to check electrolytes again. She would not be concerned, she said, if I had 2 kidneys, but since I have only one she wants to double check. So another test tomorrow.  I also have an appointment for a bone density scan and a mammogram - and, yes, my first Covid vaccination appointment on 15 April, to be followed by a flu vaccination on 5th May.

Last Saturday's Certificate Course Class was by Di Kirshner on invisible hem finishes. The instructions were to bring a piece of homespun 110cm x 25 cm. I was well out of my comfort zone - measuring, ironing, folding, ironing, tacking, ironing, then finally stitching, to create 6 pleats which we then stitched. To my horror, when I asked why the fabric piece was so long, the answer was because we might want to keep going and do more!  I thought she had rocks in her head.  

Di had brought along a steam station iron. I, who am at best an indifferent ironer, was impressed. 

I went home, finished the six examples, marked up the rest of the piece of fabric - and ordered a steam station iron! I have now finished 12 rows. The iron arrived today and I have just quickly tried it out on the piece.

I marked the names of the stitches in archival pen. I've got an idea for using the sampler. I will write this up for my embroidery blog and post a photo of the finish next week.

At Saturday's workshop I also discussed my Design Online idea with Barbara Mullan, who is running the course. I've now got an idea that relates to my Icelandic class. 

The Embellish magazine issue on Madagascar arrived. It is really inspiring. I think this will make a great study and presentation for the World Embroidery Study Group in 2022. Dale Rollison has an article on wild silk - so I ordered some for a couple of us to play with and test out. 

Finally, along with the iron, these half-metre pieces arrived from the Aboriginal Fabric Gallery in Alice Springs. They had a 15% discount offer and I thought these would come in handy.

So ideas everywhere - and not a single finish this week. Looks like a goal for next week. 

Post 367 Birds, Building, Blooms and Bag-

This has been a  bit of an Embroiderers' Guild week. I spent two half days on duty at the Exhibition, took Niamh to JEMS on Saturday, worked with a friend to finalise the Guild's Child Safe Environments policy, called out to drop in my enrolment forms for three of Christine Bishop's classes later this year and today called in to pick up my pieces from the Exhibition which was demounted yesterday. I haven't heard the final attendance figures but I think they were down on previous years but respectable.

In between times I finished Sienna's squirrel (bar a few highlights to come later) and moved my hoop on to the next section, the wood pigeon.I've decided to move clockwise around the frame.

I spent a bit of time getting my threads in order, using double-sided tape to put them in number order on card. It has made it much easier to work.

On Thursday I dropped Ken's mended trousers in at their place, as they were off on a road trip on Friday. I happened to arrive at the same time as a magpie taking advantage of their birdbath.

On Friday, after Sit'n Stitch at my friend's place at Grange, I stopped at the Jetty Cafe  before heading home. It was a lovely evening and I watched the birds returning across the water while eating my Seafood Medley.

It really was a lovely evening. I was conscious of how fortunate I was to be able to sit there at this time. 

Our Covid vaccination program is meant to move into Stage 1b this week - over 70s and those who are vulnerable. It will be, however, several weeks before sufficient doses arrive and switchboards were jammed in the practices nominated to deliver the injections. My doctor, who I saw on Wednesday, has suggested I have my flu vaccination early in April, then try to organise a Covid vaccination 2-3 weeks later. I am now organising a bone density scan, a mammogram and a blood test.

To continue the bird theme, the dove pair have been daily visitors, soaking up the heat in the tiles, 

spreading seed around 

sharing amiably

and providing interesting silhouettes. 

They appear unaffected by the continuous upthrust of the building next door, which is now up to six storeys. My neighbours are fed up with the noise and dust. I haven't noticed the dust. The panels arrive by crane and are bolted on. The motor of the crane required to lift them into place is noisy but the construction process itself is much less so.

Before long I won't be able to see the top of the panels from my balcony - no bad thing. 

I'm still feeling it will be OK when built and the scaffold removed.

On the front balcony, the frangipani have continued to bloom in their small way. It's lovely to see the flowers emerging. Hopefully, they will continue to grow and bloom next year. My friend Vivienne has posted a link to a Frangipani Growers Australia, a group on FB. I've considered joining, but there were 22 posts to the group today and 812 in the last month. I'm not sure I can cope with that volume.

Yesterday I shopped at Frewville and took a photo of their wall garden. This density of cover is what I'm hoping to achieve with mine. They do have a watering system, whereas I water by hand.

As I predicted last week, the aloe flower disappeared during the week. Reckon I had a raid by the Noisy Miner.

I did finish the Turkmen Pouch. Detail of the finish can be found in my embroidery blog.

I've also been playing with the box of Scheepjes yarn that Jennifer bought for herself, Susan and I . I've been playing with a shawl pattern Susan found, just to see how it might be managed. It's promising. Today Susan and I discussed how it might work. There is a challenge carrying the yarn from row to row when the rows are so short at the beginning. I'm going to keep experimenting.

The book of the last 85 days of my daily blog arrived late last week. I had inadvertently ordered it in black and white, which is a shame, but I won't reorder.

I've spent hours and hours this week exploring further my grandmother Ada's family tree. I've now ordered some birth and death certificates. I expect it will be a while before I get them, even by email. I'm on one of those obsessive rolls that come when you find someone else working on the same bit of family as you are. It pushes discoveries forward.  

There will be more. 

The days have been warm. The floods in the Eastern states and historic sexual assault claims in Parliament House have dominated this week's news. As they should.  These stories are also far from over.

Post 335 Chair and Birds

 

I began the morning reading Catherine Aird's The Late Phoenix, the fourth in her Inspector Sloan series set in the fictional village of Berebury, West Calleshire, England around the end of the 60s or early 70s.                                                                                                                                                                                            This is the first I have read and so far it's promising.                                                                                                                        Eventually I dragged my self away from the book to have a go at adding the Phoenix and Lady Ann's Flowers to my chair before going to Pilates.

The chair is here tipped on its side so I could pin the pieces on.

I got the cover off fairly easily. The tricky bit is manoeuvring the awkwardly shaped cover around under the sewing machine and keeping the panels quite flat. I did need to undo a few centimetres at the end to adjust, but it went as smoothly as I could have hoped.

More surprisingly,  I got it back on the chair without much difficulty.  

The remaining space is for the Aesop Frame.

From the sewing machine, I could see black tips reproaching me for the absence of seed. He flew off, but I hastened out to water the plants, fill the water bowl and put out seed, before rushing off to Pilates.

Martine was ill today. Even well established routines are usually a bit more demanding with a new instructor and it was so today - a good thing.

I went on from Pilates to Unley Village, posted a parcel, got my moisturiser, pasta and meat.

The first floor was being poured on the building site next door - a big job. The floor covers the whole site, so the pourer crane and the cement mixers were going constantly. I didn't find the noise (which emanates from the engines at ground level working the crane and mixer) too bad at the back of the apartment, where I was working. One floor down, seven to go.

The philodendron given to me for Christmas has developed new leaves. Outside, on the Western balcony  a few plants were drooping in the 31C heat and needed water. 

I phoned the periodontist rooms today and asked them to put me on the waiting list for any 50 minute cancellations in 13 days until my appointment. The ache in my tooth is intermittent and bearable but it seems sensible to accelerate the extraction if possible. The receptionist was helpful. 

I am now working on my Nicola blue wren.  So far I've used Madeira silk and Madeira metallic threads, a little Cascade House silk and some DMC Etoile.

There's a way to go. Tomorrow is Sit'n Stitch. Maybe I'll take this along. I want to finish this one before I start Aesop.