Post 378 Making the most of each day

The week began with busy-ness. A couple of Guild friends and I had arranged to have lunch at The Greek, just down the road from me. Unfortunately, Margaret's dog developed some symptoms she needed to check out quickly and she spent the day at the Vet's. The lunch went ahead with only two of us. In the current somewhat constrained hospitality conditions, some restaurants get snippy about cancelations. The Greek, however, is unfailingly understanding and accepting. We had a relaxed and pleasant lunch, whitebait and yiros for me. 

Walking to The Greek gave me an opportunity to photograph the building progress, which continues relentlessly. The circle shows my apartment.   

The two below show the broader perspective from the Square. It will, I think (begrudgingly) look fine when finished.

Thursday saw me at the Guild's Crewelwork Group, which combined with the Thursday Stitching Group. I arrived later than anticipated because I was finishing off the entrelac rug. This is the finished piece - not yet ironed, but very warm and cosy. It will get good use I think. 

At the Crewel Group I got a bit more of my Aesop bird done, bought a piece of linen from the trading table and

collected the book that Phyllis so generously borrowed from the Flinders Uni Library for me to look at . It is much longer (heavier too!) and solidly textbook than I had anticipated. It is packed with fascinating  information that will take a long time to digest. 

I once again considered purchasing the only available copy in the world. In the end I decided against that, mainly because delivery from the USA at the moment is slow and I am impatient. I have scanned the sections I want - especially the chapter on Stitches and Sewing. This has taken up a lot of my time this week!

After Pilates on Thursday I decided to quilt the whole of last Saturday's layered fabric piece before returning to the Aesop. I working on it  solidly that evening and on Friday. I was edging it at our Sit'nStitch afternoon.

Jennifer continued Sophie's Universe. Susan B made some of her fabulous cheese scones, even though she was a recovering from her first Covid shot.

Friday was the seventh anniversary of Jim's death. I was pleased to be stitching with friends. I swung past Centennial Park which was, as always, full of bird sound, relaxing and peaceful. I'm glad we chose it.I'm so grateful that we met, got together, and shared our lives over 46 years.  I'm also warmed by the messages from friends and family who knew him and remember so much of his contribution to their lives. 

This is the last photo of him -in  the Adelaide Botanic Gardens three days before he died.

I missed the red moon on Thursday night but managed to take this weird photo on Friday night.  Seemed appropriate.

I finished the layered piece and looked at placing it on a bag (yes, really!), trying out possible fabrics. 

The bottom one is undoubtedly the best, but would require some manipulation and cutting to get the best placement (bottom left).I had a quiet day on Saturday, and used some of it to sort out my stitching projects.

I found this pink pinwale corduroy buried in a drawer of fabric and decided it was absolutely the go . That also freed up that figured red linen  for another idea I have. 

By the end of the day I had this result. The embroidery forms a pocket. 

I'm sure someone will find this useful.

On Saturday night Brigid had a belated 18th birthday party for her friends. This is the cake that Katherine made for the occasion - pretty amazing cake for a pretty amazing young woman. ( photo courtesy of Katherine).

Also on Saturday I got news that the friend I had lunch with at the Greek on Wednesday had been required to be COVID tested. She had returned from Melbourne within the retrospective period for which the government is requesting testing. Both she and her husband have a negative result, with two more tests to go. A bit heart-stopping. How easy it would be...

My Crime Book Club met on Sunday morning. I had read Greenwich Park, by Katherine Faulkner, one of the two recommended books. I was the odd one out, not liking it very much, mostly because of its complicated plot structure, with multiple narrators. I've just finished The Man in the Moonlight, another in Helen McCloy's Dr Basil Willing series, which I really enjoyed.  

Monday's family dinner was a great pleasure. I am so fortunate to be part of the lives of my grandchildren, and their parents. They are so interesting, caring and thoughtful. This week I got the potatoes right! 

Today I've been to the hairdresser and the podiatrist. I've gone for quite short hair. We are going to repeat my perm next week as it does not appear to have worked. My hairdresser thinks it might have something to do with my Covid vaccine!

Finally, I've started on my next knitting project, a shawl using 2 200gm balls of Noro 10ply.

 

It's pretty interesting to knit - although I'm more comfortable knitting with finer wool.  

I'm not expecting to be bored as Winter arrives today!

Post 377 Mostly Knitting and Embroidery

My dove friends have paid several visits this week. They arrive as soon as I have watered the plants, refilled the water dish and put out seed. They are undeterred by the washing.Wednesday was a day for catching up on chores and progressing my knitting. In the evening I went to friends' place for dinner. It turned out to be quite a late night after lots of yarning - both the conversation kind and helping with winding a ball of the woollen kind.

On Thursday, after Pilates, I had arranged to have lunch with a neighbour from my  old house, near  the Pilates studio. We met at the Queen St Cafe. The Lime milkshakes are now featuring on the menu board. Obviously I had one. 

 

Friday's Sit'nStitch saw all three of us working with wool. Jennifer did some more on Sophie's World, Susan B advanced her complex blanket and I plugged away at the Entrelac.

 

Saturday was a Guild Certificate Course Workshop on Fabric layered with Barbara Mullan. I wasn't sure what would be included this time. I have done other workshops with Barbara that involved reverse applique and Kantha. 

It turned out to be focused on embroidery for quilting - applique, and 3 dimensional embellishment especially Suffolk puffs. 

The yellow cotton I had chosen for my top layer was not the best for the job, but I made the best of a bad choice. There were only three students at the workshop - very unusual. It looks as if most students expected the workshop to be on the last Saturday of the month - next week. It was good for the three of us who were there - we had a really good, productive time. There was lots of pinning and tacking.  

When I got home I kept working on it - lots of opportunity for bling.

I'm now quilting the background in the hope of reducing the impact of the yellow.

Great fun.

Saturday night was dinner at Katherine and Anthony's, another fine meal and both Katherine and I progressed our knitting. I was pushing to finish the Entrelac and continued to work on it on Sunday in between cooking. I wanted to get the lamb shanks, eggplant parmigiana and the jacket potatoes cooked in advance of Monday so I could get to Basics to Beyond at the Guild.I succeeded, finishing it around 11 pm and spreading it out on the floor.

bmade a mistake part way through. I had turned a corner incorrectly. Had I been using straight needles I'd have seen it, but Because I was using a circular needle only 40 cm long and the work was bunched I hadn't noticed.

I slept on it, and worked on several solutions. I had used all but about 12 metres of the yarn, so couldn't add in the missing squares. I considered inserting a single colour piece with the date and my initials but rejected it (with the help of Niamh and the B2B group).

At B2B I worked on designing another bag, using some Ink and Spindle linen and Australian cotton. Another good session. Fionn didn't make it to dinner at my place as he was sleeping and recovering from an infected injury. The lamb shanks worked well but the jacket potatoes were over cooked. 

I woke this morning to the sound of rain. It's a good week that begins with watering the garden and ends with no need to do so. I set out to Create in Stitch to pick up a tin of DMC variegated stranded cotton - advertised in their Saturday newsletter. 

I think some of the variegated thread will help to modify the yellow background of the piece above.

I also indulged in a copy of Yvette Stanton's latest book, and the extra thread I need for Christine Bishop's Stained Glass Window Pouch later in the year.  While out that way I visited the Needle Nook to see if they had any Cotton/Acrylic yarn that might make a suitable edge on the Entrelac rug. They didn't. 

I decided I wanted to try to solve the problem, so drove to the Port Road Spotlight which, according to my search, had several. None were suitable, so I drove out to the Yarn Trader where, after talking it over with the experts, I bought two balls of Sheepjes' Whirlette in greens. It's cotton and acrylic, but much finer than the rug yarn. Since getting home I have used the two threads together to pick up stitches on one edge and knitted a band, which I've turned under and stitched down on the wrong side. 

This will, I think, give me a neat edge and fit with the folded section of edge. I think it will work better than adding an external edge, given the difficulty of matching the yarn exactly.

I'm hoping to have the four edges finished in the next 24 hours. 

.My apologies to those of you who have no interest in stitching. It's been a very stitchy week. There has been a bit of progress on the family history hunt for information and I've read a bit. I've been a bit rushed writing this today.

I'll try to achieve a better balance next week.

Post 376 World Embroidery, friends, family and knitting.

 This week's big event was the World Embroidery Study Group meeting on Wednesday.  It was the first of two meetings on  "Mend and Make Do".  This week we had Pat's presentation, which focused on the work of some contemporary artists who use recycled materials. Pat brought along two pieces of her own recycling, one the really charming top in the top right of the photo, and the other a jacket with knitted patches, in the top left of the photo.

Lori, who is presenting her findings next month told us about the book she is using (bottom right) and also wore a jacket with knitted patches (bottom left).

Barbara Mullan brought along some of her brilliantly creative clothing, but I was too absorbed to remember to photograph! I'll do better next month.

In addition, the Guild Library had received about 5 boxes of books from a deceased estate - all of them relevant to World Embroidery. Most of the books were already in the Library, so these were made available for sale to members, and we were given first dibs. It was a treasure trove, and most of us didn't hold back. 

I was fairly restrained, only buying two items, a journal and a slim volume on Icelandic embroidery by Elsa Gudjohnson, who is the authority on the subject. The journal also has an article by her. It also has an article on Deerfield, which I love.  We managed to contribute $155 to Guild coffers through the sale, and the remaining books are being stored until our next meeting for absent members to have a look.

On Thursday I had a mammogram in the morning - a new machine since my last visit two years ago, but the same process. I am admiring of the clinic staff - so thoughtful, clear in their instructions and excellent communicators. I was in and out in no time. My brother rang in the afternoon and we caught up on his birthday celebrations and gigs. In the evening I went to a Guild friend's place for dinner and conversation. We had a delicious prawn curry and hours of shared stories and philosophy. It's very sustaining. 

 On Friday I caught the city loop bus into the heart of the city, for a quarterly lunch with friends at the Treasury. The morning was chilly and raining, so I took an umbrella but didn't use it. It was a lovely relaxed lunch. My Coorong Mullet was fantastic.

In the Square, as elsewhere, the leaves are falling. I love the light filtering through the trees and the emergence of the skeleton of the branches.I was able to take photos of the building progress next door. 

I haven't ventured into the Square for months because of the building. My apartment is the one circled in blue. The building is close to its full height. There was a further concrete pour on Friday and a crane is still lifting panels up to the top at 6.30 pm tonight - in the dark - as I write this. And it's noisy.

      

This is the front view.

On the corner of the lane on the other side of the new building is an old building whose owner refused to sell to the developer. He is hanging in there with his business.

Saturday was JEMS. Niamh went to the Guild straight from Netball and I picked her up. The Queen Street Cafe owner now knows our milkshake order without being told!

Also on Sunday, Melanie, my fellow family history researcher, had a bit of a breakthrough in our quest to find what happened to Mary Jane Noble after she retired from the Newsagency. We are still awaiting the certificates to confirm, but it now seems that Mary Jane married, at the age of 55, George Coles, a 41 year-old dog dealer, living over the shop for a few years before moving to this house.

If we are on the right track, Mary Jane Coles died in 1944. We await a copy of a marriage certificate, a death certificate and a copy of a Will.

Dinner last night was stir-fried duck with noodles and lots of great conversation. I bought a cooked whole Beijing duck and deboned it. The bones have made a rich stock for my duck soup.

 Today we had an extra Sit'nStitch, making up for one we missed last week.  Jennifer has begun some knitting as respite from Sophie's World, which is at the half-way mark. Susan B. is still loving Margaret Light's design. Barbara joined us today to learn a loose cast off for a beautiful shawl. 

I continued on my Entrelac shawl, which is looking more like a blanket, or possibly a cape. The single lounge chair on which it is spread for the photo gives an idea of the size.

Now for Duck Soup and Pie in The Sky!