Post 241 Friends, Feathers and Doves

I opened the blind this morning to see a very plump Turtle waiting patiently on the rail. It was a cool and very windy morning.

His feathers opened up in the wind. He allowed me to distribute seed and helped himself while I had a shower. He was gone by the time I returned.

A couple of hours later, Blush turned up. Her feathers too, were lifting in the wind. She wasn’t, however, puffed up.

This photo is a poor capture of the moment Stormy arrived (very top left corner) and Blush (lower right corner) paused, then walked to the edge and flew away.

Stormy made himself at home, ate the remaining seed, explored the whole space then  flew off.

I left for my book club. We had a good meeting. I came away with a list of books I want to read - and a discovery that three of the five members of the group are stitchers.i had hoped to visit the bead shop to get some crimps for my necklace repair, but it wasn’t open. I’ll need to go back during the week. 

 I went on to Grange to Sit’n Stitch. Susan has made some of her delicious pasties and pies and Jennifer brought bubbles. Jennifer knitted Mrs Claus’s cape, Susan worked on Anna Scott’s Songbird. I redid the Deruta diamond then moved on to cutting out feathers. I have now finished folding and tacking the edges down. I figured it will be easier to stitch them on to the chair if the edges are not being folded as I go

I’ve placed them on where I think they should go. It’s quite exciting. To stitch them on I need a day with nothing much else on . Tuesday might be possible.

It was about 6 pm when I got home from Sit’n Stitch. Turtle was waiting for me. He stayed in place as I gave him some more seed. He made himself at home, in spite of the wind.                                                                                                                                                A dovey kind of day.

Post 238 Crewel work

I opened my blind this morning to Turtle hunkered down on my balcony waiting for seed.  I obliged.

The cushion on my crewel chair had dried overnight, and was much smoother and flatter. Today was the Crewel Work Group meeting at the Guild, so I got myself organised, As well as my Tumbling Feathers to finish, I had a  thermos of coffee, some lunch and the cushion from the chair to show the Crewel Group. In reality, there were only two of us there for the Crewel Group, but the Thursday Open stitching group was full, with ten people meeting in the house.

Margaret was there, promising me, from having read my blog posts earlier in the week, cuttings from her pink pig face and also some scented geraniums . It's not urgent, and she's busy, but it will be fantastic if  and when it comes off.

I had decided to work the last Tumbling Feather in the colours of the Noisy Miner. I looked at lots of photos, including the ones I took myself.

This is where I got to by 2 pm when I needed to leave. When I got home and had another look at what I had done, I decided the orange wasn't right where it was, I was trying to acknowledge the mostly orange beak of the Miner. In the end I took it out.

After leaving the Guild I went to the office of the Sudden Infant Death Syndrome organisation next to Hindmarsh Stadium to pick up some pots of marigolds. In view of the pandemic, they have abandoned their annual Red Nose Day fundraiser this year and are selling potted marigolds, prepared by a nursery, with 80% of profit going to SIDS. I had ordered a couple for myself and 3 for my daughter. Thursday is the designated pick-up day. I had trouble finding the office, which turns out to be through the security gate of the Stadium. The plants look young and very healthy.

I found a place for them on my balcony and watered them in.

My hygienist rang to say she and my dentist advise me to visit a periodontist to check out the 10mm pocket on the gum near one of my molars. I have taken the advice and made an appointment.  It is not until early January - the day before my next appointment with the dentist. I am in no pain or discomfort. They just want to check out there is not a hidden split or infection  in the tooth.

Anthony had asked me this morning to take the girls to their choir practice after school as he had to be in court.  As I stepped out on the balcony to get the washing line, there was Turtle, waiting. He let me step on to the balcony, didn't stay, but returned later to finish the seed. 

Veronica was at home today, so Niamh and I picked her up after school, dropped off their marigolds and got to choir just on time. 

I worked on the Noisy Miner feather all evening, finishing quite late. I'm quite pleased with the representation, hopefully the right amount of yellow and black, with a predominance of light grey.

I've taken it out of the hoop, and, as always it looks crushed and raggy. It's too late tonight to block it and I'm falling asleep. That's tomorrow's job. I should be able to begin appliqueing them on sometime over the weekend.

A good day's work.

Post 232 Messes

First up today I emptied the dishwasher. This included a baking dish that fits on its side in a cupboard beside my oven inside another dish. In removing that dish, without a light in the cupboard, I knocked over the full 1 litre bottle of olive oil I had stored in front of the dishes. Of course, the glass bottle smashed on the floor, and all the oil leaked out. It took a while, and a lot of paper towel, to clean it up.

By this afternoon I had replaced the oil. Back to a tin. I had chosen a bottle on Monday because it was smaller and took up less room in the cupboard. Mistake.

 I had Pilates today at 1pm. I also had a technician coming to service my air conditioner before Summer sets in. This had been arranged for 8am last Monday - before our partially-blocked off street gets parked out by workers on the building site next door, but the company reorganised the time to 11am today. At 10 past 11 I got a message that the technician was running late. He arrived at 11.50 - carrying his tools and ladder from his park some distance away. 

The good news is that he did a thorough and competent job of servicing, and located, and addressed, the cause of the frequent blasts of cold air I had in the last month or so of Winter. We worked out that I would be better off having an annual service before Winter rather than before Summer. 

The downside of this, of course, was that I couldn't rush the process and my travel time to Pilates was being eroded. I phoned and explained, agreeing I'd come as soon as I could. I got there about 15 minutes into a 50 minute session. Martine is terrific. Fortunately for me there were only two of us in the class today, so I got plenty of attention and a productive session. 

I went on to North Adelaide to replace the oil and get some cooking salt. The receptionist at Pilates, who previously worked in hospitality, tells me that throwing salt on the spilled oil helps to absorb it before using paper towel to mop it up. I needed salt anyway.

Back home I finished adding the hunter to the Inuit applique. I'm going to add more fur to the bear. I don't, however want to over-embellish it. 

I then spent half an hour or so trying to buy a subscription to Office 365. I opted to download the app which is supposed to mean no password but the purchase requires scanning a QR code and the app doesn't give me that option. I'm caught in a loop. Another mess to sort out!

Jennifer was the one who introduced the term 'mess' today. After discussion, much thinking and rethinking, she went for a Covid test today after having very brief hay fever symptoms. It means, of course, that she has to isolate until she has the result. It's a hard call, when she has no symptoms anything like her long experience of the virus and there is no community transmission in South Australia. It seems so unlikely that she has a return of the virus. Yet...there are so many twists and turns in this virus evolution.

I spent a couple of hours sorting another mess I got myself into a few days ago. I have been trying to create a book from the first 50 posts on this blog. There are not many companies that do this - only two that I know of. One of these, Blog2Print, recently had a discount offer, so I gave it a go. I spent a number of hours working on it but received an error message at the end. Eventually I contacted their technical advice and this morning they had a suggestion that I delete and start again. This is what I did this afternoon - it took time, but it worked! I finally ordered a print and a pdf copy. I was elated. Unfortunately, in my elation, I completely forgot to apply the 40% discount code they had offered me! Damn! I'm not sure if I will want to print the whole blog ( It would take, I think, 7 volumes around 190 pages each) but I have asked if I can use the discount on a future book.

It won't be lost on some readers that I have managed to get the layout of this blog out of the mess it was in a week or so ago from the transition to the new interface. Success has come partly through improvements to the layout by developer, and partly by my learning the 'tricks'. 

I actually feel encouraged at the end of a day of messes. For much of my working life, I spent a good proportion of my time either sorting out messes or anticipating and avoiding them. There's a lot of relief in knowing I can still clean up messes.

I left the bear and hunter aside this evening and worked on the Adelaide Rosella feather. It's not quite finished but gives an idea of what it will look like. 

Rain is forecast for tomorrow and our Sit'n Stitch has been cancelled while Jennifer waits for her test results.

Should be a good day to stitch and read.

Post 231 World Embroidery

     

The weather has warmed up here. 31C today and 20C overnight. Time to change over to my Summer quilt.

The weather has warmed up here. 31C today and 20C overnight.  I woke up this morning and decided it was time to change over to my Summer quilt. I stripped the bed, replaced the underlay, the pillow under-cases, the sheets and pillow cases.

Before I left home around 10.50 am to go to the Guild for World Embroidery Study Group I had washed the quilt and hung it on the line.  It was dry when I returned home at 1pm. Now is the time for me to add the 75 hexies I made earlier this year around the edges.

I washed and dried the sheets and pillowcases this afternoon. The underlays can be done tomorrow.

We had a great meeting of the World Embroidery Study Group. There were nine members there - back to pre-Covid attendance. This is especially good in view of two regular members being absent because they have broken or dislocated arms! 

It was a terrific team effort. We had a PowerPoint by one member outlining Inuit history and traditions and a workshop on Inuit applique by another member. The computer was set up by someone else, another was Covid Marshall. Everyone joined in as it suited them and helped to sanitise at the end. It is a great group and every single person expressed their pleasure at meeting, learning and engaging.

This is my effort, obviously unfinished, but on the way. I didn't, unfortunately, take photos of what others were working on, but there was a variety - birds, abstract forms and sea creatures. 

The plan is to put them together to display something of what our group does for the Guild Exhibition next year.

I did a bit of work to finish my bear this evening. I didn't get the jaw right. He doesn't look fierce enough. I don't think I can alter that so will have to live with it. I'll try to add the hunter i

in the next few days.

I was anxious to try out my Adelaide Rosella colour scheme on a feather so worked a little to try it out. I think it's going to work.

Tomorrow is service of my reverse cycle air con and Pilates.

Post 229: Feathery decisions

 

I finished the second feather today. I've been thinking, as I stitch, what colours to use on the other seven I have to do. This one is a bit pinker than the photo indicates. Do these relate in any way to real birds or are they a stylised feather in a Jacobean style? I thought if I introduced greys into the next one it would be a reference to Australian galahs. 

That got me thinking about lorikeet feathers 

Lorikeet genes don't seem to abide by the "blue and green should never be seen without a colour in between" adage. Could I work at leeast one of these in these colours?  I'm in two minds, but very tempted.

The feathers are going togo around the horse-shoe shaped top edge of the chair. I don't think it works if they are all in the pink/grey colour range. Greens and blues might work, but I might need to modify the vibrance of the green in particular.                                                                                                                  I'm still thinking about it. The next one can have grey introduce so I can continue to think as I stitch the next one or two.                                                                                                                                                            I went to Frewville this morning, mainly to get olive oil and milk along with some bakery items for the kids after school. it's still a very nice place to shop. I notice fewer people wiping down their trolley than a couple of weeks ago, although pretty much everyone sanitises their hands before selecting a trolley.

The rest of the day was occupied with preparing the food for tonight. I did intend to take a photo but I lost that thought when the chance was there.I scanned a few photos that had been on my "What do I do with this? "pile and tidied the table to use it for the meal. I also used Blog2Print to upload the first six weeks of this blog to a book. It previewed OK but then crashed when I tried to order a copy. After it failed 3 times I sent a message to the technicians. No reply as yet.

It was a warm, sunny day with a cloudy sunset.We needed the shade blind on the Western balcony while we were eating. 

A few things to do tomorrow in preparation for the World Embroidery Study Group on Wednesday

Post 228 Mostly food and feathers

I've been experimenting today with the construction of this blog post, after my battle yesterday with my embroidery blog. It appears the new tools work best if you load one photo at a time, add text and continue in this pattern. They do not work well if, as I have long done, you load photos as you take them and attempt to add text later. It's a relief to work this out. I'm adapting to a new routine.

Today's goal was to prepare the eggplant parmigiana for tomorrow. Out of a fifty year habit I still salt eggplant before I cook it, even though I rarely use salt in cooking. After I have sliced, salted, soaked, rinsed  and squeezed the moisture out, I now spray them with oil and cook the slices in the oven rather than frying them as I once did.  I am a very habit-ridden cook but it occurs to me it might be time to shed this habit. Next time I will at least try without the salting process, since science seems to tell me contemporary eggplant does not benefit from salting.

The other trick I have to practice is taking the eggplant slices out of the oven before they burn. I'm gradually learning to use the timer on the oven! Today no burning.

Yesterday I succumbed to laziness and, instead of making an extra trip to the butcher as I normally do, I bought the lamb shanks I wanted at the supermarket. As well as abundant packaged meat, this supermarket has a butchery counter, where you can buy unpackaged meat from the display. There were no lamb shanks in the display, but I rang the bell and enquired when the attendant appeared. She called the man in charge of meat, who appeared with a tray of lamb shanks vacuum packed into lots of two. 

I expressed my displeasure, hesitated, but bought them.  

Even as I bought them, I knew I would not make the same mistake again. I have three good butchers available to me and visiting one of them is not a lot of extra effort. The lamb shanks are fine but I ended up with a pile of plastic packaging to wash so I can dispose of it in the soft plastic recycling. Lesson learnt.

I had intended to cook the lamb shanks from scratch tomorrow, but last time I cooked this I was very tired by the end of the day, so I did the preparatory work today. It took a while to brown them, and, even with the exhaust fan on, creates a bit of smoke. I worry about setting off the smoke alarm. Fortunately it was a very pleasant day today and I could keep the balcony door wide open as well as having the exhaust fan on.  I got the ragu made, covered the dish and refrigerated, ready for several hours in the oven tomorrow.

I've been watching my two frangipani plants for signs of Spring growth. Today the bumps I've been watching turned into very definite leaves. I'm hoping for a few more blooms this year, but regardless, it is great to see these lovely, shiny, green leaves.

I spent the rest of the afternoon finishing the first of my feathers, then moved my hoop on to another one, which I'm planning to work in lighter pinks. I also sent out the reminder notice to the World Embroidery Study Group of the Guild which meets this coming Wednesday.                                                                                                                   

 I prepared this post earlier in the evening today in an effort to get the layout right. My plan was, after I've cooked the salt and pepper squid I bought yesterday for my dinner tonight, to try to sort out the summary post to my embroidery blog  then knit. I succeeded in the former, but ran out of time to knit.

It's been a lovely day in terms of weather as well as what I have achieved. At this time of the year it is a privilege to live in Adelaide in an East-West facing apartment. It will be less pleasant when it is 40+C, so  I'm making the most of it.

Post 226 Playing with photos and grappling with text wrapping.

I suspect there is a generational transition happening in my dove world. In the last few days Myrtle has put in the odd short appearance but rain has kept most birds elsewhere. This morning I had a visit from Blush. It was a swift descent and very hurried seed consumption. Then she(?) paused, listening until another young bird descended. Blush then took on an indignant stance and chased the intruder away, on foot, then in flight. These are smaller, younger birds. 

Before long she was back, this time more confident, exploring the space more than feeding. Is she claiming it, or just free of competition? Building work was continuing next door, loud, but not disturbingly loud to me. She paid no attention. She stayed quite a while, finally settling into my plant basket, then flew away.

.

Today was our Sit’n Stitch day at my friend Susan’s place at Grange. I was to pick Jennifer up at 1pm. Around 10 am she rang to say she had sniffles - either from hay fever or a mild cold - and thought, reluctantly, that she should stay away. I agreed. We have no evidence that Covid can’t be caught twice and even though we have no known community transmission in South Australia at present, we follow the rules and play safe - for everyone’s sake. Hopefully it is hay fever (the season is starting here) and she is OK.

Susan had made one of her date bar cakes, absolutely delicious with butter. Susan is working on her amazing blanket. I got a little bit of a feather done, but mostly we talked about technology. Both of us worked in IT related jobs, but staying abreast of computer-related changes is challenging for both of us

I got home in time for the lorikeet feeding frenzy. There were four on my nearest tree. They took no notice of me and my camera, so I snapped away - 85 photos in all! I then spent 2 hours editing them. 

They fed in pairs, swinging around the branch, hanging in all kinds of awkward-looking positions, occasionally flying to another branch, always avoiding each other's space.

Elements of their colour blend into the trees, 

but the red can be easily seen. There were other kinds of birds wheeling overhead, but it doesn't seem to worry the lorikeets. 

In my effort to overcome the text wrapping problem I found a YouTube video this morning that was made about a week ago, and was helpful. I got it to work on a browser on my iPad this morning and managed to insert the first two photos in this post with wrapped text. I couldn't replicate it on my laptop. 

When I came back to it this evening I had trouble on laptop and iPad. However, I seem to have got it working again after a couple of hours working with it. Hopefully it will become habitual, smooth and quick. My effort yesterday to compose in Word and copy and paste was not a success.

My blocking was dry be the end of the day. Here it is folded where it will be joined. Attaching it to the chair  will be a challenge. While the bottom line will be straight, the top line needs to be shaped to fit the panel above it.

I didn't spent a lot of time on the feathers, but this is where I am at the end of the day.

Post 225 Invisible bird thief, rabbits and feathers.

I managed today to fill out a couple of Adelaide City Council forms sent to ratepayers. I am putting off a 30 minute survey from the same. It's good that they consult. I hope they also listen. I also had confirmation of the Thursday Pilates bookings for which  I had been waitlisted . That takes me to the end of the year.   Yeh!                                                                                                

No scanning today, but the feathers are going to be a lot of fun.