Post520 Finishes, food, fabric.

It's been another week of mostly stitching, with a couple of finishes to show for it, the first being the prayer shawl I was working on. The detail, of course, is in my embroidery blog.

On Wednesday I had a lovely long lunch with my friend Lorraine - half way between our two birthdays. 

On Thursday I called at the Guild after Pilates and purchased some fabrics which I have cut ready to make bags. 

No hurry. I will iron them into shape for stitching when I have a chance. I also called at OfficeWorks and bought another set of document drawers, into which I reorganised all my cotton reels, including the ones I brought home from Canberra. I now have a good range ready to use.

The most exciting thing that happened all week (aside from my Adelaide family arriving home on Sunday from their 3 week holiday), was the arrival of the Otomi top I had ordered from ArteOtomi. This Etsy shop went out of their way to get this to me in time for my World Embroidery Study Group presentation in  February.       

It is extraordinarily beautiful, the inside almost as good. I have ordered a dress and some pants.

In keeping with my Mexico obsession, the sampler I began last week took up a lot of my time.

 Most of the main side was cross stitch, which is much easier held in hand rather than hoop. I eventually dug out the wrist brace for my left hand which develops RSI from being held too long in the one position.  I worked an Otomi design on the back. This required a hoop, so was easier on my hand, but is not really suited to a loose even weave linen. Nevertheless, I persevered and late yesterday constructed a bag from the sampler. 

If interested, the detail is in my embroidery blog.

The sciatica and piriformis pain I mentioned last week continued for the early part of the week, but was helped a lot by the exercises my Pilates instructor took me through. I weaned myself off the ibuprofen I had taken for 5 days, drank a lot of lemon juice in warm water, tried not to sit for too long without moving and continued short stints on my vibration exercise machine.  My back is much improved. Today I missed swimming to see my GP and have my first Shingles re-vaccine, discuss weight loss and the sciatica/piriformis bout and agree to monitor until my Shingles booster/flu vac in early May.

School was back yesterday. I made the Chicken Maryland with Halloumi that I had tested on friends, and Katherine picked it up for them to eat at home, since they are all catching up on sleep and commitments after being away.

A final bit of madness for the week. This is a set of biros I ordered from a company that produces pens without plastic. They have seeds inserted in the top. When the pen runs out, you plant the pen in a pot and it blooms - mine are mustard, tomato, Glory and spinach. I have a lot of pens from my past working life, but increasingly they don't work and I am frustrated at the plastic waste. Refills are hard to find and more trouble than they are worth, so I thought I'd give these a go. They might, of course, take longer than my lifetime to get to the planting stage!

The 5" ebony needle set also arrived, so I am set for knitting the Rowan blanket and cardigan. I'm working on the Sashiko at the moment, with weather not ideal for working in wool. 

Today the extra Sashiko squares, and the fabric for serviettes arrived. Unfortunately, on examination, 3 of the 4 Galaxy 2 squares were green, not indigo. I really don't think that will do, so emailed IndigoNiche straight away. They are sending the Indigo replacements and a pre-paid envelope for return of the green. Great response. I'm certainly not ready to start embroidering them.

With school back, the temperature is heading into February's usual 30Cs and our Friday Sit'nStitch resumed.

I've enjoyed January and welcome February.

Post 519 Productive - but too sedentary!

On Wednesday I had lunch with friends at Balaboosta, a long block away from my apartment. I hadn't been there before, but it is highly popular, especially for wood oven pizza. Our carpark door was once again being repaired, so cars couldn't be moved in or out between 9.30am and 3.30pm - a good incentive for me to walk, rather than try to find street parking all day.

It was a chance to admire the gardens on the way. I especially liked this crepe myrtle. 

I loved our catchup lunch. We sat just inside - a bit noisy, but we managed to talk non-stop. 

The bookmarks I had ordered in honour of my Canberra trip arrived on Thursday before Pilates. I'm delighted with them. The water dragon one is spectacular.

I've been working on my presentation on Mexican Embroidery - which is, of course, a huge topic. I am attempting a very broad overview, with a general history of the culture - and a hope some WES members will be interested enough to take up specific components (or even plan a visit!). The Guild Museum has several relevant items, which I'm hoping the Museum team will have time to ferret out for us.

Friday was a roughly quarterly lunch with a group of long-term work-related friends, this time at Sean's Kitchen in a large, now unused, section of the Adelaide Railway Station.The company and the food was terrific. The service was good. The noise level, however, was disturbing. There are a lot of tables, and several large groups ( some associated with the West Indies test cricket match on in Adelaide at the moment) but none of them were talking loudly. The acoustics, probably related to the hard surfaces and the huge vaulted ceiling, would have been great for a choral concert, but terrible for a restaurant. It didn't stop us catching up on the numerous travels and adventures of each of us, I rarely have an entree these days but I couldn't resist the Whipped Cod Roe. I love roe, and rarely find it on menus. I wasn't disappointed, and my Orgy of Mushrooms, with ricotta gnocchi was fabulous.  The Maple ice cream (first ice cream in 3 years) topped it off.  I paid the price in a 1kg weight  gain the next day, which I have now managed to lose.

I went to and from lunch on the City Loop Bus, giving me a chance to photograph the hub of the Tour Down Under as we detoured around one of the road blocks it has occasioned. 

As we returned to the Square I could see that the young Norfolk pines planted a few years ago have thrived. It won't be long before they match the older trees.

Vivienne has given me these Sashiko table pieces over my last two birthdays. Last year we both bought the mats, while she has finished hers, I've been distracted. Inspired, I have now started on mine and have figured out how to create a full table setting. More will be revealed, but many thanks to Vivienne. 

I get by with a little help from my friends.

It's really lovely to see the change as you stitch Sashiko, It's like a landscape emerging and changing. Soothing.

In the early part of the week I remade a skirt into a bag for my daughter - the kind of project I love. Details in my embroidery blog.

Late on Saturday I paused my Sashiko (and my knitting) to take up, for the presentation, a Mexican-inspired sampler which is a free download on the V&A website. The design is by Xinyi Li, MA Fashion Curation, London College of Fashion University of the Arts London. Although the instructions are to transfer the patterns on to linen, they are clearly meant for even-weave counted work, so I used a piece of 25 count linen - producing a larger sampler than the instructions. I don't think I need to work all the designs for the purpose of my presentation, so I have made a selection. I marked out the space with tacking, not easy when the stitches on the diagram don't correspond to the graph lines! A pattern, however, is emerging nicely.

In an effort to avoid a completely sedentary weekend, on Sunday I finally unpacked the carpet shampooer I bought weeks ago. It has been sitting in its unopened box just inside my door. To my surprise (call me Prepared for the Worst) it assembled really easily and quickly and within about 20 minutes I had the water solution in it, rugs folded back, carpets vacuumed and was shampooing carpet! I didn't achieve the 20sq metres on one water tank it claims, but I was getting the hang of it and being thorough. I did the areas of my living room that get the most traffic - probably about 12 sq metres - on a tank of water. 

I had a sugarless lemon soda to recover, then refilled the water tank and did the most trafficked areas of my bedroom. Similar result. It was easy, the used water very dirty - and the carpet looks clean! 

The tank is now empty and clean. The whole machine is stowed in the back of my wardrobe out of the way until I use it again. I reckon if I do the main areas every 2 months the carpet will look (and be) clean. So much easier than getting in carpet cleaners and moving all the furniture at once. Thank you Pat for assuring me it would work!

While Saturday was very hot, Sunday was pleasant at 27C and a breeze. The Mandevilla is looking splendid (a lot of water). It kept me company briefly on Sunday while I read a little more of The Gilded Page. I'm enjoying the stories of the workers behind the earliest English manuscripts, especially the women, whose contributions have been lost, ignored or, in some cases, deliberately erased from the record. I've ordered a copy of The Book of Margery Kempe and am considering pre-ordering a copy of the paperback version of The Posthumous Papers of the Manuscript Club which it seems will be available in August.  Seems I'm down a manuscript rabbit hole.

While I've really enjoyed spending so much time embroidering this week, I've been getting pain in my back and thighs, related to sciatica, and I suspect piriformis syndrome, partially caused by sitting too long, so I have been using my Everfit vibrating plate, cold compresses, and made an effort to get out yesterday, 

visiting Barrow and Bench hardware for a stick-on hook to replace one that fell off (after 8 years) and to buy a few replacement balcony plants, in spite of 32C. 

 

I was fortunately home to receive the delivery of wool for Kaffe Fassett's Andes cardigan. It's a bit hot to begin it at the moment, which will give me time to finish the projects I'm working on.

Today it reached 42C. I managed an 8 minute session on my Everfit vibration plate and an Aquafit session. Before driving home from the last, I got  a message telling me our apartment lift wasn't working.

I was expecting a parcel in the mail and didn't want to walk up and down the stairs twice, but fortunately, as I parked at home, the postman arrived with the first of my ebony knitting needle sets, so I walked up the stairs prepared to stay put for the rest of the day. Within ten minutes of my getting into my apartment the lift was working again! 

Je ne regrette rien! I'm in the cool, I have the latest Inspirations magazine, my lovely needles in their Khadi silk case (a handwoven cotton/silk/wool blend  trademarked by the Indian Government and lovely to hold),  I've done more exercise than usual and the temperature is forecast to drop tomorrow. In spite of the heat  I've  almost finished the knitting the prayer shawl - about 10 rows to go.  It will look a lot better when blocked - hopefully in the next day or two.

Post 503 Preparing, Relaxing, Enjoying.

It began as a week of getting jobs done, catching up on things I have been putting off. On Wednesday I went to the hairdresser, hung the photograph I had framed a few weeks ago, and prepared my tax.

Many thanks to the friends who provided advice on carpet cleaning. That was helpful, supportive and useful. I haven't as yet acted, but I will. Next week I plan to visit Bunnings to investigate further. At the moment I am favouring buying a small carpet shampooer. 

On Thursday I took the plasters off my back and got back to Pilates (not in that order!). On the way I called at Bunnings and bought potting mix, some dianthus, a couple of wheel platforms for pots and some wall hooks that hold weight and don't require tools to install. I haven't heard back from my former picture hanger, so decided to see if I could do it myself. 

The mirrored mosaic I bought a few weeks ago weighs 4.2kg. I used a 7 kg hook for plasterboard walls and followed the instructions. 

 It's holding up firmly.  The lovely pinky watercolour visible in the left of the photo is by Brigid. I moved it to where it now is so it can be seen from the corridor. It goes well with the Ruth Tuck watercolour above it.

It was formerly on the corridor wall where I have now hung Colleen's Green Parrots and Ginger Jar (above left). I think it all works - and I did it myself! 

I also made adjustments to a bark Wandjina painting that hangs over my bath. A couple of the hangers (removable adhesive so as not to damage the tiles) had fallen off, so it hung askew. My efforts were not of a high standard, as I did not want to climb in the bath while on my own, but I did manage to support and straighten it.

The two books on Mexican embroidery that I ordered after seeing the Frida and Diego exhibition arrived (separately) this week. I'm hoping that someone in the WES Group will be inspired to investigate and tell us about it sometime next year. The Guild Museum has a decent collection of Mexican embroidery.

The Goodman book has a lot of very helpful information about stitches.

Birds are still active and I am trying to resist too many photos.  I can't claim to have been successful in that.

I finished off the Christmas bags - adding the ribbon to the last one. I also stopped off at DK Fabrics on Thursday and bought some black zips, one of which I used to turn the embroidery from Christine Bishop's Romanian Braid and Needle Weaving workshop in March of this year, into a pouch. I found some raw silk, from a suit I once had, to use as lining, so it could be used for storing pearls, or other jewellery. 

It was a long weekend in much of Australia, our State included. My brother and sister-in-law arrived on Sunday for a week's visit - the first since COVID hit, so much of the early part of my week was taken up with preparations. They had a busy week (including two surprise birthday parties in 48 hours) before their (inevitably delayed) flight. 

It is fantastic to have them here. We have been catching up with each other and visiting the Kilkenny mob. Katherine hosted a family lunch for 10 yesterday which was fabulous in every way, from the conversation, shared experiences and empathy to Anthony's wonderful lamb roast, vegetable smorgasbord and Katherine's pavlova.  

I now have an advance copy of Jim's latest book, which is to be released on 30 October. I'll provide more details closer to the date.

Meanwhile, Margaret is making the most of the hap stretcher, stretching a navy shawl she finished a year ago for herself. It is even more complex than her last. I hope she will wear it to our December WES meeting when we discuss knitting.   

For those following the progress of my latest shawl,  I'm now on to the 7th of the 8 required 28 row patterns. 

Finally, two more books arrived today from Can Do Books. Textile Portraits looks a bit ambitious, but Japanese Knitting Stitches looks as if it has some achievable, interesting stitches - to add to my list of things to try!