Post642 Plenty to do

A very unusual visit on Wednesday evening:a noisy miner visited my front balcony! I can only recall one previous time I have seen a bird here. A second miner also landed briefly and they flew off together. My mind went to Lawrence's poem, A snake came to my water trough . I’m not sure why. My only instinct was to photograph it. Although Noisy Miners are regarded as pests in SA I still feel slightly privileged to have had a visit. I’m pretty sure it is the semi-enclosed nature of the western balcony and not the presence of noisy miners that keeps other birds away!

We had had a very successful WES group meeting earlier in the day. 

Barbara, who  for years took tour groups to textile villages in Gujarat, bought some of her treasures along and walked us through them. While PowerPoint projection has allowed us to explore historical embroidery that we can’t touch, the group was excited to see and touch real pieces collected by Barbara from the maker or their descendants. 

As I was putting the washing away on Friday a raucous noise drew me back to the eastern balcony. Eventually I located the Adelaide Rosella among the nearly bare branches of what I think is a Cassia. It’s the time of the year when seed pods are ready to open and the seed eaters come at dusk. 

Other than dinner and crosswords on Saturday, the weekend was spent trying to finish the Berwick cardigan. By 10pm on Sunday all but the band around the whole edge was done. After picking up 650 stitches all the way around, I had finally run out of grey wool.  Fortunately, on Thursday I had ordered another ball from Sunspun in Victoria which was meant to arrive on Monday but didn't. Seems it was sent from Queensland and spent a lot of time being shunted around in Melbourne and Adelaide Airport. Yesterday I received 28 messages to say it was in Adelaide, some of them 6 minutes apart. I'm guessing it was caught on a conveyor belt somewhere.

I alleviated my impatience by stitching down the inside steek edges using 4 ply wool from another project, and identifying some projects I'd like to make from the two books that arrived from Can Do Books.

While I'm passing on the snowman, polar bear, reindeer, pudding and far-too-cute angel in this one, the elves, pixie, star and heart are very tempting.

The girls surprised me by advocating for the polar bear, so I might have to reconsider that one.

To my astonishment, this book (right) published in Colorado, has a flannel flower medallion! That is definitely on the to-do list!

Whileat the shopping centre  yesterday getting the bread for dinner, I plucked up courage to call at the Essential Beauty and Piercing shop to ask about having my right ear pierced again as it has recently closed over. Veronica had helped me identify a medically certified practice. The young assistant was amazing. She asked if she could try to reopen the hole and managed to do it there and then, putting in a spare stud which needs to stay in for 3 weeks, then be replaced with a sleeper for another 3 weeks. I left with a pair of studs (one of which is now in my left ear) and antiseptic spray that I need to use for 3 weeks. I hadn't expected it to be so easy.

As I was falling asleep last night going over in my mind my plans for today, which included cleaning and swimming, I suddenly wondered whether I should in face be swimming in a pool with the ear repair. After checking I decided I should not be swimming. I have done so well for over three months - but I don't want an infection. 

So when the extra ball of wool arrived today I put it to good use on the border of the cardigan. Each 650 stitch round of rib has taken me an hour to knit. I have completed 4 rounds and, assessing the wool left, I am now casting off.  I was trying to finish it before posting this, but I've only cast off about 20% of the stitches, and don't want to be up all night, so I will be sensible and finish it tomorrow.

I have an Adelaide Symphony Orchestra lunchtime concert in the city, but might be able to finish it in the evening. Report next week.

Post 633 Quite a busy week.

1

WES Group was well attended last Wednesday with 16 people to hear Janet talk about Japanese Fukusa. There must have been 50+ varied examples. My favourite were those depicting the Takasago legend of the old couple, Jo and Uba,  who appear from Lake Takesako, to spend time under a pine tree setting the world to rights. She sweeps away the old pine needles with her broom while he rakes in good fortune.  

The Fukusa are beautifully decorated cloths placed over ritual presentation gifts. Most are woven and many embroidered.

In the gap between our meeting and the afternoon help session, Margaret helped me examine and make notes on an embroidery collection belonging to a work colleague of a family member. Most of it will, I think, end up on the Guild trading table.

I was too focused on ensuring the Gallery was left in the condition we found it to remember to check the supply of hoops on the trading table, which had been renewed the day before, so I returned after Pilates on Thursday and indulged in ten small presentation hoops. I may never use them, but my supply is depleted by the Celtic symbols I embroidered for the Early Medieval Period talk, and the hoops have proved really useful for displaying such small items. 

I felt, however, the urge to move to a larger embroidery project, so dug out the needlepoint Poppies cushion I bought last year. 

The only reliable way to tackle it is on my slate frame and Lowery, so I spent a couple of hours setting it up. It takes up quite a lot of room but is not difficult to move. Progress is slow. It’s 18” square and 10 thread count. I reckon this is at least an 85 hour project, given the time it takes to identify, choose, thread and stitch each colour. It’s also a little awkward to work, demanding regular posture adjustment. So far I've stitched a section 8"x 2' which took 4-6 hours. 

I shopped on Friday but couldn’t get lamb shanks anywhere at my local shopping centre. It was a big football weekend in Adelaide, with multiple games being played at several venues, and road closures around the city. The sky turned on a celebratory rainbow around 4pm. 

I tracked the lamb shanks down online at Frewville, fortunately in the opposite direction to the football venues. As most of the family had tickets on Saturday night, Katherine and I enjoyed a quiet meal down the road at The Greek.

Our Book Club met at Magill on Sunday. I plotted a ring route to avoid the many road closures on the more direct route, and got mildly lost. I hadn’t read the books, but there was still plenty to talk about and 62 books added to our database. I’ve ordered a second-hand copy of The Hawk is Dead by Peter James for our May meeting. The other two suggested books are thrillers, which I avoid and I am interested to check out how a fiction book is constructed around living people. I have a feeling I may not get to the meeting anyway, as I have a commitment well on the opposite side of the city later the same day.

The lamb shanks turned out well. I experimented with the vegetables (broccolini and bok choi), leaving them in iced water,  draining and tossing them into the lamb ragu at the last minute and removing from the heat after 1 minute. It worked well. The ragu was still a bit too liquid but no one seemed to mind. There was bread to soak it up.

The books I've ordered to help with my August talk are still arriving roughly on the expected timeline. There are snippets of information in each one, helping me to build the picture I want. Much of it is things I've forgotten from Uni studies decades ago. The Old English word man, for example, is gender neutral, meaning 'person' or 'human' and people are frequently referred to in early texts as 'weapon person' or ' weaving person'. 

This morning’s coffee meeting didn’t happen as my friend was ill, so I took the opportunity to drop into the city and buy a replacement for my kitchen scales.  Recommended by Choice, the new ones are slightly larger than the old and have both a high capacity (10kg) and a precision pad. It still, however, fits in my available storage space. The old one did its work for at least 20 years and is now awaiting the next curb side pickup.

Caleb turned up around 3.30pm to examine my TV, quickly finding a broken aerial cable inside the back of the TV, which, he is sure, must have been faulty. He made a temporary repair with tape and the signal was restored. After consulting with the boss, he disconnected the cable, headed to the wholesaler, returned and replaced it. My TV is now working again! I can now watch South Australian News in Adelaide time, rather than streaming from NSW in Eastern Standard Time! I celebrated with a non-alcoholic margarita.

The Chapter and Skein shawl is coming along nicely. I've used 40%-50% of the first of two skeins.I'm still not sure if I will need to use the second skein. It's relaxed knitting - a 6 line pattern in which only one row isa true patterned row. It's nice yarn to handle. 

Shane, my drip entry-point-finding hero, is due at 8am tomorrow. I have a lot of faith in his skill and persistence. The difficulty may come in getting agreement on an intervention beyond plugging the latest hole. I'm a bit buoyed by the television fix today - and grateful that I have such tradies available to help.

Better get some sleep.

Post 581 Mostly knitting

WES Group meetings are always interesting and last week’s particularly so. One of our members talked about the Underlying Principles of her textile work over 40 years. She brought along examples. What few of us knew was that she had built up a career as a textile artist and costume designer, based on her domestic dressmaking skill and her training as a pharmacist, asking herself questions about purpose and the nature of materials and people. 

Shy and reticent, she has works in both the National Gallery of Australia and the ART gallery of SA. I’m so grateful another member, who knows her well, pressured and supported her to talk to us. 

Later in the year she’s going to tell us about her collaborative work.

I was home in time to get myself to Louca’s for lunch with an old uni friend’s son who is returning to Sydney after finishing an 18 month work contract in Adelaide. Good food and good company.

The temperature returned to 30+C for Pilates on Thursday and has remained there all week. The Bougainvillea is in full bloom at the studio, dropping blossom as well as overhanging the street. It’s such a fabulous colour.

At the end of last week’s post I mentioned I was playing with graph paper and a knitting design. This has consumed most of my time this week, hence a fairly focused post. 

I’ve been working on an idea to knit beanies for a work team taking part in a fund-raising walk for charity in mid-May. I began with some left-over wool from a Shetland hat and sketched up a chart. I realised pretty quickly (fortunately!) that working in 4 ply was not practical for multiple items. I rarely work in chunky wool, but did have some Aran 10ply in my stash, so adjusted my thinking around that.

I’m not in a position to show the results, but I have evolved the design to something the team is happy to use and I can now knit in 5-6 hours. At the time of writing I have finished 9 hats and 60% of the 10th. These will be completed from he 600gm of Aran I had. I am aiming for 25.

I ordered more 10ply yarn once it was evident the idea would fly. A phone call to Bendigo Woollen Mill  yesterday resulted in a switch to Express delivery and 600 grams of 10 ply wool and the same of cotton arrived today, thanks to a helpful sales assistant.  

I need to be able to knit over Easter to meet my target. I will report in a bit more detail and with a photo closer to the event. The most I can reveal at the moment is a view of the inside (above), which I rather like, and  part of my finished pile awaiting pompoms. I might need to organise a working bee for that.

I’m delighted to have put my Design Online skills to use and will eventually document the pattern. For the moment, however, I’m mostly just knitting!

I took time out this morning to have my hair cut at my hairdresser’s new salon a couple of kilometres outside the cbd (left). 

I’ve also assembled the ingredients for my mother’s Easter birds nests (the copha is in the fridge). I had trouble finding the speckled eggs in my usual supermarket and Sam, the on-duty finder, raced all over the shop looking for them. I plan to deliver a nest to him when he is working on Easter Saturday.

My hands are standing up reasonably well to the hours of knitting. I alternate between the bespoke original moulded support I have for my left hand - the one that suffers most because ot its more stationary position - and the more recent off-the shelf supports for both hands. I take stretching, massaging breaks in between.   That seems to work. Time to put the supports back on.

Post 510 Busy and Blessed

It's been a busy, lots to do, running around, kind of week - and no sign of it letting up! For the first time, I have deferred other pressing commitments to write this post! There are wind-up events, exams, visits, appointments galore - and the Adelaide 500 car race diverting traffic and blocking off city streets. 

The December WES meeting involves Margaret M and I putting together some examples and information about (mainly) Shetland knitting. It's crunch time for this, so I have been working up an example as well as working my way through my numerous books on the topic, to prepare a summary. I enjoy this, but it is time-consuming. On the weekend I finished the Shetland Wool Week hat in the Jamieson and Smith wool. To link the technique to embroidery, I am working the same chart in cross-stitch. I'm in the process of writing this up in my embroidery blog, so will make do here with a photo of the finished hat. Margaret and I get together tomorrow to organise our presentation.

The basket in the background is one I bought at Gallery M, which I managed to visit last Friday to see the Hand Spinners and Weavers exhibition of braids, Knot just Braids, which finished on Saturday. 

I am so pleased I managed to get there. It was a fabulous exhibition. Janet, a member of WES Group, had a series of Kimono cords, each attached to a spectacular kimono - a very clever idea.      The signature piece of the exhibition was a screen of cords made by individual members of the Guild.                                                                                

The work was diverse. I loved the braided pots - and the drawstring bag.

The final JEMS meeting for the year was on Saturday, with the usual shared food celebration. It's been a good year for JEMS. The group is strong, the atmosphere relaxed, the projects tailored to individual interests and needs.         

Sunday was the Guild's pre-Christmas Market Day. I managed to pick up a few more plants and one of the DMC Motifs booklets. The latter series is always useful for ideas. 

I broke up the large spider plant I bought and added the pieces to my wall garden where they will provide coverage. 

The snake plant has nicely rounded out my indoor window stands. The older one, on the right, needs repotting, as do a few of my plants. Maybe next week.

Unfortunately one small cactus left quite a few prickles in my hands as I placed it in the car. Magnifiers and tweezers seem to have finally removed them.

The 3 year-old jacarandas outside my apartment are coming along, one (right) has a very definite lean - over the road and a parking spot. While the shade is good, it might need a judicious prune before it gets much bigger.   

Speaking of parking, there were loud noises from the street on Thursday night, just after dark. It sounded like an aggressive car alarm. When I eventually went to look (at the end of Would I Lie to You) there was a tow truck trying to pick up a parked car (the leaning jacaranda is in the foreground). The process took about 40 minutes. 

The single tow-truck operator made incremental adjustments to his tray, the car and his ropes, while clearly trying to reassure the distraught car driver. It was skilled,  physical, work in a confined space -  a drama injected into my life. How many life stories did it feature in, and how very different might the perspectives might be?

I got back to swimming today. I've now managed to shift a few things to clear Tuesdays of appointments, so I can prioritise AquaFit. All clear now until well after Christmas.  It tires me out, but is really great to be back in the water. I have ordered a towelling dress to make the journey home a bit drier.  

Last night's dinner was lamb shanks, beans, broccoli and a new potato and cheese bake. This recipe layers potato slices (no mandolin in sight!) with spring onion, cheese, cream, salt and pepper, with a layer of cheese on top. I suspect roast potatoes are healthier, so I will be a bit sparing in serving this one!

Today the last of my bookmarks arrived. I'm pleased with them - especially the silhouetted birds. I might add some tassels to the jacaranda ones.

Alison is in town later this week for work - and it's her birthday week, so there is much excitement and planning for weekend celebrations. It's like a little miracle. So joyful, and grateful.

I have a couple of beanies to replace for Christmas and finally caved in to the recent offer of Cotton Crush from Bendigo Woollen Mills before it sold out. I've been trying to use up the pastels I have had since my grandchildren were babies. I'm making inroads, but have been yearning for bold colour. Now I've got it. 

A couple more books arrived. This one is for me. It is fascinating. The writer is expert in recording and researching marks carved into the walls of English churches - marks to request help or protection, indicate association, or supplication. I rang an old uni friend as soon as I read the introduction. She's ordered a copy too. 

It's been a hard week - indeed a hard year - in relation to road accidents, with some high profile examples impacting a significant portion of a local population, my own family included. Our Covid numbers are also on the rise. One of my Pilates group has been diagnosed with terminal liver cancer and at least one of my neighbours is ailing. There is a lot of sadness to take on board. It is sometimes hard to work that through. 

My optometrist appointment last week resulted in a new spectacle prescription and the continuation of my low-level steroid regimen, which is keeping my eyes healthier and functional.  This blog is one way I nurture my mental health. I recognise my privilege. I  endeavour to use it well - and I count my blessings.