Post 345 Mostly getting organised

 

Cleaning this morning - for a short while there are no threads on the carpet, or chairs.

It was the first Junior Embroiderers meeting of the year, but Niamh had for not put it in her diary and had arranged to catch up with a friend from last year. That left me with an unexpected whole day free, so I decided to use it to do some preparation for the workshop I've committed to give to the Guild's Certificate Course as well as constructing the bag with the Western Spinebill.

I used as lining a piece of snake fabric I bought from Aboriginal Fabrics in Alice Springs a while back.  

I used it for the sides as well as the lining. 

I think it blends well with the spinebill, and works well in a pocket on the reverse side.

Once again, I haven't ironed it yet. I figure I'll do that when I'm ready to enter it into the Guild Exhibition. It's only going to need to be done again then anyway.

I read all the books I have on Bulgarian Embroidery and made notes on each of them. I need to get some background context before I start to examine the collection that Nelly has lent me. So far the most interesting bits relate to the layers of historic migrations and the persistence of symbols and beliefs from pre-Christian times.  

This symbol, for example, according to Daniel Montiglio, is a Katanitza, an ancient symbol of family strength, harmony and balance.

From there I returned to my Icelandic Embroidery workshop and reread Elsa Gudjonsson's Traditional Icelandic Embroidery.   I modified the PowerPoint a little and played around with some examples of designs from old Icelandic embroideries that I might be able to use for students to work in the original stitches.

I ran my printer's cleaning program which restored it to print. This enabled me to enlarge a couple of the examples in the book and trace out the shapes. I think these will provide enough for students to get the idea. They can use these, or components of them, or design their own.

I now need to diagram the stitches and put it all together into a set of notes. 

Yesterday I contacted the Adelaide City Libraries, to see if they could obtain a digital copy of Margrethe Hald's book Ancient Danish Textiles in Bogs and Burials  for me from Flinders University Library, which holds a hard copy.  After much transferring of phones and emails, they told me they do not have an arrangement with Flinders. It looks as if I will need to contact Flinders directly and hope they will deal with a non-member of the University.  I want this for the session I have promised to take on Viking embroidery for the World Embroidery Study Group, but it would also be useful for Icelandic Embroidery. I'll follow up on Monday.

I'm pleased, however, with the progress I made today. I'm beginning to feel a little organised.

Anthony barbecued pork chops, meat patties and sausages tonight along with roast potatoes, carrots, parsnips and broccoli. I caught up with the netball news and a lot more. Fionn has football assessments tomorrow.

Katherine is making progress on her Adagio Mills shawl and I now have 5 pale blue circles to work with. 

Progress.

Post 343 Another lunch and bag

My main commitment today was late lunch at Jolley's Boathouse Restaurant in the city. This was my birthday lunch with 3 friends. We have lunch for each of our birthdays.  Jolley's has been renovated during a Covid lockdown and has a new chef. It's a favourite of mine and I wanted to try the new look and the new cook. 

No pain in my mouth so time this morning to return to the Nicola Jarvis Blue Wren and create the bag. There wasn't time to finish it, but I could get a good start. 

I cut out the Blue Wren and appliqued it to the Bottlebrush linen and worked the legs and feet.

Yesterday I had found some fabric in my stash that I thought would make good lining.

I got the bird appliqued and the bag cut out before I left for lunch.

This is a stock photo, from Jolley's website.  I didn't think to take one while there. We were  sitting at the table in the middle, obviously with four chairs, and there were people on other tables.                                It was raining today and the windows were closed. It was a little noisy at first but quietened down. 

The food was superb, as was the company. I have no qualms about stretching my birthday celebration out over a month. An early January birthday in Australia has always place limits on celebration, with friends away on summer holidays. I'm not fussed. I would, however, always choose to celebrate my birthday in a place on the water - ocean or river. It's one of the things I like about the Mitre - which incongruously still appears on the heading of this blog. 

I was home about 5 pm (yes, a long lunch) and set about constructing the bag. I needed to use plain linen on the sides and base. The lining fabric was short of the depth of the bag, so I supplemented with calico in the base. I think the colours and theme of the lining work well. 

There was enough of the lining fabric to put a pocket on the back. It's handy, I think, on shopping bags (or totes, if you prefer).

As can be seen, I haven't ironed this yet, but I think it has worked - both as a useful bag, and as an item for the Guild Exhibition next month.

The rest of the evening was spent working on the next bird. The Western Spinebill is ready to cut out tomorrow and applique on to the Kangaroo Paw linen.

Once again, I will work the legs directly on to the bag. 

I might get it done before our Sit'nStitch afternoon.

For now, another salt water mouth rinse and bed.

Post 341 Extraction and distraction

I had to be at the periodontist by 9 this morning - four blocks away.  After about 8 injections , Andre did a deep root surface debridement on the right side of my mouth and then extracted the upper back molar. The whole process took 40 minutes. Readers will be pleased that I didn't think to ask him to let me take a photo of the extracted tooth. 

I left with a gauze plug in the gap, and a set of instructions - the first of which was to bite on the gauze for an hour. 

I was home again at 10am settled into my favourite chair with a book - Skeleton Dance, an Aaron Elkins treat to distract me from the gauze and the anaesthetic wearing off. My instructions were not to eat or drink until it had worn off. The coffee I made when it did, around 12, was wonderful.

From 7am this morning, the builders were busy erecting a scaffold for the next storey of the building next door.  It became immediately clear why there is a courtyard at the back of the building - without it, the builders would have no space to erect the scaffolds they need to erect the back wall of the building, which presumably will have windows and /or balconies.

There is a similar arrangement at the front, which will also, it seems, project about a metre beyond my balcony wall.

The scaffolding at the back brought the builders very close to my balcony as they erected their safety fencing. After my coffee I took the opportunity to water my plants and say hello . They were looking forward to 3.30 - when they knock off!

By 3.00 the coffee and paracetamol had done their work sufficiently for me to drive to Unley to pick up the top I had ordered, and replenish my supply of black Russian tomatoes.

My other visitors arrived after 4, when the building site was quiet, reclaiming the territory  and cleaning up the seed. 

I managed to eat a cutlet with salad without disturbing the extraction site. Tomorrow I begin salt water washes. 

This evening I managed a little more on the Western Spinebill. A long way to go, but it's taking shape. I'm happier with it tonight.

 

It's been a long day.  I think I'll sleep well with the help of a couple of paracetamol tablets.