Post 366 Stitching, family history, blooms and sunsets

This week began with a morning of duty at the Guild Exhibition. The photos shows a small part of it. There are just under 300 exhibits spread over the gallery and the house. You can just see my bags on the back wall. We were quite busy on Wednesday morning with a group from the country driving up together to visit. We had plenty of helpers.

I did another three hours on Sunday, which was much quieter. This is the small garden between the house and Gallery. Helpers had time to sit and talk.

The exhibition was planned for last year. Numbers of both exhibitors and attendees are down on previous years, but still respectable.  Exhibition regulars came and clearly get joy out of  the work. Some go away quite excited, with an idea or two. There are also a few visitors who are new and also get excited. On Wednesday I met a young woman from Brazil who has an Art business in Adelaide and is interested in the World Embroidery Study Group.

I've been working steadily on the Turkman pouch. It's almost finished. The corner tassels are not yet done. I'm playing with using some gum nuts I've gilded a little, (resting there in the photos). I'm not convinced. I'll publish the story and result in my embroidery blog in the next couple of days.

Sunday morning was our Book Club meeting with lots of good discussion and ideas. I had chosen the books - Aaron Elkins' Gideon Oliver series and Sujarta Massey's Murder at Malabar Hill. Everyone liked the latter, and most liked Aaron Elkins.

The weather has been quite variable, 31C one day, but down to 19C and 20C on others. I'm not complaining. 31 is far more tolerable when followed by the low 20s. We had one night of rain so the plants have needed regular watering. The dove pair, especially Black Tips, have spent a lot of time visiting, even when I haven't put out seed - although no doubt the hope is still there!

Like me, they now indulge in a lot of sitting!

There's a new flower on the aloe, so I'm keeping an eye out for the Noisy Miner, who seems to have a grapevine that notifies of this bloom.                                                                   This Schlumbergia is also blooming, I think for the first time. So far there is only one flower but  a couple more coming.

The marigolds are going great guns and very cheering. I like to watch the buds form and open - such a contrast to the extravagance of the flowers.

On the front balcony I have two frangipani blooming, the red one for the first time. Unfortunately neither of them are scented but I'm still pleased to have them.  Hopefully the one I added a month ago will bloom with scent next year.

The building continues its steady upward rise. It is now, I think, probably 5 storeys high (four more to go).The white strip of wall close to the scaffold is the new building, the darker wall is my balcony.  There's a bit of noise, but still not enough to distress me. I avoid my living area when there is a concrete pour or the crane lifting panels into place. I can no longer see the work from my balcony except for a very rare instance of a worker climbing the scaffold.

I've spent a lot of time this week sorting out the the family history conundrums presented by the work of Melanie, whose contact I mentioned last week.It's amazing (and quite exciting) what can be achieved when we pool our work. Most importantly, Melanie has been able to visit archives and obtain documents not available online. It now appears that my paternal 3xGGrandmother, Sarah Attesley, was the sister of John and Henry Attesley who were convicted of larceny in the Cambridge Assizes in 1821, and sentenced to 7 years transportation. Sarah had two children out of wedlock, one of whom was my 2x GGrandmother.

By this morning we worked out that the two brothers were never actually transported. They appear to have served their sentences on the hulk Leviathan, Henry serving the full 7 years and John released on parole after 4 years. Their gaolers gave them reports of good behaviour which may have been the reason they were never transported. The UK Hulk Registers and Letter Books 1802-1847 for Henry and John Attersley show a few others with similar outcome. I did not know some sentenced convicts stayed on the hulks. It's a bit of a toss-up whether they were better off.

This is my grandmother, Ada whose ancestors these were. It now looks as if her line can be traced back through the Attesley's to Philip Attesley (1541-1572) and his wife Alyce Drawton (1542-1579). I have very little information about their lives except that two of their seven children survived to adulthood and by the 18th century their descendants were small-hold farmers. At no point in time does it look like an easy life.

Last night I cooked another variation of the tray-baked pork sausages . Once again, it was successful. Brigid had a 7pm netball committee meeting, so the kids and I ate just after 6. Katherine and Anthony picked them up in time to drop Brigid at her meeting and took the small cooked dish home to eat. I still didn't remember to photograph the cooked version! 

Yesterday was also the day of International Women's Day marches around Australia, focused on 'Enough is Enough' a version of 'Me too' triggered by some recent prominent cases here. I decided it was too difficult to go to the local march today but my spirit was there.

Last night's dark and brooding sunset seemed appropriate to the day.

I have changed my mind about using the Bushfire project for my Design Online project. I think it's too ambitious for the course, so I''m working on doing something with one of these linen pieces from Ink and Spindle. Not sure what yet, but using the river motif.

The post today included two books from separate sources. Each was packaged neatly in a padded paper bag that fits in the letterbox! Bravo!  One is, of course, the paper copy of Pat's book which I have already read on Kindle. I wanted a copy I can lend to people. The other is another of Shiela Payne's books. I haven't had a chance to browse carefully but it does have numerous index references to Bulgaria.

Finally, I did a repair job this morning for a friend. I have repaired these before - favourite orange trousers bought in Indonesia that split. Last week Ken sent this photo (left) of another disaster to befall them, above a previous patch. 

I stitched the tear to a piece of batik on the inside then stitched another batik patch over the top. 

They will soon be more patch than original - but that's OK.  I come from a long line of repairers! 

Later this year the World Embroidery Group is having a couple of sessions on Mend and Make Do. I might borrow them back to take along!

Until next week.

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.

Post 198 Laptop, scanner, Yeh!

It didn’t go below 28C overnight last night. In my Sleepy Merino pyjamas, even though they are supposed to be comfortable in Summer as well as Winter, I think this might apply to the regular 100gsm products, not to the 200 gsm nightshirt I was wearing.  Consequently I opened my blind at sunrise.

The young dove arrived , but is too nervous to stay if I open the door. I put out some seed and he/she returned a bit later to sample it.

I was due to pick up Jennifer for SitnStitch at 12.30 . I rang the Apple Centre at Norwood late in the morning to check how they were going with my computer and scanner. They were still working on it. As I wanted it for this blog tonight, I either had to pick it up before I picked up Jennifer, or late this afternoon after I’d dropped her home. When they rang me around midday to say it was ready I rushed off to get it - much better than having it on my mind all afternoon and a deadline at the end of the day.

It delayed me picking up Jennifer  by 25 minutes,. The laptop is tidied up,  has an up to date operating system and connects to the scanner. Yeh!  The staff were helpful and took care to explain what had been done and how to use the new interface.  It’s a relief to have it back and working. I’ll try the scanner out tomorrow.

Susan made cheese scones again - fabulous! There was lots to catch up on. Jennifer is getting about a bit. She is still having dizzy spells . She worked today on cutting out the background fabric to mount her COVID embroidery. It’s going to look amazing.

When I got home, three young men were exercising in the Square. One was practising tight-rope walking on a band stretched between two trees about a metre off the ground. He got on to it by jumping from the ground. He fell off a lot, but kept practising until he stayed on and kept going.









The lorikeets were out in force in the evening. The trees are beginning to bud, obviously very attractive to the nectar-seeking birds.












Now I have my laptop back I can publish a couple of the shots I took yesterday of the Rosella.

The succulent flowers are also coming along nicely.

As I’ve been writing this I’ve been (half) watching Gardening Australia which ran a story on the stobie pole art in Rosetta St . I wasn’t fast enough to photograph the screen. For those not in South Australia, stobie poles are an Adelaide invention. Because there was not much timber in Adelaide, a man named Stobie invented replacement for wooden telegraph poles, by using two discarded railway tracks with concrete between them.

In the 1980s community projects engaged artists to paint the poles.  The practice continues. Gardening Australia covered the poles and the community plantings in the streets streetscapes of the Charles Sturt Council area.

Altogether, a productive and satisfying day. I progressed my knitting  and the Caterina mat but not enough to take photos. My early start is catching up with me!

Post 196 WES Group, scanning and birds

I was up relatively early to get organised for the World Embroidery Study Group meeting this morning. We were discussing Icelandic Embroidery and I had books, a PowerPoint presentation, my thermos of coffee and my Icelandic Endless knot bag to take to the meeting.

While getting ready I noticed Myrtle and a young dove on the balcony, the young one coming quite close to my glass door. which was open with the screen door pulled across. This was the best I could do to photograph the new bird. I reckon it is the young adolescent that Myrtle and Turtle chased away a couple of months ago. I reckon it could be their last year's fledgling now accepted as sufficiently adult to forage here. There may be other explanations. It will be interesting to see how it develops.

Incidentally, those delicious looking grapes I bought on Monday have not lived up to their promise - good looking sour grapes!

We had a very good WES Group meeting; nine of us, two new to the group. We had a Covid Marshal and tables are set out to ensure we stay 1.5 metres apart. It's a good arrangement and everyone cooperates. Out Icelandic embroider discussion was, in one member's word 'inspiring'. Lori had worked her own design using the two most used traditional Icelandic stitches, long-armed cross stitch and eyelet stitch in perle cotton. As Lori pointed out, these stitches, but particularly the long-armed cross, are great solid filling stitches.

Margaret is working a much finer version of the Endless Knot design, also interesting.

Barbara brought along a number of Korean wrapping cloths she had made several years ago. The large on is for wrapping a table!

These are machine stitched with a particular  narrow enclosed seam.

Back at home I attempted a bit more scanning. After I'd scanned 30 photos, the app ceased to scan. Eventually I looked for a solution online and discovered this is a common fault of the app. After 150 or so scans it frequently crashes. At least I got 233 photos out of it! The solution is to remove the scanned photos from the device you are using, delete and reload the app and then continue.  This is disappointing. Not sustainable for the number of photos I am dealing with. There is also a fair bit of discussion about the quality of the scans compared to a flatbed scanner.

So I gave in. I rang the Apple service shop at Norwood and asked if they would remove old drivers from my laptop, check the connection to my flatbed scanner and either restore the connection or let me know that it is no longer compatible and suggest an alternative. If I can drop the laptop and scanner in tomorrow morning they will do their best to have it sorted by the afternoon for me.
Nothing like doing it properly!

Late in the afternoon I heard the tell-tale cooing. There on the back balcony was the young dove again. Curiouser and curiouser.

It flew away, of course. I then noticed the unfolding aloe.






















On the front balcony this morning I noticed that the native bush I bought a couple of years ago at an Australian native plants expo  is finally blooming. It is labelled as a Meuller's Daisy but doesn't look very daisy-like. I'll check it again tomorrow to see if the flowers change shape as they open.


This evening's work on Caterina has progressed the project. The thread count, however is out by two threads as I reach the centre line. so I will need to track the error tomorrow when I am less tired and have daylight.

Post 119 : catching up

Today was Jim's birthday. He would have been 73.

I spent a couple of hours reading Peter Swanson's Rules for a Perfect Murder. It's a most interesting book, drawing on some traditions of classic crime fiction and undermining the reader's trust in both perception and detection. It's far more Patricia Highsmith than Agatha Christie.

Before the doves came and devoured their somewhat soggy seed, the Noisy Miner put in an appearance, this time descending briefly to the balcony floor to examine - but not eat the seed. It's the first time he(?) has to my knowledge done that. He soon went back to his surveillance position on the rail before taking off.







I spent a couple of hours this afternoon visiting Junette in Collinswood. It was a joy to catch up. Junette was in New Zealand at roughly the same time as I was in England this year. Her garden is looking great and she has a wonderful vase of tulips in her dining room.  There was a lot to catch up on.

I was able to see the Quaker panel that she worked on , part of which I showed in Post 85. The whole panel is fabulous close up.

I have borrowed the book published last year about the tapestry and the women who are working it. I haven't read it yet, but it looks really interesting. I will report in due course.

Driving home I was struck by the contrast in Adelaide city.  On the one hand, there are high-rise and cranes - although not always a lot of movement.

On the other hand there are more surviving colonial buildings than in many Australian cities, because there was so little timber available for building, and most buildings were stone, or eventually, brick from the brickworks that grew up around pug holes. It makes for interesting juxtaposioning.


Back at home I checked on my flowering cacti. The yellow group are opening up in slowly and elegantly.




The aloe has opened even more, but there are still unopened buds. Interestingly, the Noisy Miner does not seem to be interested in the yellow flowers. The only red flowers I have at the moment are geraniums - in which the Miner is manifestly uninterested. 









The cranes are evident again at sunset.

I have very little progress to show on my embroidery today - not worth showing.  I hope to have more to show tomorrow, in between a 9.00 am dental appointment ( how did I agree to that?) and lunch at Mr Nick"s.

I am still being very cautious, only going to places where I know the distancing and cleaning rules are being followed.

I'm grateful nevertheless to have  had the chance to visit a friend today and to enjoy a little of the Adelaide environment.