Post 222 Mostly related to scanning

This afternoon there was plenty of bird noise at the back of the apartment, but no bird in sight. I think the birds are revelling in the bloom on the various trees, especially the red bottlebrush in the centre of the photo. I did see a Noisy Miner visit my balcony first thing this morning, perhaps looking for the bloom on the aloe. It didn't stay. The aloe flower hasn't amounted to much.

Once the Miner had gone, a fairly plump Turtle arrived and strutted around looking for seed. He flew off before I opened the door, but waited on the roof, watching me. Once I was inside he returned and had a feed.

He paused every now and then but didn't seem nervous. I realised there was a lorikeet feeding in the tree behind him - you can just see the flash of red and yellow.

I spent much of the day removing photos from albums - two today. One, an album of a family visit to Bali around 1989, was easy. The photos lifted out relatively cleanly and scanned easily. The second album, recording a visit Jim and I made to Lombok and Bali in the early 1990s, was more difficult. The photos were harder to remove, and emerged with residual paper and glue on the back. This needs  to be removed as far as possible so the photos don't jam in the scanner. It is also not good to shed bits into the scanner. It's a messy process, leaving bits all over me, the floor and any other surface nearby.

It took me several hours to get the photos clean and into the scanner. The scanner also lost its wifi connection a couple of times, resulting in my needing to rescan a few batches.  Nevertheless, the job is now done. I have two more empty albums, around another 300 photos scanned and stored in archive boxes.  Unfortunately, of course, I have tackled the easier albums first, so I can expect more complications as I go on.

I did manage a bit of embroidery and moved my hoop to start a new section in the morning.

 

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Post 220 : Rabbits and photos

I spent a few hours throughout the day working on the rabbits, finishing the components that were entirely within the hoop. I figured it would be better to move the hoop before beginning the section on the right, since the edge could not be finished without a move.

I had used an 8" hoop because the linen just fitted and I thought I might get away with carefully stitching to the very edge. It was a mistake. The linen is barely wide enough to fit in and is therefore difficult to tighten.

So when I moved it, I moved to a 6" hoop, which makes it easier to tighten the linen. It would have been better to begin in the 6" hoop and assume I would need to move it. I have three more of Rabbits at Dawn to do for my chair. 6" hoops all the way!

There is a lovely dimension to the piece - as there is to most crewel pieces. It's so relaxed and enjoyable to do.

I'm thinking about how to vary the other pieces while keeping the connection.

I somewhat reluctantly paused my stitching to continue removing photos from the album of my visit to the USA in December 1995. 

The photos came out relatively easily when I used my bread-and-butter knife. However the little adhesive tabs used to attach the photos remained on the back corners and retained much of their adhesive. I was pretty sure the photos would not go through the  scanner with the tabs on the back so I cleaned half a dozen using DissolveIt. It was going to take hours to clean them all, so I thought I might just try them in the scanner.  To my surprise they worked. I was able to scan 65 in a relatively short time. Praise be!

Katherine had invited me to join them for dinner at Grange Cafe this evening. It was a lovely evening and there were people at the beach but the cafe wasn't crowded. We were early snd it did fill up before we left, but it was not crowded. They have new tables, well spaced.

Really pleasant. We had coffee at Katherine's where I picked up another supply of chicken food for the doves.

I am still struggling with this layout. Another experiment tonight.

Post 218 Back to scanning

I did finally get to scanning this afternoon.  In about two hours I scanned  545 photos from the 1990s, pretty much the whole of the first 1990s album. I can't be sure about particular years for all photos but 

there are a few markers. I don't want to bore readers with photos from my past. I thought, however, a few family and friends might be interested in two family groups, the first Jim and Alison with Jim's brother and cousin with their children. I'm not sure where Katherine was. I took the photo.

          

The second photo records a visit of my mum and dad,  my brother and sister-in-law, Jim and I to  Norahville to visit my mum's sister Grace and her family in January 1993. We did not know it at the time, but my mother had terminal cancer and died three three months later.

I'm so glad we captured these moments in time. 

I had photos, index cards, labelsand storage boxes all over the table, while the concrete pourer chugged away about 3 metres outside my window and the sun flooded the room. Quite pleasant.

The morning was taken up with emails reading news and Pilates, where I progressed a little in balancing. After Pilates I dropped off 3 large, heavy, empty photo albums at the Salvos shop. I also called at DK Fabrics to look for some seersucker, but their parking area now requires a $1 coin for the parking metre and I didn't have one. I could have used a card, but not for less than $3. This, I thought, was unreasonable, so decided I would go somewhere else next week. I went on to the Unley shopping centre to pickup an online delivery from Taking Shape and get a few bits from Woolworths.  Since it was now after 2pm and there were plenty of empty tables at the bakery, I indulged in 2 sausage rolls and a lime milkshake. That, of course, meant I wasn't hungry tonight. Cheese and crackers sufficed.  It was one of those evenings when the moon rises just as the sun is setting. The moon rise was more interesting than the sunset. 

In spite of that, I got on with my crewel  Rabbits at Dawn.            

                                                                                                                                    

Post 207

I had, for me, a busy Sunday morning. My cleaner arrived at 9.00 and at 9.30 I left for the Crime Book Club meeting at Uncle Albert's cafe at Norwood. I managed to find a park under a Banksia tree. They are looking fabulous at the moment.

The Book Club meeting was good. We sat outside at Uncle Alberts. I had nominated this month's books which were any one of Ovidia Yu's Aunty Lee series and/or Crown Colony series and The Brisbane Line by J P Powell. I chose the latter from a pre-publication review.  I heard stories from my mother about US servicemen in Sydney during WWII. I also knew that between 1943 and 1945 there were up to  one million US servicemen in Australia - 10% of the population at the time. I did not know, however, about the Brisbane Line - the alleged line of defence should the Japanese invade Australia. Nor did I realise the concentration of US troops in and around Brisbane, which was the US headquarters in Australia.  Unfortunately, I don't think The Brisbane Line  works as either fiction or history. A pity.

I did a bit of shopping in Norwood after the meeting and headed home to more scanning.

This morning, my early visitor was Myrtle, who did quite a lot of both three-note and four-note coo-ing before pecking up most of the seed and taking off.





My scanning went well. I managed to remove all the remaining photos from the album pages using Desolve It. I got them scanned with the exception of some 20-30 that are damaged. I scanned 167 today, and got them all filed away and labelled.  I haven't counted the photos in the archive box, but estimated from the first 100 that the box will comfortably hold 1100 photos with 40 dividers.  I have 20-30 damaged photos I plan to scan on the flatbed tomorrow and add to the archive box which I can then label as 1970s & 1980s.

movement of both bird and tree.

Late this afternoon we had a sudden squall with heavy wind gusts. As I was bringing in my washing the wind was whipping tree branches around violently. The tiny red dot in the photo is a Rosella clinging on for grim death and being tossed around on the branch. There must have been some gourmet seed there for the Rosella to persevere. The photo in no way captures the movement of either bird or tree.

The wind apparently caused quite a bit of damage before it died down as quickly as it had arisen.

It was another spectacular sunset.

I have achieved a tiny bit of progress on Caterina. Scanning sure takes it out of me!

Post206

Blush arrived on his (or her) own, ate most of the seed and left. No interference from other birds.

The little bit of seed left was gone by the end of the morning. I was at the other end of the apartment, so didn't see who finished it off.


I spent most of the day scanning or preparing to scan - removing the photos from the large 1970s album. The photos from later in the decade remove relatively easily once I lifted an edge with my handy bread and butter knife. The early in the decade are stuck fast. Once removed, I scanned about 250 photos using FastFoto. FastFoto does not cope well with damaged photos or photos that are thicker than normal - such as those with anything stuck on the back. I have about 20 photos that would not go through the scanner. Tomorrow I will either use the App or the flatbed to scan them.

I also have a number of photos removed with the help of Desolvit. It works a treat, but dampens the back of the photo which then needs to dry out. Tomorrow I should be able to scan all remaining photos in this album, hopefully remove the last of those on the early pages and file them in the archive box.  I think the (numerous) remaining albums are easier to scan, or at least easier from which to remove the photos.

It's a messy process.  The sticky album needs to be disposed of in bits - all the cellophane page covers need to go is the soft recycling, and the cardboard pages into the recycle bin. Separating them makes a mess. The photo is after I had tidied up. There are still piles of photos awaiting scanning, awaiting filing, or under a weight to straighten them out.



The Create in Stitch weekly newsletter today featured this meme, which made me laugh.

I could embroider it as a motto!

I took Niamh to JEMS and returned home to more scanning, then went to Katherine and Anthony's for dinner. Delicious as usual. Tonight chicken satay and coconut risotto. It's always good to catch up on the week's activities.









On the way there I was driving into the setting sun, which is now further to the South than it has been for a while. It was briefly spectacular.




Tomorrow is cleaning and Crime Bookclub. Better get some sleep.