Post 400

Amazing - the 400th post in what was meant to be a 28 day travel blog! Little did I guess how long it would be when I agreed to continue until we were through the Covid disruption! 

On Wednesday evening, after I had written up the report of our WES Group meeting, I went to close the balcony doors and heard a racket of 'Ark, ark" noises. It turned out to be 6-8 birds in one of the trees on our apartment block. Roughly half of them were black and half mostly grey. I assume it was some kind of territorial dispute.

The black birds were, I'm sure, Australian ravens. 

I wasn't sure if the grey ones were also ravens, or butcher birds. The calls were definitely raven calls, so I reckon they were all ravens.

It went on for a good ten minutes, with various members of the group flying away, returning, flying away again. This black one stayed put throughout and only left after all others had gone.

If s/he was defending territory, or holding his ground, s/he won.

The WES Group meeting went well. Members engaged with the issues around Viking embroidery, several bought some of Peter Sanderson's lucets to try and there were lots of contributions and questions. It's a great group.              

I had duck soup for dinner, using the stock from the bones of Monday night's duck and the bok choi I forgot to add to the stir fry. Delicious.

On Thursday my Pilates class was cancelled at short notice, so I was able to upload Conversations with Baby Boomer Teachers to the National Electronic Deposit website and fulfil a couple of other commitments I made to friends before doing a bit of shopping for Monday's family meal. 

I also worked out a way to finish stitching the Christmas gift that caused my wrist problem last week. I stitched it to a piece of cotton by overstitching the edges, cut the back of the cotton away in a cross shape and folded back the resulting triangles to expose the back and mounted it in a hoop. Now I should be able to stitch it without holding it. With a bit of luck the cotton mounting will be reusable for the other three pieces in the kit.

I haven't got to it yet, but will try it soon.

On Friday Susan and I sat and stitched, then we went out to dinner at Port Adelaide with other friends.  On Saturday I picked Brigid up from school when she arrived back from assisting at a school camp and took her to her Surf Lifesaving duty. We all met up at Grange for a meal. Niamh missed JEMS because she had two teeth removed. Katherine was at Synod all day. Busy lives.

The cards I ordered from Officeworks as an experiment were also ready and I picked them up. I'm very pleased with them. I called at the Guild to discuss whether the shop would like some. These are close-ups of the Agave plant at the Guild. I've now ordered some cards of the full plant. The Guild shop has rather too many cards already but I think some members of WES will like them anyway.

In the meantime, Conversations has been arriving for those who ordered a copy. The response is very positive. My brother, bless his little cotton socks, is organising a book launch dinner among his friends who participated, now that they are emerging from lockdown.

Sunday was my last formal Guild class for the year - Christine Bishop's Punto in Aria starfish. It was slow going, because there's no way around completing the whole edge before moving in row by row. In class I  almost completed the second- and hardest- row and moved into the needlelace at home. I finished it on Monday night. I thought I might have to make a box to put it on. Alison Cole no longer has the fabric covered boxes I was planning to use.

One suggestion was to mount it on an abalone shell, but it needs to be glued, so I think I'll give that a miss even though I have a shell. Then overnight it occurred to me that I could add it to the Kantha cushion I made a few years ago.  

I washed the cover this morning (a good drying day!) and added it this afternoon. The loops needed to be stitched down securely but it's a good result. Voilà! 

Looks like it's always been there, and belongs.

It's been a week of medical treatments for my grandchildren. Niamh had teeth removed, orthodontic bands restored and she and Veronica had their second Covid vac today. Fionn had an operation yesterday to reset an old break in his wrist which was not picked up in the scan when it happened a couple of years ago. His wrist will be in plaster and various forms of immobilisation for eight weeks - a significant trial and setback for a budding athlete. However, he's a determined and persistent young man and will come out strong.

This afternoon I finished the colourwork on the Leadlight Counted pouch. I've now got the borders and edges to do before lining it.

While stitching it I've been thinking about having some bookshelves made for my living room. I'm hoping to pay a visit to Nordic Furniture at Norwood to discuss my idea with them. It would be good to do something with the piles of books on my chairs and table. I also need to get rid of a cupboard I'm using for storage in my carpark area, against Strata rules. Looks like a storage reorganisation week coming up.

Post 193 sitnstitch

It was a fine Spring day in Adelaide today. A bit cool to begin with, but 24C by the afternoon.

Turtle appreciated it and visited several times for seed.

I spent the morning preparing Lemon Chicken for tomorrow. I cook the chicken whole in the liquid so like to allow it to stand  and cool overnight so I can skim the fat off the liquid and remove the bones from the chicken.


I picked Jennifer up at 12.30 for our Sit'nStitch at Grange. Susan had made a stunning cheese and onion pie for our lunch.  Both Jennifer and Susan are working on knitted blankets at the moment. I was rectifying the centre markings I had made last night on the Serenity mat. I discovered this morning several places where I had stitched over one or three fabric threads instead of two. I wasn't using a magnifier and working at night on such a loose weave fabric was a mistake. It took me a couple of goes to get it right.


Traffic was low when I got home and the Square bathed in light.

I checked out my front balcony plants.
The begonia cutting I've been nursing for months now has 8 sturdy leaves,



















and the geranium cutting I bought at the Guild Christmas market has turned into a strong plant with flowers forming.

To get these parrot shots I photographed  the screen of my television during a documentary called Australia Remastered: Parrot Paradise. I was watching it while embroidering before dinner.

The top one is a female King Parrot and the lower ones are Palm cockatoos. The one on the right is a male. They are a pair, together for up to 50 years.

If you get a chance the documentary is worth seeing.

I worked on the Serenity project for the best part of two hours and this was my progress. I found it quite difficult. The pattern is repeated all the way around so hopefully it will become imprinted on my brain and I won't have to check the pattern every stitch. The loose fabric threads are hard to count. They move.

I think this is going to take quite a while. I am going to balance it with knitting.







Tomorrow is forecast to be 31C - then 17C on Tuesday.


 Dust is forecast for tomorrow evening but tonight's sunset was clear and calm.

Post 184

I woke this morning to a lovely long email from my friend Christine in Watford, England. She is patiently waiting for a cataract operation - put off because it is elective surgery in a Covid world.  Over the weekend I will share a photo of one of her recent embroideries which I find most interesting.  She is also joining lots of queues. I had sent her some of my supply of elastic, which is still scarce in Watford. I had begun to think I was crazy to have sent it, but I'm glad I did.

She told me of a visit she made to Iceland years ago. She managed to buy a book on counted Icelandic embroidery while there but on reaching home discovered all the colours where in Icelandic. Her library  had no Icelandic dictionary, so she wrote to the Icelandic Embassy with a list of words, which they obligingly translated for her!

 When I put on my merino slacks this morning I noticed a ladder emanating from the leg seam. I got out my grandmother's box of darning wools but couldn't lay my hands on my darning mushroom. I figured a small ceramic dish would serve, but after outlining the hole and beginning to darn, I decided there was sufficient give and stretch in the fabric to simply stitch the two sides of the hole together. Much easier and worked a treat. Once I worked that out, the mushroom, of course, turned up!



On the bottom of the chocolate box was this elastic. It still stretches - but does not retract. My grandmother died in 1980, so hardly surprising!







I picked Jennifer up just after lunch to go to our friend Susan's place at Grange to stitch. There was a lot to catch up on.

Jennifer had found this fabulous fabric to go with her embroidery. Very Gaugin. My contribution is the linen stripe for the lining. It's going to look fantastic.


We covered lots of topics - and we all three have plans for more projects than we have hours in the day for a long time to come.

On the way home I once again found myself waiting for changing traffic lights at the turn from Anzac Highway to South Terrace looking at what I think is a young Boab tree. It has a lovely rounded shape - no doubt shaped by the Council workers.










I worked on the outside edge of the Icelandic Endless Knot, putting the last stitches in after dinner. I had to take it out of the hoop to put in the last two stitches.













I've been thinking a lot about how to use it. I had an idea it might work as a square bag/satchel but needed to play with it to see if it would work.




I think this shape works with the design.













I found a piece of Ink and Spindle linen which I think might work as lining.
















I figured if I used this shape I could embroider the four quadrants of the Helm of Awe embroidery on the flaps. It is, I think, well worth a try.  I've marked the quadrants off in accordance with the pattern I bought yesterday. Watch this space.

The lining fabric is printed as cross-stitch, so I think it could work quite well.

Tomorrow is a Certificate Course workshop at the Guild. I'm going to try to go to this one, which is on Wessex embroidery. I've gathered most of the things I need for the workshop. 

I'd better go to bed, or I won't wake up on time to go!

Post 177 Mostly stitching

My morning began at 8.05am with a phone call from Anthony asking if he could come and dry Fionn's football gear in my dryer. He did so, delivering the dry clothes to Fionn's school on his way to work. I'm very pleased to be part of the coping mechanisms of a family with 4 adolescent children playing multiple sports, singing in choirs, learning to drive and sitting exams through a pandemic.

I spent much of the morning getting my next stitching project together. The World Embroidery Study Group is looking at Icelandic Embroidery at our September meeting, based on an article in Piecework Magazine. That article has a project attached which a few members are going to try.

I thought I'd like to try it to. It is an Icelandic Endless Knot Design in  long-armed cross stitch.

The project is designed for  Cork linen - 20 count. I planned to use Aida, until I discovered I had a substantial piece of Cork linen - purchased at the Guild. So I cut a piece, zigzagged the edges and found appropriate Appleton's wools in my supplies.







The article also recommends using some form of frame rather than a hoop.  I'm not sure I agree but I'll try it their way.

I tacked the centre lines and marked off a square 60 treads by 60 threads.

At this point I grabbed some cheese and biscuits for lunch, checked what the Prime Minister had to say about the National Cabinet and dashed off to pick up Jennifer for our Sit'nStitch afternoon at our friend Susan's place at Grange.

We had a really pleasant afternoon. Susan had made cheese scones and a banana cake. We are all three being cautious in where we go at the moment.

Jennifer is adjusting to her medication and to the limits she needs to work with as a result of the Covid impact on her heart.

She has finished the embroidery she began on the Cruise and continued in quarantine in Perth. I took a photo to send to the Thread Studio, who drove some of these threads to Jennifer's quarantine hotel in Perth to enable her to keep stitching in isolation.

It looks really great.

I worked on my knitting, adding half a pattern sequence.


When I got home I realised that I had marked up the Cork linen without remembering that each stitch is over two threads, not one. I should, of course, have marked a square 60 stitches by 60 stitches. I therefore re-tacked it, ending up, of course, with a much better size square!















So this is where I am tonight. I haven't worked long-armed cross stitch before. I quite like it. It is, I realise, of the same stitch family as Breton stitch (or rather, Breton stitch comes from the same stitch family as long arm cross stitch).


It does require accurate counting - and is not as simple as I first thought.

It might take more than one day to finish this design!

Post 121: Pilates and Sit'nStitch.

I was able to predict that the Noisy Miner was around this morning by the stance of the doves. I was watching them both eating seeds on the balcony this morning when they both paused and played statues. They kept the position long enough for me to take a photo. About a minute after, the Miner swooped towards the balcony rail and the doves took off, underneath the Miner and away.

They were back in about 20 minutes to finish the food, but most of the time one of them was keeping watch across the trees.

I couldn't watch forever, so left for Pilates.

My Pilates Studio has done everything possible to manage Corona Virus well. There is less equipment on the floor and it is well-spaced. It is also frequently disinfected. Equipment classes have only 3 -4 students and only one class is there at a time.

I am slowly regaining ground lost by my three month absence. There are three in my class and Martine is a really good instructor. She is very specific about the point of each exercise for each individual.






The Studio also has a very lovely and productive garden. It's looking great at the moment - but then, it usually does.


















From Pilates I went on to a friend's place to resume out Sit'n Stitch sessions. It is just Jennifer, Susan (whose place it is) and I. This time we had a lot to catch up on, and to celebrate Jennifer's return to Sit'n Stitch, Susan prepared a delicious minestrone-type soup, bread, cheeses and baked a fruit cake which she iced. We didn't get a huge amount of stitching done - there was too much to talk about.

I did take a photo of Jennifer and Susan examining the amazing and huge blanket that Susan had knitted. but it was vetoed by the two stars, who didn't like the way they looked.

Jennifer is doing well - still gets very tired and has lost much of the muscle gain she made after her two knee operations last year. She has a physio program which she's sticking to. There is much of her time in ICU which she can't remember

I got home not long before sunset. It was pretty grey but got interesting just as the sun went down.














I love the way the clouds seem to open up a little at sunset.











Tonight I started the reverse Muncaster Orange. This is going to be a great joy to stitch- and a lot of fun.

It has been quite a busy week, with something on every day - all within my little bubble. It will be good to maintain this for several months. I think it is now 30 days that South Australia has been Covid-free, but tomorrow there are two planes arriving with locals returning from other countries. They will go into 14 day quarantine but it is expected that a number will test positive for Covid19.

The current word from a couple of the responsible Ministers is that we will not resume overseas travel until there is vaccine for Covid 19. If pushed for a timeline, the officials indicate overseas travel is at least 12 months away for us. At the moment that's fine by me - but it isn't for the 6000 employees that Qantas is about to make redundant. That's in addition to those who are stood down, with no idea when they will resume work.

As a country we are weathering this quite well - but the cost to many, many individuals is enormous.