Post 395 More Birds, Blooms and a bit of entertaining

There was a lovely sunset last Wednesday, after a warm and breezy day. In the morning, the World Embroidery Study Group met. Barbara gave us a good presentation about Native American beading - lots of information about technique, colour and heritage. There were 9 of us there - well distanced, but with no barriers to discussion, which flowed smoothly.

It was timely that, while looking for something else, I rediscovered these badges/brooches I bought as gifts some years ago from the National Museum of the American Indian in Washington DC. I think I bought more than this and didn't give them all away.  Now I've rediscovered them, I must use them on a project or two.

On the way home, I stopped off at Bunnings to buy some potted colour for my back balcony. I also bought another bowl planter. The shape seems to work quite well for me on that balcony. 

I did a bit of cleaning up and rearranging on the front, West-facing balcony too.  There's more to do and it's the time of the year to do it.   

The finishing touch was to replace the palm, barely hanging on in the indoor position, with a bromeliad. I am not good with palms. I had tried following the advice of the receptionist at Pilates, who tends the fabulous palm in the studio, but to no avail. She did tell me that her palms at home don't thrive at all, so maybe there are other factors operating!

My wool fabric from Sweden was also waiting in my letterbox for me on Wednesday. I've now got most of my props for the Viking Embroidery workshop in February. I need to put it all together in a way that makes sense for the WES Group next month before preparing the projects for the Certificate Course in February 2022. The WES feedback and advice will help.

On Wednesday evening there was a bit of drama with the carpark door jamming, meaning that cars could not come in or go out. Katherine and Anthony, who park in one of my spaces, had to get a taxi home. I didn't know until they contacted me. My phone was (unintentionally) on silent. We eventually got notification that 2 parts were needed to fix it and it would be out of action until Thursday afternoon. I cancelled Pilates.

Just after midday on Thursday I got a message it was fixed. In fact, when I took my car out, the doors were fixed open. More work needed tomorrow but the door would be left open. I drove to the Guild to give my Bulgarian samples and notes to Margaret Adams who has generously offered to chart it using her software program.

I did a bit of supermarket shopping then went home and worked on my Viking Embroidery presentation and notes.  As well as embroidery motifs, I found some useful maps of tribal divisions in Britain before and after the Romans left, and before and after the Vikings arrived, then a contemporary map of population by DNA, which corresponds closely to the original Anglo-Saxon map. Interesting.

I have cut a piece of brown wool twill and traced the design from the Mammen cloak on to Solvi. I'm hoping this will be my workshop example. I largely finished the student notes and I am now working the samples.

This is where I'm up to. I'm documenting the process on my embroidery blog, and will include a link next week.

On my way to Sit'nStitch on Friday I called at the Hamra Gallery to see the Guild Exhibition. The Gallery is attached to the West Torrens Council Library. I had difficulty finding it, not helped by the Gallery not being open! It is managed by the Community Centre, not the Library, and no-one had opened it up when I got there at 12.45pm (opening hours are 10am-6pm!). Eventually the Library staff obtained permission to open it and I was able to browse.

It is a really lovely gallery space , with curved walls and a large central open space. The photo is a composite of two wall sections.

These are some of my favourite pieces - Lori's bushfire, Margaret A's seahorse, Margaret M's  Aotearoa punga (hope I got that right, I cut it off when I photographed it), Raelene Draheim's The Shawl Weaver, and Gwen Deare's extraordinary blackwork depiction of the Adelaide Oval scoreboard.

It was Susan and I at Sit'nStitch and we had a very fine and restful time, stitching, pondering and talking. 

I got home to find a flock of about 12 lorikeets feeding in the tree near my back balcony.  

My DSLR yielded several good photos, but I'll only inflict a couple on readers here.

They make quite a lot of noise - a cheering sight and sound. 

I went to the Markets on Saturday morning to get some fresh chicken livers to cook for friends coming to lunch on Sunday. I also picked up cream, milk, duck and truffle pate, and a tart for desert. It's a long time since I've wandered the markets on Saturday, and I did enjoy it. The rest of the day was spent working on the Viking embroidery. 

On Sunday I dashed out to Unley for bread before my 3 guests arrived. We had a very pleasant and relaxed afternoon. The food worked well and we grazed all afternoon.

I had intended to buy Enzo's lasagne ready made for Monday dinner this week, but the chicken liver shop also had duck legs, so I bought ten and planned Monday's meal around them.  I dug out a recipe for duck a l'orange, which I haven't cooked in decades.  It worked out reasonably well. I made too much sauce and didn't thicken it enough, but the flavour was good. Lots of broccolini, bok choi and potatoes with bacon. Again, I was too busy serving it to photograph. 

In between taking parent-teacher interview calls from Fionn's school Anthony drained my dishwasher for me and explained the process. I was panicking a bit because it hadn't drained properly from the last use. I thought I might need a plumber. It appears to be fixed and working again as I write.

 While I was out buying the bread for Monday night's dinner, I missed the attempted delivery of my parcel of kits from Marie Wallin, so dashed back out to pick it up as soon as I got notice it was at the PO. It was a pretty big parcel - just fitted in the boot of the car. 

Inside were three boxes. Inside each of those was a compostable bag. Inside the compostable bags were the kits, packaged in the distinctive (and to my mind, attractive) Marie Wallin bags. I had hoped to finish my shawl before these arrived. I'm on my last ball, so it shouldn't be too long now.

This is where I'm up to as of today, with one 25gm ball to go, It's pretty big, easily 6ft long.  It will be finished just as soon as I resist fiddling with Viking embroidery!

Thanks everyone for the feedback on the email service. It seems it will continue, but without any maintenance by Feedburner. I am posting a bit earlier, so I can see that it has worked before I go to bed. That should enable me to manually post if it fails.

Post 394 Sunrise, sunset, swiftly flow the days

This is the first post since Feedburner's deadline for turning off its email service. I have attempted to test whether the service is in fact turned off with a post from my embroidery blog. and will be sending email notices manually to those subscribed. I forgot, in the experiment, that I am not subscribed to the email service for that blog, so I won't know the result! I'll repeat it for this post.

I'm not sure if this photo of sunrise last Thursday is more appropriate than the sunset at the end, but I'm going with a beginning rather than an end!

I spent much of the early part of the week working on constructing a couple of samples of motifs from Vala Georgieva's work in preparation for the Certificate Course workshop in September next year.  I know this is obsessive, but the bookmarks I was working gave me an idea, and I wanted to follow through. I have written in more detail in my embroidery blog. notes and PP - need to test. 

It was the charting of the designs that gave me most concern. I am not practiced in this. I have charted a few knitting patterns, but only for my own use. I'm hoping an experienced Guild friend will cast an eye over it for me. All the more reason to give myself plenty of time to make adjustments.                                                                                                                                                                                                          The motif I used on the back of the pouch is an Elbetica - symbol of the four directions of the compass and the whole world, held together in the centre. It also captures the four seasons.  I chose a simple version. 

Nelly tells me that Vala Georgieva is currently working on this version in Bulgaria. Rather more challenging than mine! I look forward to seeing it.

I have composed the PowerPoint for the workshop and also a set of student notes. I can adjust these if there are changes to the projects, but it is good to know that I have it in hand. 

I am still waiting on wool fabric from Sweden for the Viking embroidery workshop, which is in February. It has reached Sydney - but postal services are drastically impacted by the current Covid outbreak, so it may take quite a while to make the rest of the journey.

It was good to Sit'nStitch again on Friday afternoon after a break of a couple of weeks. We are all still working on the projects from last time. Susan's baby floor mat is going to look fabulous.  

On Friday evening I went to dinner at Estia's at Henley Beach to celebrate the birthdays of  two friends. The 4 of us enjoyed a lovely meal and catchup. I had a big plate of whitebait on salad and the others shared a range of Greek dishes. It was a treat, and I came home feeling relaxed and content.

Saturday was a JEMS day. I did a bit of shopping for Monday's dinner, and Niamh and I had milkshakes at our usual place, my second since 27 June - about my only dietary indulgence.

I opened my eyes on Sunday morning to this vivid pattern on my wardrobe door. The photo (taken when I has barely awake!) does not do justice. It was the light coming through the thread holes in the blind and only lasted a couple of minutes.

No, I do not intend turning it into an embroidery pattern!

On Monday the Aida bands I had ordered from the Crafty Frog in Canberra arrived. They had taken 11 days. Until this recent outbreak mail from Canberra was arriving within 4-5 days, and Express mail overnight. I'm grateful, however, to have them at all.

I immediately dug out some scraps of silk that might make good lining. I've been sorting some designs from the Celtic Backstitch book and am looking forward to using some of these terrific designs on these inspiring bands.

In the meantime, I had a play with a strip of Aida left over from the pouch above. This is a Celtic continuous chain design from the Celtic Backstitch book. 

The only downside was that I had to stitch the edges, because they were raw and would unravel. I tried a couple of stitches, but in the end buttonhole was the only one likely to work. It did the job, but is a bit rough. I used 6 strands of cotton, and 4 may have been better. 

I lined it with a piece of vibrant blue silk.

On the whole I like it. I may try it again on the white Aida band that has a pale blue edge. 

Dinner was a very flexible affair, interspersed with parent-teacher interviews by phone for Niamh and Veronica. No hassle, we are all pretty adaptable. On an impulse I made a batch of Anzac biscuits to help between calls. I haven't made them since April 2020. I scraped together the ingredients (only just enough Golden Syrup). Pleased to say they worked! So pleased I forgot to take photo.

I had cadged more chicken seed from my Adelaide daughter. The doves were hanging out for it. We had a storm on Thursday night and the lid blew off the seed container. I found one of the doves perched on the edge about to have a feast. I rescued the lid and saved the seed, but rewarded the doves, who certainly made the most of it.

Today I took in my entries for the upcoming Guild Exhibition at the Hamra Gallery. The exhibition is being hung tomorrow afternoon, after our World Embroidery Study Group meets.  That's a good thing, because I realised at the Guild that I had left one entry behind. Hopefully I can add it tomorrow.

This morning I had been preparing this with headphones on, listening to ABC Classic FM to drown out the noise coming from the apartment 2 floors below. New owners are moving in and making changes to the kitchen and floors beforehand. The work is happening this week. Because kitchens and bathrooms are in the centre of these apartments, so the living and sleeping areas  on either side have the windows and light, noise carries up the services shaft in the centre. I am not complaining. The new owners have been good about letting us know, and it will be over in a few days. I might want to do something similar myself one day. The earphones, which I haven't used since my days of frequent air travel did quite a good job.

From the Guild I went on to the Yarn Trader at Port Adelaide to pick up a gift kit.  The new shop is fabulously roomy with lots and lots of tempting yarn. It was a sunny day, with quite a cool breeze, so I decided to stay away from the noise a bit longer and go to Grange Jetty Cafe for lunch.

I sat outside. The breeze was a bit chilly, but lovely to be near the beach, getting a dose of ozone and feeling the sun. I had my usual calamari salad, but with soda water rather than a glass of wine. A happy place.

I am, after all, back on netball drop-off duty this evening - the last for the season, I'm told. I am planning to post this early so I can test the automated email at a reasonable hour before sending manual emails.  Here's to managing change! 

Post 393 A promise of Spring

My friend Robin in lockdown in the Blue Mountains sent me this photo of the remaking project she has finished embroidering on the back of a woollen cardigan. Inspiring, isn't it? So clever to have chosen the gold colours and circular variations. 

I spent last Wednesday at home, pretty much absorbed in the third bookmark I bought from the Fox Collection. It took up much of Thursday too, in between Pilates. 

There were a couple of hours of sunshine on both Thursday and Friday afternoons, and I spent at least one of them each day stitching on my front balcony. The plants are doing pretty well right now. The mint I bought from the supermarket is thriving. The frangipani are bare but will soon be bursting to life. Must nearly be time to fertilise. I haven't used the electric barbecue since it blew my fuses nearly two years ago.  I'm thinking of turning it into planter bowls. I might pluck up courage to try it again before I do.

The light was great, both for stitching and for a few photos.I came inside as the sun got low in the West. 

At the other end of the apartment, as I was closing the doors to the balcony, I caught the flash of green and squarking that signals the arrival of the lorikeets to the first buds on the trees.  These first photos are not very good, but hopefully I'll be better prepared next time.

Our Sit'nStitch was cancelled on Friday as Susan was poorly. I went to Unley and shopped for Monday dinner, a task I had planned for Saturday. Back at home I finished the third bookmark. I'm not sure why I have enjoyed these so much. 

The designs are great, as are the colours. The backstitch outlines took me about 4 hours, but there is great satisfaction in completion. I am looking forward to receiving the various Aida Bands I have ordered from the Crafty Frog. 

I'm planning to back the next batch with silk, rather than felt, to make them thinner. Felt works, but I think silk will be an improvement.

At our September Book Club meeting I have to nominate the books for us to discuss in September, so I've been trying out some options. I spent Sunday reading Diana J Febry's  The Skeletons of Birkbury, which I think is a bit of a find. I'm currently reading Robert Gott's The Orchard Murders, also a possibility.

In between reads, I have been charting a couple of motifs from Vala Georgieva's Bulgarian embroidery for my Bulgarian Embroidery workshop for the Certificate Course in September next year. It occurred to me that I might be able to put one of them on a bookmark as an option for one of the projects. I liked the idea so much I set about trying it on the slightly wider 16 count Aida I already have. 

I couldn't do it without magnification, but this is the result over a couple of days. 

To complete the experiment, I backed it with silk. I like the result. It's thinner, so kinder to a book, and looks quite elegant.

I think some students might quite like to work the project this way and I have plenty of this band.

The weather has warmed a little this week in Adelaide, with a couple of days of 20C. It is forecast to be 29C on Thursday and then back to 15C next weekend. I have spent a bit of time in my bedroom chair stitching or reading in the morning light. I'm pleased to have found this resting place for the Sheepjes rug.

I discovered this week that sweet potato goes really well through the spiraliser.

Tonight I had some Osso Bucco left over from last night with sweet potato.  I resisted frying up the leftover mashed potato (the only way I like mashed potato!) in favour of this lower carb option. My weight loss has slowed but still heading in the right direction. 6.8 kilos down this morning.

I spent most of today trying out my chart of Vala Georgieva's Tree of Life embroidery. I am no expert in charting counted thread work. I have charted knitting patterns for myself, but charting a multicoloured embroidery design for others to use is another matter altogether.  

I played around with fabric,  settling on 14 count Aida, close in structure to the original, which I think is handwoven hemp.  I've discovered a couple of errors in the chart as I've worked it. It's fairly easy to fix as I go.

I'm  taking photos as I go, so I can document the stages to suggest to students. I think there are conventions I am unfamiliar with for charting stitches (even though I've used enough of them).  I know there is software but I'm not sure it would help in this circumstance.

The Viking Embroidery workshop is well before this one, but I am still waiting for the wool fabric to arrive from Sweden. It has arrived in Brisbane, but hasn't yet cleared customs.

Jennifer called this evening. She told me I missed a brilliant sunset. I was focused on the Aida tree of life.  My attention has been on the small things. 

Tomorrow I will try to look up and out!

This should definitely be the last post with automated email notification. Next week I expect to email manually.

Post 392 Bird, books, blooms and bookmarks

Last Wednesday I did a quick trip to Unley to get a few supplies. Niamh and Brigid were staying overnight at my place because they needed to be at school early the next morning to travel with the football team to Tintinara, a two and a half hour drive to the southeast. Niamh was playing in two matches and Brigid organising equipment etc. The stay went smoothly. They won one match and lost the other.

While this was all going on, my friendly dove had found a comfortable perch out of the wind in my empty balcony window box (or is it a balcony box?) I grabbed my DSLR and took some shots. When I came to download them there was no connection to my laptop. Changing the cable didn't help. 

Eventually (2 days later!) I remembered that I could take out the memory card and somewhere I had a card reader. It took a while to find and remember how to use it, but I was eventually rewarded with some terrific photos. 

Still haven't worked out why the direct download doesn't work. Out of practice and out of touch - but still able to drag stuff out of my memory and figure a workaround!  

Back to Pilates on Thursday, where I got a lot of attention because two of our group were absent, leaving only two of us. 

Over Wednesday and Thursday I got quite a bit done on a bookmark I had ordered from the Fox Collection. I thought these would make good Christmas presents for a couple of friends. I ordered three designs I liked and began almost as soon as they arrived. I hadn't expected to enjoy doing it quite as much as I did. I finished the first one off at Sit'nStitch on Friday. Jennifer has made good progress on the crocheted shawl she started last week, and Susan is progressing an appliqued floor rug for a friend's baby. 

Before Sit'nStitch on Friday, I had coffee with a couple of  friends I worked with ten or more years ago. We had a good Covid catch up.  I also bought all the ingredients for a moussaka, which I spent much of Saturday making. I wanted to go to Basics2Beyond on Monday, so cooking needed to happen in advance.  It takes me a good four hours to prepare moussaka, and I usually do it in relays.  

On Saturday I did it in one go, which takes a bit of a toll on my sciatica - and makes a mess in the kitchen. The result, however, is well worth it. My new nutmeg grater got a good tryout. The Monday meal worked well.

In between cooking bursts, while waiting for things to cook or cool, I found some Solvi and copied my Design Online final design so I can attach it to my purple coat. This became my project for B2B on Monday. It's too hard to transfer the design directly on to the wool.

On Sunday our Crime Book Club met at a new venue, the Dulwich Bakery next to Heyne's Nursery on The Parade at Norwood. We had another good discussion. I hadn't read the recommended books - it's been a lean reading month for me. This group is very accepting and the discussion proceeds easily regardless of who has read what.

Again, there were lots of good ideas and recommendations shared. Next month I get to choose the books to discuss in October. I have a couple of ideas.

I was pleased to meet next to the nursery, which is a good one. I was looking for a wide, shallow bowl in which to place or replant the flat basket of plants on my back balcony. The basket has rotted. I realised, in looking at the nursery offerings, that most of the available bowls (designed, on the whole, as birdbaths) would be too heavy for my balcony. So I ended up getting a huge, 5" deep saucer. I'll let it sit for a bit before deciding whether to put holes in it and add more soil - or just add more soil.

I also bought another small pot of primula to add to the back balcony. It's smothered in buds, so should look good very soon.

The dry stalks of the Mandevilla I bought last December have burst into buds. It too should look lovely fairly soon. 

I also bought a punnet of blue cineraria, which I planted in a large empty pot on the front balcony. 

Sunday was 22C in Adelaide, sunny and breezy. I made the most of it - opened up the front and back doors to get a pleasant breeze through. Monday was back to 13C and rain. I watered the plants in, but they might get a little water in the next few days, although rain doesn't often penetrate the front balcony.

Not long after the sun set we had a few showers, then a bit of a storm. 

Monday brought showers between bursts of sun. I left early for Basics 2 Beyond, so I could pick up some carrot, cucumber, apple and a couple of Lebanese loaves for snacks for the kids on the way. Unfortunately the bakery had only just put the bread in the oven, so I had a coffee, picked up the bread and arrived late as usual at B2B. No matter, it is come and go as you need. I worked on the edges of my coat - applying the design I did for Design on Line.  I got the stem and a couple of leaves outlined, which is a good start.

I'm planning, at the moment, to keep this as my B2B project.

In the meantime, I progressed the Delft Blue bookmark - and loved it. It does, however, require concentration, magnification and holding in hand - not great for RSI. It looks quite good without some of the stitches. I finished the embroidery on Monday night and the construction this morning. 

I have also progressed my shawl knitting - but not enough to make a good photo!

I've enjoyed the bookmarks so much I dug out some Aida band I'd bought a couple of years ago to embroider for towels. It turns out to be about 17 count Aida. I prefer 14 count (which I can see!), so went searching online and found a really good collection of 14 count Aida at the Crafty Frog in Canberra. I've ordered a variety of pieces and dug out  my copy of Celtic Backstitch, which has a range of suitable patterns.

Wouldn't want to run out of things to do in a pandemic.

Today I had lunch with Jennifer and a past work friend who has just moved to the Adelaide Hills from Victoria. So much to talk about. Both she and Jennifer are thinking of joining the Guild. 

I took Veronica and Niamh to their final netball practice of the season. Brigid is in the Flinders Ranges helping on a school camp. We remain a bit of an island here in SA while the Covid Delta variant rages in NSW, spreads more slowly in Victoria and makes an appearance in Queensland. Here we have mask mandates, vaccination drives and 75% capacity in hospitality venues.

Feedburner appears to be still working. Their message says the email subscription service will be discontinued 'in August' .  I am ready to send manual emails if and when the automation fails. It's a bit 'test and see' at the moment. I hope no one is inconvenienced.

My final offering this week is the basil I bought yesterday at the greengrocer. As well as helping the Greek salad along, it is pretty attractive on the bench - and cheering.