Post 396

On Wednesday I had lunch at Mr Nick's again with Dawn and Jennifer. They are both thinking of joining the Guild, and since then, Jennifer, I know, has joined. I hope they get as much pleasure and learning from belonging as I do.

It has been a week of periods of rain and sun. The balcony plants have responded well.  

I got carried away with more Viking work before posting a summary of my efforts on my embroidery blog. I'm not entirely satisfied with my final choice of metallic thread. The exercise has made me consider the whole issue of historic reproduction or representation and the limitations of both. On Saturday I visited Create in Stitch and bought some silver Perle 5 to have another play. In the very least there is a lot to talk about in a workshop!

I was back at Pilates on Thursday, where the class was taken by Leanne and stretched me in a slightly different direction. In the late afternoon I sat on the western balcony, feeling good in my body and the sunshine until it got too hot and I moved inside. The Strata AGM for our apartments is coming up. I mistakenly thought it was last Thursday and had, after some issues with the software, voted online. I had my dates wrong and it's next Thursday. No harm done, I am at least ahead of myself, if not on the ball.

Friday would have been my father's 102nd birthday and I had a whim to gather and post some photos to Facebook. It's good to look back over photos and remember him in the numerous contexts of family that occasion photos. Some of my favourites though, are the ones of him caught in typical, ordinary poses.

I also started preparing my 2020-21 tax return, gathering and ordering the various documents and receipts for a visit to the accountant. I was about half way through when I left for Sit'nStitch. I finished the process on Saturday, and have emailed the accountant for an appointment. I'm pleased to have pushed myself to do this. It's much easier to keep on stitching! 

The process of getting organised encouraged me to keep going and finish the task of gathering my Conversations with Baby Boomer Teachers into a book. I had progressed this a few months ago, but left it at the proof-reading and adding the last chapter stage. I spent all Sunday working on it and spare minutes on Monday. I had originally intended to try creating a cover from a photo collage, so gathered a few possible photos together before deciding it wasn't going to work. I have come up with this fairly crude but simple effort. The photo is a of banner created as part of a Multicultural Community Art Work  by the girls during my principalship at Gepps Cross Girls' High with the help of a group of artists for an exhibition called Threading Our Lives. I thought it appropriate. I also have an offer to design a cover from a BB artist, but it will probably take some weeks. Comments are welcome.

While on an organisational roll I cleaned up my emails - either completed or deleted all those surveys, requests for feedback, articles I'd been saving and got it down to 20. So far I've managed to keep it there or below. Another little goal!

It rained on and off all week, but the plants still needed watering a couple of times. I watered before hanging out washing on Sunday and filled up the water bowl. My dove friend arrived on cue. He/she no longer waits for me to go inside before tucking in.

On Monday I cheated a little for dinner and bought two of Enzo's lasagna trays from Frewville, on chicken and one 'meat' - an interesting distinction! They went down well. Next time I might try spinach and feta.  To offset buying the ready-made lasagna I made another batch of Anzac biscuits. I also finished off this Sashiko napkin to place beneath some of the biscuits.

Late on Saturday I got a message from Ancestry. One of their recent additions is a service that packages data from individual family trees to show progression, or connections. The service had combined these four photos from my tree - me (a long time ago!), my mother Sylvia, her mother Nell and Nell's mother Kate. It gave me an idea that I spent most of Sunday playing with, before sending some experiments off to Officeworks for printing. 

There might be more news of the experiment if and when it works.

I had to stay in today until Chris arrived. He is a building inspector, engaged by our Strata to measure any issue of 'water ingress' since some residents have reported issues on their east facing windows. He was very pleasant, informative and interesting to watch. I had some issues a couple of years ago, but they appear to have been fixed by some flashing and capping work done on the roof. Chris's water meter says there is very little moisture in my walls - and that the building next door is now protecting my south wall from weather and moisture!  It's interactions with pleasant, expert people likeChris that really lift my spirits.

After he left I zipped out to the post office, then came home and finally ironed the alpaca shawl and wove in the yarn ends. The only way I could photograph it was by hanging it on the line. I wished I had ironed it earlier - I could have asked Chris, the building inspector, to hold it up for me!

It is lovely and soft, and toasty warm when wrapped around. I still have another of the Noro shawls to knit for myself, and I already have several shawls. One way or another it will find a good home.

Saturday was JEMS day. Niamh finished her Father's Day gift for Anthony and we enjoyed our milkshakes afterwards. I was delighted that mine didn't interrupt my downward weight trajectory. As of today, I have lost 9.4kg since 27 June - onward and downward!

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.