Post 451 Birds, Blooms and Baby Boomers.

Just before I posted this, I made a cup of coffee in the cup I repaired last week. As I carried it to my chair, the handle parted company with the cup and upended the coffee on the carpet.  I seem to be failing at mending! Looks like I have another succulent pot!

On Friday  I went early to Grange again before Sit'n Stitch, walked the jetty and had lunch at the Hotel. 

I think the birds fishing from the jetty were pied cormorants, but I'm not certain.  Elegant.

Jennifer got to our Sit'nStitch.  She had had car trouble when she first set out last week, and changed her plans to fly on Saturday. Hopefully all is now going smoothly..

The Gymea is now fully open and spectacular.

On Wednesday I had the appointment with my optometrist. We put in place a plan for managing my eye, with another appointment in two months time.  Afterwards I zipped out to the Guild to talk to the Library team about Maureen's document collection. There is a copyright issue with the hard copy which I'm trying to sort out with the Copyright Council. Our database, however, is coming along nicely.

My Pilates class was cancelled at the last minute on Thursday - instructor ill.  At the same time I got a promo in my letterbox for one of Elders' Sunday Art auctions.  The viewing was Thursday to Saturday, so I took the opportunity to go. I was surprised when I arrived to find Jim and Helen Elder on the floor, surrounded by paintings. They were quite welcoming, but I soon realised I was a week ahead of myself - the auction is next weekend!  It's not only my mending skills that need more care.

I retreated quickly, and took myself to The General Havelock on Hutt St for lunch to recover.

It was very pleasant - sunny and fairly quiet.

It's a nice time of year in Adelaide. 

Later that afternoon, the lorikeets arrived on the tree behind my back balcony. I heard them in time to grab my DSLR and take photos.

Spring really has arrived!

I've done a bit of walking in the Square where pine cones are attracting other birds. I think the tree is a casuarina.

I spent the weekend at a class at the Guild - Christine Bishop's Rococo Stitch Purse , Pincushion and Scissor fob. We worked the scissor fob, now to work the rest of it. I'm planning to turn the pincushion into a name tag - but that's a story for another time!

It was pleasant stitching and I got to talk to Christine about the Glazig project. She, of course, had some of the silk perle thread, which I now own! Also, the kit Genevieve bought for me is on its way from Belgium. Now that's exciting!

 

The Guild garden is also looking good. The bottlebrush is at its best. and there are a couple of magnificent irises - such vibrant colour.   

Today I was the speaker at the Retired Secondary Principals' Association lunch at the Blackwood RSL, talking about Conversations with Baby Boomer Teachers.  Speaking doesn't stress me. I had headings for what I wanted to say but did feel the need to take more care with what I wore than I do on most days!  In spite of the meal being served while I spoke, the audience was really engaged and the response animated. There were a lot of stories told, a few books sold - some even insisted on my signing theirs. It was a really pleasant gathering - shared values and interests.  

I got an email today from Maureen, whose folders of documents we are cataloguing to a database, telling me she only gave me half her folders! She has more! More negotiation and problem solving I fear!  

This cloud formation on Sunday night reminded me to remain nimble,  like the whispy bird making its way around a huge sky beast. Before too long the clouds disperse, reform, or disappear - so carpe diem!

Post 451 Stepping up

This week I've made a bit of an effort to walk. It has worked quite well until the rain set in again today. I won't call it a triumph - or even a breakthrough - but I have resurrected my step-count app and doubled the average number of steps taken over the last few months.     

                        

Some of the credit goes to the wetlands, which I really enjoy. There is new growth (and maybe a bit of mistletoe) appearing and several species of waterbird. 

On Wednesday I paid another visit to Sandy's 100 Year Climate Project which was taken down on Friday. It was good to see it mounted, because visitors could get quite close and see the detail of the stitching.

Hopefully it will not be in storage long before being able to tour more widely.

I got to Grange twice this week. The main event was Sunday lunch with visitors from NSW. It was a long weekend here and almost no cafes or restaurants were open in the city. I had been unable to book a table at my go-to choice of the  Jetty Cafe but managed to secure a table at the Grange Hotel. 

On Friday, on a whim, I went early to Grange for Sit'nStitch with a view to walking a bit and eating at the Jetty Cafe. Out of luck. The cafe was full to overflowing, so I walked a bit and tried the Hotel. 

Not only was it good, but staff went to lengths to get my meal and account quickly so I could get away on time. On Sunday they were just as helpful.

I had the same thing to eat both times - Salt and Pepper Lemon Squid. I suspect the Jetty Cafe has lost a customer. On Sunday we spent 2 uninterrupted hours enjoying a leisurely meal and catching up in most pleasant surroundings before I dropped my friends at Henley Beach for their next appointment. 

I look forward to more meals there.   

On a far more mundane note, I had the sheet I mended last week back on my bed for two nights before it split again, parallel to the mend. I surrender. I washed it, cut it in two along the tear, opened out the corners and stored it to use as backing for embroidery projects. 

However, to keep my mending skills honed, I glued a broken handle back on to one of my favourite mugs. To honour imperfection - I painted the repair with gold paint (a nod to Japanese Kintsugi). The effect is more golden than the photo shows. I haven't tried coffee in it yet! 

Some paper fold-out Christmas decorations I ordered from Welcome to Country, a First Nations social enterprise,  arrived last week. Most of them are beautiful fold-out balls. I have always loved these paper fold-outs and these are superbe. I ordered two stars as well. Both feature art work depicting the Seven Sisters story. The gold one, in particular is so lovely I haven't taken it down.

I bought the balls as Christmas presents, but I'm not sure I will part with them!

The second package from Pascal Jaouen arrived. I knew it was coming today so, in spite of the wet and windy weather, went downstairs to wait for the postman. I had a two hour delivery window, and know the post usually comes in the middle of that, so I got in my steps walking around the Square where I could see the postman's approach. 

The bad news is that it included Glazig Catalogue No.1 when I had ordered Catalogue 2! I had ordered No1 from Amazon, assuming it was in Australia, but it seems to have been sitting at Heathrow for a couple of weeks. I have boldly constructed an email to the Pascal Jaouen people in my schoolgirl French to ask them to rectify.

The good news is the patterns are exciting, the threads lovely and the cards very, very clear and useful. 

Once I had the delivery, I dashed off to Unley to post a finished shawl to a friend - update coming in my embroidery blog soon- and to buy milk. The weather is unpleasant - gusty winds and rain squalls. 

I'm now on to my brother's vest. I knitted a couple of samples to get the gauge right. The pattern has a 13 cm chest difference between sizes and my brother falls between two. I was trying to solve the problem by needle size, but after knitting the samples, decided I can more reliably  adjust the number of stitches.

Interestingly, the samples both have a slant on them, which I am rectifying by knitting into the back of stitches on the purl rows. This works while I am on the rib but won't work when I am knitting stocking stitch in the round. Cross that one when I get to it.

A couple of interesting sunset skies during the week, but too much cloud cover tonight - and for the rest of this week according to the forecast.

These will have to keep me inspired. It's school holidays, so no dinners to be prepared. A mixed blessing.

I got the results of my eye biopsy on Saturday - all clear! Now that is a blessing. 

Post 450 Swiftly fall the days

Wednesday was marked by the arrival of the wool for Brigid's jumper. It seemed to sit at Heathrow for a week - then turned up in Melbourne and made it here overnight. I shouldn't have been surprised by the skeins, but I hadn't thought about it. I don't mind winding skeins into balls, and am happy to do the odd ball on the back of a chair, but 17 skeins is too much to do either that or to dragoon friends or family into winding.

I had organised to spend the afternoon at a friend's place 10km away, to transfer my scans of Maureen's articles to her database. I did a detour, 20 km to Port Adelaide to the Yarn Trader, then 19 km to my friend's place - and bought a swift.

We made good progress on the database - and also had a fine time. I stopped off for milk on the way home.

As soon as I got home I assembled the swift. I chose the ChiaoGoo Amish one. The Yarn Trader has several, but this is the only one that doesn't require clamping to a table. It sits comfortably on a table or the floor and rotates easily. I am hooked.  It is mesmerising. Each skein takes 8-10 minutes to wind and I love doing it. I resisted the temptation to wind all 17 balls at once, rationing myself. Today I have two to go, but I'm considering doing all the skeins in my stash!

Thursday was our Day of Mourning public holiday. I stayed in all day, did washing, read a book, wound 6 skeins and progressed my shawl. 

On Friday I zipped into the Central Markets to buy duck for Monday dinner, since my weekend wasn't going to allow for shopping. It was crowded, which augurs well for the Markets. On advice, I froze the duck and defrosted it on Sunday. It cooked easily on Monday, along with potatoes and broccoli.

Saturday was the Certificate Course Workshop on Russian Goldwork, taken by Jackie Denniston. It was well attended and a lot of fun.  I didn't finish it in the workshop, but got close. I finished off the stitching on Sunday afternoon.  This is just out of the hoop, in need of a clean and iron. The dressmakers carbon I used (bought, I'm pretty sure, in the 1960s!)  left a couple of marks which have faded with careful spot cleaning.

This morning I constructed it into a pouch. The account of the finish is in my embroidery blog.

It's a very nice design. 

In between all of this, I have been entering data into our Maureen Holbrook Document Collection. Its use and structure is revealing itself as we go. I've got a bit of negotiation to do with the Guild Library Team, but it looks as if we will have a database of around 400 items, covering articles on a wide range of countries and their embroidery traditions, searchable by country, technique, author and title, with publication details and whether the Guild holds the source publication. How we make it accessible is still to be determined, but there are promising options.

Sunday was Book Club, and once again, the discussion was wide-ranging and dynamic.  Of the three books we read to discuss, I really liked The Murders at Fleat House by Lucinda Riley. Unfortunately, this was her venture into crime fiction, which has been published posthumously and the only one we will ever get. It would have made a great series.

On my way home I stopped at the Victoria Park Wetlands for a walk. It's looking good. 

There were ducks on  the pond, enjoying whatever is beginning to collect in the reeds. The ponds are quite full - a cause for celebration in Adelaide.

The plantings are slowly taking off and you can begin to see how rich it will be in the future.

The Sulphur-Crested Cockatoos were feeding. Not much is allowed to get in their way when foraging!

Yesterday some coffee arrived from Jaques Coffee plantation in Mareeba, Queensland. I had read about the pioneering efforts to grow coffee in North Queensland and thought I should try it. My coffee machine is currently full of East Timor dark roast, so I'll put this away to try later.  

It pays, I think, to diversify one's coffee sources!

On Saturday night  we had the birthday cakes delayed by camp and Mourning Day. Both spectacular, and I had small pieces of each in defiance of my diet. Both delicious.

After finishing off the pouch this morning, I headed off to our special Sit'nStitch. Jennifer is heading to Queensland later this week to spend a month with her family so we had a session. to wish her bon voyage. Her crocheted shawl is looking very good. 

Susan has harvested her Gymea lily, which is enormous. It needs to sit in a large pot or a bucket. It's still not fully open 

but these buds will hopefully continue to open as the weather warms.  I'll keep you posted.

I now have my brother's chest measurements, so his vest is next in my queue. In the meantime, I'm off to wind another skein for the St Brigid jumper.

Post 449 Down World Embroidery Rabbit Holes.

My week has been dominated by our World Embroidery Study Group activity. Junette told us about cloth and  embroidered quilts from Rarotonga and brought along examples she has gathered and tried out herself. It was interesting to hear about the community groups that make quilts together, and the quite particular way in which that is done.

It was a good turnout with plenty of sharing and discussion. 

Pat brought along  a Fair Isle vest knitted some 30 years ago. It's lovely - really even knitting. Pat is trying to work out how to alter it so she can wear it. I have no doubt she will find a way to do that.

Maureen, the group's oldest member who rarely makes it to meetings these days, turned up in a taxi with a suitcase full of folders for the group. The six folders hold the notes on World Embroidery that she has accumulated and organised over the years. She is giving them to the Guild, via this group.

She has given me carte blanche to deal with them - suggesting members take what they want.A small group of us got together on Friday to work it out. We have set up a database which I will explain when it's finished, but I spent much of the weekend and Monday entering data into a spreadsheet in relation to the 70 items in one folder. We are women on a mission to do justice to Maureen's work!      

 On Thursday I had bought 2 salmon fillets in an aluminium tray that went in the oven. I cooked both, ate one and then made salmon patties with the other, something I haven't done for years. They improved in the fridge on Friday so I had a quick and easy meal when I got home from our meeting. I might try that again sometime.

I got around to mending that sheet I washed last week. I decided the fabric was too flimsy to patch so settled for sewing up the tear on the inside, then taking a pleat the whole length of the sheet. It is quite a generous size and the pleat doesn't strain the fit. It will last a bit longer. In the meantime, the Lad's bamboo/cotton mix new ones are working well and feel good.

Veronica is on a school camp this week. There was a chance it would be cancelled because it now includes the public holiday to mourn the Queen, but it has gone ahead. The Day of Mourning public holiday also happens to be the twin's birthday. It's the first time they will be apart on their birthday - so quite a memorable birthday for them. We missed Veronica at dinner on Monday  - but the broccoli went further!  

I've begun the sampler of knitting stitches, marking out a piece of sheeting for the 16 samples. I have added another since the photo. I will attach each by hand. I can see differences already, but I'm not sure that at the end I'm going to feel wedded to one over another. Maybe.

I'm still knitting a shawl, and the wool from Virtual Yarns for Brigid's Aran jumper  has arrived in Melbourne. It should be in Adelaide this week.My brother's vest is ahead in the queue, but awaiting  a measurement!

Yesterday a friend (thanks Viv) drew my attention to a photo, on Portals to the Past, of the Ground Floor of David Jones Department Store in Sydney in 1963. This is a zoom in to the top left hand corner of that photo,  showing the Lady's Handkerchief Department where I worked for four weeks every Christmas from 1962 to 1968. The island counter ran between the two posts, on the side in the left of the photo was handkerchiefs and on the other side, obscured, were scarves - separate staff, and we stayed on our respective sides. The woman in the light coloured coat is at the counter, which was a display case. Behind the counter, between the posts, were drawers and drawers of handkerchiefs. At Christmas we did a roaring trade in nuns' handkerchiefs, 1/- cotton, 2/- linen. Teaching nuns must have had an endless supply.

 

On Saturday  I had a biopsy on my left eye. I spent a lot of time waiting, getting prepped, having anaesthetic drops in my eye, before the actual tissue extraction. I don't get the results for two weeks. The ophthalmologist thinks there is some underlying auto-immune disease causing, or contributing to, my eye problem. My eye was a bit achy and twitchy for several hours but now none the worse for wear.  

It continues to rain a fair bit. While it's grey and gloomy, the plants are thriving.

The cards and books from the Grazig School in Quimper, are now in the French postal system and on their way. I'm gradually putting together a presentation using the material I already have, in anticipation that some Guild members will be interested next year.  I've also been trying to draw together my November presentation on Anglo-Saxon Embroidery.  Happy in my obsessions!

Post 448 Knitting, plants and plenty to learn

 

This week's major achievement was the completion of the Carbon Vest I had been knitting from Rowan Magazine No90. I'm pleased with the result and have written about it at length in my Stitching Blog. (I know I usually refer to this as my embroidery blog, but am being more accurate in light of the topic!). 

While on the topic of knitting, a couple of discussions at our recent Sit'n Stitch sessions might be of interest. The first involves stitch markers. Both Susan and I have been on the hunt for stitch markers that are simple, flat circles. 

I once had a supply of these, but  gradually lost them, leaving a mixture of safety clip, split ring and  solid circles. While I get by with these, all have their drawbacks, and none sit flat on the needle without distorting the space between stitches.   Susan ordered some from overseas. I eventually found some at Spotlight Online and they were delivered from Geelong as no local Spotlight stores had a supply. Fussy, I know, but flat works more smoothly.       

The second knitting discussion arose from a discovery at our Sit'nStitch, where, as you can see, the Gymea Lily continues to open. 

Both Susan and I have been knitting in our current manner for decades and discovered that we put the yarn around the needle in opposite directions for a knit stitch. I was taught by my grandmother nearly 70 years ago, but I have no idea if I have deviated from the way she showed me. I'm not even sure that I knit the same way on every project. I suspect I vary from project to project as the yarn, needle size and tension changes. 

Since our discovery last Friday I have been doing bits of research, and have begun to work a series of samples showing the effect of variations in the direction of yarn wrapping. 

It's proving interesting.  I found a blog that explores the 16 different combinations of placing yarn either clockwise or anticlockwise around the needle, using  the back or the front of the stitch.  I've worked samples of the first two, left is yarn anticlockwise around the needle in all stitches and right is clockwise. I plan to work samples of all 16.  Will it change my practice? I don't know - but I can see differences in the samples already.

I've been a bit into plants this week. There were some pots of Boronia  at the Supermarket on Sunday. I love Boronia, especially this strongly scented brown variety, and bought a pot for my living room. The flowers are not yet fully open so you have to get close to smell it. No doubt that will change as they open.

Today I dashed off to Adairs on the last day of their current sale, to buy yet another plant stand for my living room. They had a few appealing ones, but only one with a circular base. As my floor is carpeted, circular bases leave less of a mark. This isn't the plant I have in mind for it, but it will do the job until I get a fuller one.  It looks gigantic here, but is about 90cm high with the plant. The wooden pot is separate, but  fits, and I like being able to put the philodendron below and emerging.

The rest of my Glazig purchases arrived and I am hooked. I had also not registered that the kit my Belgian friend Genevieve had bought for me last year on holiday in France, was  a Glazig kit! Sending was delayed because of the Covid postage situation - but Genevieve has reminded me - and it will soon be on its way. This is now a double excitement. One of my books has a page of small samples that will work well, I think, for Guild members interested to try. I have begun to translate the stitch names and might order some of the cards used to explain the stitches.

Last night we had everyone present for dinner - despite Parent Teacher interviews, after-school jobs, and tutoring commitments. The food worked (I've learned to bake broccoli!), the company and conversation vibrant.  So satisfying.

Today I had my post-Xray appointment with the surgeon about my right index finger joint. There are two distinct bone spurs. The swelling has not yet formed a cyst. We decided to leave it alone for the time being. If and when it develops a cyst and there is fluid present, I will return to have the spurs removed. An operation will put my right hand out of action for weeks so I don't want to do it prematurely. The danger is from infection if a cyst forms and the skin is broken. I've added it to the list of things to monitor!

Also today, my new sheets arrived. I recently split yet another sheet. I will mend it, but it means I now only have one unpatched sheet for my bed. Even in my mend-and-make-do mindset, I know it's time to buy a new set. 

I was curious to try The Lad Collective, a rural Australian company making 40% cotton, 60% bamboo sheets which they market as foolproof for young men (and manufacture off-shore). The fitted sheets come with cloth tags on each corner to help orient the sheet - BR for bottom right. While I remain sceptical about this marketing rationale, I admire the inventiveness - and I am into bamboo, so we shall see. The sheets certainly feel good to the touch. I'll report back.

Finally, I should mention the death of Queen Elizabeth that has dominated this week's news coverage. I do remember her Coronation, and, as I blogged in May, still have the plastic Coronation mug we were given at school in 1953. Hers was a remarkable life and era. 

I was also saddened today to hear of the death of the Australian actor, Uncle Jack Charles. I remember his first film performance in The Chant of Jimmy Blacksmith. Another remarkable life and sad loss.