Post523 Sunrise, Sunset

I woke this morning, after an unusual nine hours of sleep,  to a brilliant sunrise. I have finally, after more than eight years of living here, begun to sleep without the blind closed in my bedroom. Even so, I do not intend to shift my attention from sunsets to sunrises.

It's been another busy week.

Wednesday's WES Group meeting went really well, in spite of an unusual number of apologies due to illness an ill-fortune.  The 10 present were engaged and interested. Margaret stepped in to help out when the  Monitor was ill, and she and I managed to grab lunch together afterwards at a local hotel. A couple of people asked if they could photograph my top, and Andie sent me this one.

On Thursday before Pilates I called at the upholsterer's and asked them to  quote for my chair + a cushion cover. The quote arrived on Friday. I have accepted and paid the deposit. Once they have the fabric, they will pick up the chair and begin. In the meantime The fabric I ordered to recover the dragon cushion arrived. Unfortunately, the paisleys are not identical to those on the gold fabric, so I won't be able to match the replacement as I planned. This may prove a blessing in disguise. It occurred to me that i could simply swap the dragon cushion for two dark red Mola ones I keep on the Men of Skyros chair I embroidered, a much easier solution. 

The two Mola cushions are either side of the black. The green cushion almost  out of sight far left will be reworked using the cushion cover ordered in the upholstery fabric. Veronica approves, so that's it.

I now have some spare batik fabric to play with. 

Because I had moved the bee cushion to a scroll frame and my Lowery stand, I took sashiko panels to Sit'nStitch on Friday and to Katherine's on Saturday. I've finished stitching my third panel and started on  another. 

Saturday was JEMS and also Brigid's 21st birthday. Niamh and I had our usual post-JEMS milkshakes at the Queen St Cafe and I caught up on the Year 11/12 Formal which had been on Friday night. It appears to have been a success. I am not posting photos here for privacy reasons. We had a family dinner for Brigid at PappaRich restaurant in Gouger St,  followed by ice cream cake back at Kilkenny.  Gouger St  was closed to traffic for Chinese New Year celebrations. The street was jam-packed with people and dragons. I wish I had taken a photo, but was too focused on navigating the crowd.

Sunday morning was Book Club at my place, giving me a chance to use my birthday Sashiko runner and mats, but too busy hosting to take a photo! We had another lively discussion. I had read only one of the three recommended books, and one other in the month - most unusual. I blame the bee.  In the afternoon friends recently returned from 20 years living overseas called in for coffee. We had a good 3 hour catch up.

I had managed a visit to Bunnings on Thursday, and bought a  well-established Zamioculcas (left) for the last of the large pots I got last week. It should be undemanding while doing well in this spot away from direct light. I also bought another Peace Lily, to go near my Western window, but it needs protection from sun and  twice daily water in the current heat. 

I usually cook on Sunday for Monday family dinner, but this week I left all the cooking till Monday and just got stuck into the needlepoint bee in the time remaining after my guests left. I finished the project at about 11.30pm and couldn't wait to construct the cushion, so did it before I went to bed. I also made a bag for it to go in, which I finished off on Monday morning. I'm very pleased with the result (as is the recipient). Details, are, of course, in my embroidery blog.

Yesterday I got the dinner (lamb shanks) going early, waited for the postman to bring me the paisley fabric and (thanks Pat) a book on The Celts ( my next WES Group obsession), before shopping for vegetables and bread for dinner and working out my next embroidery project. In spite of a temperature of 35C, Niamh still had footy training. 

I have returned to the Christine Bishop mat, begun in April last year, which has a few hours of reverse faggot stitch and a few more of button hole edge left to finish. It took me a bit of experimenting and undoing before I got into the swing of it again, but I'm progressing.

After a slow start today I got myself to Aquafit, where a stand-in instructor worked us harder than usual. Still, I was home, showered, wet things on the line and a coffee in hand (feeling smug) 35 minutes after the class finished.    

The promising morning sky soon clouded over but the day still reached the threatened 32C. It was clear and still 30C after sunset when the bats arrived. 

Post522 Hotting up

It took a few minutes to find a parking space at Frewville on Saturday morning. The dragons had arrived and were dancing outside the entrance to Foodland, gathering a crowd. My hopes of getting my shopping done while others were distracted were thwarted when the dragons came inside and danced amongst the fruit and veg. 

It was, of course, joyful fun, not the least of which was seeing a motorcyclist with red pants and dragon legs driving away as I was loading my car.

Some plant pots I had ordered from Yarn Marketplace arrived and were a bit bigger than I anticipated. While the tops fold over, they are still a generous version of the advertised 27cm. 

I decided they called for some larger indoor plants. So far I have found and installed two, one in my bedroom

and one in the dining area.  I need a visit to a nursery to find a plant for the third pot.

On Thursday I made a visit to an upholsterer to discuss recovering/repairing my comfortable, but now shabby leather arm chair. I love its shape, but can't find another and the arms now have holes as well as general wear. Re-covering seems to be the best way. I don't want leather and now have 3 samples of likely fabric. While I was about it, I ordered a stretch cover for my 3 seater lounge, which is too big to go in the lift, so  re-covering is too big an operation. 

Today the stretch cover arrived from the USA. I missed my Aquafit class to open it and struggle to fit it.  This photo shows a tiny corner of my 2 seater in the top right corner. The new cover is a shade darker and brighter, but it’s a good match. The lower left corner shows a bit of the damaged armchair. On the whole, I’m really pleased. 

After talking to family and friends last week I think the pale pink fabric will work on the armchair and I will use the same fabric to remount the Kantha-embroidered cushion (far left with green surround). I will also remount the gold dragon cushion with a pink/purple version of the same fabric (ordered today). I think it’s going to work! Thanks to my interior design advisors. 

There were 6 of us for dinner on Monday, thanks to the 38C temperature cancelling Niamh's football training. 

I was lucky to witness her Math's Eureka homework moment and to get  Veronica's advice on the sofa. 

I've spent most of this week - probably about 50 hours so far, working on the Botanical Bee needlepoint cushion I mentioned last week, which is for a birthday (today!). I'm aiming to have it finished by Friday. The backs I ordered have arrived, one black, one white. I've settled on the black. This is where I am up to. 10-15 more hours should do it.

There's a busy week coming up, Mexican Embroidery at WES tomorrow, JEMS and a 21st birthday dinner on Saturday, Book Club at my place on Sunday followed by a visit from friends recently returned from 20+ years living in the UK, not to mention projects on the go - and temperatures over 30C on most days. The girls also have their school formal on Friday.  I look forward to hearing all about it on Saturday.

Post521 As busy as...

February is going to be a busy month for me, so I'm glad to have the evening bat fly-by (to the left above the smaller pine) as the sunset fades to provide a sense of routine, calmness and beauty. They have been as regular as clockwork this week.

On Wednesday I did the worst chore early, ironing the fabric I had cut out last week to make bags.It took a while, folding and ironing in the seam allowances so  I can stitch them down on the outside.

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It is difficult to do this sitting, and standing aggravates my sciatica, but I did it in batches and ended up with 40 bags ready to sew. They include a few Japanese wrapping cloths I've had for a long time and am turning into wrapping bags.

To recover I sat and finished the Galaxy Dreaming panel and tried it out on table, along with the three panels I have from Vivienne. My thinking now is that I will complete 6 more panels and join them into a tablecloth. These 4 panels are placed for fit, not design, and I'm thinking it will look stunning when done. My arm was sore from the Shingles injection the day before and, between the injection and ironing, I was feeling very tired so I took myself to A Prayer for the Wild at Heart for a very late lunch/early dinner. On my return I began the Kaffe Fassett Inca Cardigan. I know it is hardly knitting weather, but I really wanted to see how it was done - and to try out my new ebony needles.

   Unpacking the wool I discovered that I didn't have a basket or bag that would hold all the wool with the needles and pattern. Given the number of colours involved,  the complexity of the pattern, and the time it is likely to take to knit, I thought it would be worth looking for a cheap basket at an op shop. As the first 4 rows of the pattern are all in one colour, I knitted that and called it a day.

On Thursday I stopped off at the Salvos and Vinnies stores conveniently side-by-side around the corner from Pilates. I soon realised that baskets are things that op shops use rather than sell! Eventually, in Vinnies, I found a large, if strange, basket in need of fixing.  The label has it as a product of  Aldi. It has a metal frame, with faux (ie plastic) canes woven in large loops around the outside. A number of these had come loose and been placed back willy-nilly. It was a good size, the frame was sound  and for $10 I thought I could make it work.

At home I lined it with a cloth before trying it out, to ensure the loose canes didn't catch the wool. It worked well, so I set about re-weaving the rods into their intended places. It took a bit of patience and logic, but produced a decent result. I doubt it's a durable, long-term product but is, I think, fit for this purpose - and I have an idea for using the frame with woven cloth strips in the long term.                

My obsession with using photos to create bookmarks took a turn on Friday morning. I went to the Vistaprint site to experiment with a couple of photos and noticed that they also print to tote bags. I had jokingly said to a friend who said she wanted one of my faces totes, that it would be great if I could print the embroidered design on to cloth. Bingo!

I then spent an hour or so, playing with photos and templates to produce a sample. It is only possible to print a 20x20 cm image, but we'll see how it goes. This is the photo of my finished template online. The printed product is due to arrive tomorrow.  If this works, I could try looking for a printer that can do larger images. Officeworks, I notice does print a larger tote surface, but only on one side of the bag. This one has an image on both sides.

A new way of making bags is hardly at the top of my to-do list. Experimenting and playing with photos and textiles, however, is.  

Late on Friday night I got a promotional email from the Innovations Catalogue that featured a small portable hose. This first hot summer in a couple of years had me thinking again of any way to get a hose to my front balcony. I had a tap installed on the back one, but putting one on the front balcony involves cutting several holes in my ceilings to feed the pipes through. The hose ad said it could fit any tap, which set me wondering. On Saturday morning first thing I examined my kitchen tap, which, it turns out, has a thread. It was JEMS day, so after I dropped Niamh at JEMS I visited Bunnings, found the same 10 metre long portable hose ($4 cheaper than Innovations and no delivery required!) AND an adapter for attaching a hose to an indoor tap!

 At home, it took me a little while to work out how to attach the adaptor.  The hose connection isn't perfect. There is a little bit of leakage, which increases with water pressure. The stream of water that comes through the 10 metres of hose is hardly gushing, but it is a lot better than carrying watering cans back and forth! It is slower than a regular hose, but I can attach the hose and water the whole balcony in 15 minutes. The bucket collects about half a pint of water from the leaking collection, which I can use on my indoor plants.

I can also leave the hose running to fill up the water wells in the large pots. I'll still need to use watering cans to fertilise, but this really does improve my front balcony gardening. An excellent innovation! Only took me 8 years to find it.

I made it back to JEMS in time to pick up Niamh. It looked like a good session with about 8 or so students. The Queen St Cafe owner was pleased to see Niamh and I and served our milkshakes and rhubarb friands without being asked. I caught up on school and holiday news. It was Katherine, Anthony, Brigid and I for dinner.  Brigid and Veronica had bought me a lovely Murano glass necklace for my birthday.  It seems to go with almost everything and I've been wearing it all week. 

This is a very busy family month, with school formal, Taylor Swift concert, several birthdays, including Brigid's 21st,  a bit of pressure on the school students regarding pending international visits and Special Projects. I got a sneak peak of formal dresses. Wow!  I have a number of commitments, including my Mexican embroidery  presentation and vaccinations.  

Today I got to AquaFit, the podiatrist and picked up my spare pair of glasses from the optometrist. In between I've been working on a canvas work cushion for a birthday next week. My original plan was to make it into a zipped bag, but on Niamh's advice I consulted the intended recipient, and, lo, she was right - he  prefers a cushion! Glad I asked.

I've ordered a ready-made zippered back, which should arrive tomorrow. It's a challenge to get it finished by next week, but easier than my original plan  - and I'm up for it . It's a long time since I did canvas work, and I'm not sure I've ever done one with the pattern painted on. It's quite challenging, with lots of hard-to-distinguish shading, but I am enjoying it. The texture is fabulous.

Better get on with it!

Post520 Finishes, food, fabric.

It's been another week of mostly stitching, with a couple of finishes to show for it, the first being the prayer shawl I was working on. The detail, of course, is in my embroidery blog.

On Wednesday I had a lovely long lunch with my friend Lorraine - half way between our two birthdays. 

On Thursday I called at the Guild after Pilates and purchased some fabrics which I have cut ready to make bags. 

No hurry. I will iron them into shape for stitching when I have a chance. I also called at OfficeWorks and bought another set of document drawers, into which I reorganised all my cotton reels, including the ones I brought home from Canberra. I now have a good range ready to use.

The most exciting thing that happened all week (aside from my Adelaide family arriving home on Sunday from their 3 week holiday), was the arrival of the Otomi top I had ordered from ArteOtomi. This Etsy shop went out of their way to get this to me in time for my World Embroidery Study Group presentation in  February.       

It is extraordinarily beautiful, the inside almost as good. I have ordered a dress and some pants.

In keeping with my Mexico obsession, the sampler I began last week took up a lot of my time.

 Most of the main side was cross stitch, which is much easier held in hand rather than hoop. I eventually dug out the wrist brace for my left hand which develops RSI from being held too long in the one position.  I worked an Otomi design on the back. This required a hoop, so was easier on my hand, but is not really suited to a loose even weave linen. Nevertheless, I persevered and late yesterday constructed a bag from the sampler. 

If interested, the detail is in my embroidery blog.

The sciatica and piriformis pain I mentioned last week continued for the early part of the week, but was helped a lot by the exercises my Pilates instructor took me through. I weaned myself off the ibuprofen I had taken for 5 days, drank a lot of lemon juice in warm water, tried not to sit for too long without moving and continued short stints on my vibration exercise machine.  My back is much improved. Today I missed swimming to see my GP and have my first Shingles re-vaccine, discuss weight loss and the sciatica/piriformis bout and agree to monitor until my Shingles booster/flu vac in early May.

School was back yesterday. I made the Chicken Maryland with Halloumi that I had tested on friends, and Katherine picked it up for them to eat at home, since they are all catching up on sleep and commitments after being away.

A final bit of madness for the week. This is a set of biros I ordered from a company that produces pens without plastic. They have seeds inserted in the top. When the pen runs out, you plant the pen in a pot and it blooms - mine are mustard, tomato, Glory and spinach. I have a lot of pens from my past working life, but increasingly they don't work and I am frustrated at the plastic waste. Refills are hard to find and more trouble than they are worth, so I thought I'd give these a go. They might, of course, take longer than my lifetime to get to the planting stage!

The 5" ebony needle set also arrived, so I am set for knitting the Rowan blanket and cardigan. I'm working on the Sashiko at the moment, with weather not ideal for working in wool. 

Today the extra Sashiko squares, and the fabric for serviettes arrived. Unfortunately, on examination, 3 of the 4 Galaxy 2 squares were green, not indigo. I really don't think that will do, so emailed IndigoNiche straight away. They are sending the Indigo replacements and a pre-paid envelope for return of the green. Great response. I'm certainly not ready to start embroidering them.

With school back, the temperature is heading into February's usual 30Cs and our Friday Sit'nStitch resumed.

I've enjoyed January and welcome February.

Post 519 Productive - but too sedentary!

On Wednesday I had lunch with friends at Balaboosta, a long block away from my apartment. I hadn't been there before, but it is highly popular, especially for wood oven pizza. Our carpark door was once again being repaired, so cars couldn't be moved in or out between 9.30am and 3.30pm - a good incentive for me to walk, rather than try to find street parking all day.

It was a chance to admire the gardens on the way. I especially liked this crepe myrtle. 

I loved our catchup lunch. We sat just inside - a bit noisy, but we managed to talk non-stop. 

The bookmarks I had ordered in honour of my Canberra trip arrived on Thursday before Pilates. I'm delighted with them. The water dragon one is spectacular.

I've been working on my presentation on Mexican Embroidery - which is, of course, a huge topic. I am attempting a very broad overview, with a general history of the culture - and a hope some WES members will be interested enough to take up specific components (or even plan a visit!). The Guild Museum has several relevant items, which I'm hoping the Museum team will have time to ferret out for us.

Friday was a roughly quarterly lunch with a group of long-term work-related friends, this time at Sean's Kitchen in a large, now unused, section of the Adelaide Railway Station.The company and the food was terrific. The service was good. The noise level, however, was disturbing. There are a lot of tables, and several large groups ( some associated with the West Indies test cricket match on in Adelaide at the moment) but none of them were talking loudly. The acoustics, probably related to the hard surfaces and the huge vaulted ceiling, would have been great for a choral concert, but terrible for a restaurant. It didn't stop us catching up on the numerous travels and adventures of each of us, I rarely have an entree these days but I couldn't resist the Whipped Cod Roe. I love roe, and rarely find it on menus. I wasn't disappointed, and my Orgy of Mushrooms, with ricotta gnocchi was fabulous.  The Maple ice cream (first ice cream in 3 years) topped it off.  I paid the price in a 1kg weight  gain the next day, which I have now managed to lose.

I went to and from lunch on the City Loop Bus, giving me a chance to photograph the hub of the Tour Down Under as we detoured around one of the road blocks it has occasioned. 

As we returned to the Square I could see that the young Norfolk pines planted a few years ago have thrived. It won't be long before they match the older trees.

Vivienne has given me these Sashiko table pieces over my last two birthdays. Last year we both bought the mats, while she has finished hers, I've been distracted. Inspired, I have now started on mine and have figured out how to create a full table setting. More will be revealed, but many thanks to Vivienne. 

I get by with a little help from my friends.

It's really lovely to see the change as you stitch Sashiko, It's like a landscape emerging and changing. Soothing.

In the early part of the week I remade a skirt into a bag for my daughter - the kind of project I love. Details in my embroidery blog.

Late on Saturday I paused my Sashiko (and my knitting) to take up, for the presentation, a Mexican-inspired sampler which is a free download on the V&A website. The design is by Xinyi Li, MA Fashion Curation, London College of Fashion University of the Arts London. Although the instructions are to transfer the patterns on to linen, they are clearly meant for even-weave counted work, so I used a piece of 25 count linen - producing a larger sampler than the instructions. I don't think I need to work all the designs for the purpose of my presentation, so I have made a selection. I marked out the space with tacking, not easy when the stitches on the diagram don't correspond to the graph lines! A pattern, however, is emerging nicely.

In an effort to avoid a completely sedentary weekend, on Sunday I finally unpacked the carpet shampooer I bought weeks ago. It has been sitting in its unopened box just inside my door. To my surprise (call me Prepared for the Worst) it assembled really easily and quickly and within about 20 minutes I had the water solution in it, rugs folded back, carpets vacuumed and was shampooing carpet! I didn't achieve the 20sq metres on one water tank it claims, but I was getting the hang of it and being thorough. I did the areas of my living room that get the most traffic - probably about 12 sq metres - on a tank of water. 

I had a sugarless lemon soda to recover, then refilled the water tank and did the most trafficked areas of my bedroom. Similar result. It was easy, the used water very dirty - and the carpet looks clean! 

The tank is now empty and clean. The whole machine is stowed in the back of my wardrobe out of the way until I use it again. I reckon if I do the main areas every 2 months the carpet will look (and be) clean. So much easier than getting in carpet cleaners and moving all the furniture at once. Thank you Pat for assuring me it would work!

While Saturday was very hot, Sunday was pleasant at 27C and a breeze. The Mandevilla is looking splendid (a lot of water). It kept me company briefly on Sunday while I read a little more of The Gilded Page. I'm enjoying the stories of the workers behind the earliest English manuscripts, especially the women, whose contributions have been lost, ignored or, in some cases, deliberately erased from the record. I've ordered a copy of The Book of Margery Kempe and am considering pre-ordering a copy of the paperback version of The Posthumous Papers of the Manuscript Club which it seems will be available in August.  Seems I'm down a manuscript rabbit hole.

While I've really enjoyed spending so much time embroidering this week, I've been getting pain in my back and thighs, related to sciatica, and I suspect piriformis syndrome, partially caused by sitting too long, so I have been using my Everfit vibrating plate, cold compresses, and made an effort to get out yesterday, 

visiting Barrow and Bench hardware for a stick-on hook to replace one that fell off (after 8 years) and to buy a few replacement balcony plants, in spite of 32C. 

 

I was fortunately home to receive the delivery of wool for Kaffe Fassett's Andes cardigan. It's a bit hot to begin it at the moment, which will give me time to finish the projects I'm working on.

Today it reached 42C. I managed an 8 minute session on my Everfit vibration plate and an Aquafit session. Before driving home from the last, I got  a message telling me our apartment lift wasn't working.

I was expecting a parcel in the mail and didn't want to walk up and down the stairs twice, but fortunately, as I parked at home, the postman arrived with the first of my ebony knitting needle sets, so I walked up the stairs prepared to stay put for the rest of the day. Within ten minutes of my getting into my apartment the lift was working again! 

Je ne regrette rien! I'm in the cool, I have the latest Inspirations magazine, my lovely needles in their Khadi silk case (a handwoven cotton/silk/wool blend  trademarked by the Indian Government and lovely to hold),  I've done more exercise than usual and the temperature is forecast to drop tomorrow. In spite of the heat  I've  almost finished the knitting the prayer shawl - about 10 rows to go.  It will look a lot better when blocked - hopefully in the next day or two.