In bed again

I am having a flair-up of my condition again so have been laid low.  But in the middle of this I had some good news.  My grand niece, my sister’s grand daughter, came to Q’ld.  to compete in the National SURF life saving championships. Skye is in an Olympic training development squad for NSW’s and is a excellent competitor,  she also has her sights set on becoming an iron woman.

She is also now the Junior Surf Swimming Champion of Australia.

Had herself interviewed for the national news.

‘And her family are super proud of her.

It will be interesting to see how she progresses.  Two of my children were national junior champions in their sports but neither wanted to carry on with competing.

I nice touch was that the whole street where the family lives turned out to congratulate her when they got home.

Fungi

The recent rains has seen an explosion of fungi on the island.  Some I have never seen before and some are familiar.  These ones were all over the place.

I think these were related.

and these were so unusual.

Some plants must have been dumped here at the side of the road and have now taken over.

There  has been so much rain that even a block of grass can look good.

Home gardens are flourishing.

Even the statues in the gardens seem to like the rain.

I suppose it fits the cycles of "droughts and flooding rains."

 

 

 

The finished sample

These little embroideries were a joy to stitch.  Adding the muslin as a stabalizer is something I picked up from the Sue Stone classes and I have now made it part of my everyday stitching.

I have worked my way through the whole class.  This always allows you to find out where the gremlins live and what extra things you might need to include.  I found that marking the dots around the outer edge came in very handy for mounting the embroidery over the backing piece.  I also added that batting to the mounding board and an happy with the result.

I choose the snow drop for the one I made up.

I found the little screws in the frame very hard to manipulate so a pair of plyers is essential.  I must say I am tempted to make up all 4 designs but that would cut into the number of frames I have for the class.  Another reason to order some more.

Not a good week

I think I will just give up on this week or was it last week as well?

I got to my Quaker exhibition only to find they had closed it early due to work being done to the library.  After all I had to do to get there it was very disappointing.  I have the 1.5 to 2 hour drive to town to start with then because I haven't traveled by public transport for the last year they had taken all my money off my card.  I tried to top it up on the bus but was told all that has changed.  I then had to find somewhere to put some money on the card.  (It is just too expensive to park in town.)  Then when I got there, no exhibition.

The next thing was I have had to have 2 teeth extracted.  I had two root canal treatments about 8 months ago and now my body just rejected them so out they had to come.  The Dentist could find nothing wrong with the teeth at all, still, I have to admit I feel a whole lot better once they came out.  Shame about the $3,000+ that I had spent on the treatments.

The good thing is that now that those teeth have gone my mind is working again.  (Don't ask me what the link was I just don't know.)  I am in the middle of preparing a new class and am really enjoying the process.  Because it will be for beginners from outside of the Embroiderers' Guild and I already teach a class for new members, I had to come up with something different.   It is about learning the basic stitches but I wanted a project that gave them something finished to take away.  My solution was to settle on a set of 4 designs that can be stitched  in the allotted time.  I have actually drawn more designs than the four needed so that there is a lot of choice.  I have put the designs into my drawing program and put different colours behind each design.  Although I am using white cotton/linen fabric I think these could look good on a variety of fabrics.  (I see there is one circle outline I didn't cut after I added the fill colour, oops.)

I got a bit carried away with drawing botanical things and have another two pages of designs.  They are only small, in circles of about 2.5" or a bit less.  I found I could fit 4 designs on a 6"x6" square of fabric.  I backed this with a fine muslin and tacked the two pieces of fabric together, put this into a frame and stitched.

Because they are small they are quick to stitch and I am really enjoying this stitching.  When the students have finished this they will choose their favourite and then mount it in a mini-frame to use as is, or as a piece of jewelry.

I think that I might glue a piece of thin wadding onto the backing board before it is mounted as well and I also think I had better buy some more of these frames because I could just keep stitching.

Update on Bear

It has been 6 months since I adopted Bear.  He had been badly neglected and then ceased by the RSPCA.  I had no idea what breed he was only that he was a scruffy little thing, he had been shaved right down to remove his whole coat.

It has taken some time for him to regain his confidence but now he runs the house.  Other people and dogs are greeted by a very loud bark for such a little dog, 6.5kg.  This house is his as are all the beaches around the island.  He makes sure everyone knows this. 

He can still be hesitant.

But he is the most adorable companion.  He sleeps on the bed and is up on my lap as soon as I sit down.  And now that his coat has grown back, is the most handsome little fellow.

As he is 12 going on 13 years old I'm not too sure how long I will have him.  But as of now he is active, walking 3 times a day, jumps up and down from the bed and on and off furniture.  He has taken a shine to my neighbour which means I have a sitter if I have to go out.  He becomes very anxious if left alone.

I often wonder about his previous owners.  He was awarded to one party in a divorce settlement through the court.  I think the person who got him only wanted to hurt their partner or else he wouldn't have been taken by the RSPCA. 

We have bonded together and I never thought that would happen when Charlie died.  I count him as a blessing in my life.