New neighbours and a new post box. Interesting!
Caro came over to introduce herself and see if I wanted to join a quilting group that will meet at her house. Now that is even more interesting. I have been here for over a year now and not met one quilting person. She has been here a few days and has a group organised.
I love looking at the faces of the subjects in the Medieval stained glass windows. They fascinate me. They must have been based on real people who lived at that time they are all so different and individual for the most part. One of my favourite sites is York Minster and any time I am in the UK I take myself north to visit. (Along with other places.)
I have resently read that the project to restore the big window "the Apocalypse" is now being put back in place and if this image is anything to go by it must be wonderful. The faces have so much detail and expression.
The Minster restricts the publication of the windows on the internet but this site on Flikr by Gordon Plumb has a wonderful set of images of the windows pre restoration. I have a full set that I took myself when I was there and can't wait till I return to see the restored window in person.
Most of my computers etc are not working at the moment. Even my phone is a problem. I found that over the last year non of my appliances have been receiving updates. After a trip to the Apple store when I asked if my phone was going to die a terrible death, I found that non of the downloads had come through. Reason, lack of connection. So I am working on it but all my mail etc isn't working properly either. Oh the joys of technology.
There are so many other things going on at the moment I don't seem to have anytime to sew. I have started on some ornaments for Xmas. There is going to be 12 of them for the 12 days of Xmas. I sat and charted the designs a while ago and put them aside to be used for 'Social Stitching'. Looking after children means this kind of stitching can be done whilst doing other things, so I am well along with my partridge in a pear tree, but I won't have an image until I sort out the Wi Fi connection. Everything else is on the back burner at the moment.
Grandmother duty is now confirmed for every Monday of the school term. Mondays are now struck off my calendar. We have to catch the 6:20am barge and will not get home till after 9pm. That is going to be a long day so Tuesdays I intend to sleep in and rest up to recover.
Yesterday saw the little one home from day care because she wasn't feeling well. This didn't stop her making cakes with me and of course she had to lick the bowl. She doesn't usually like sweet things but I had to stop her eating too many of her little rose cakes.
My big girl came home from school and she also made cakes but she hates the feel of cake mixture so she helped me cut up vegetables for dinner. Both girls have very good fine motor skills for a 3 and 5 year old.
And as I am surrounded by so many cows I thought that I would share some of them. A lot of them seem to have seen better days but they all seem to have plenty of personality.
I have had my follow-up visit with the Doctor about my arm. It was very disappointing. He said that he doesn't believe I will ever get the full use of it back again going on my current progress. In fact the hospital doesn't want to know about it anymore, they feel they have done all that they can. I am not going to accept this. I am going to keep on with the exercises and physio until I am happy that it will not recover anymore. I have played the piano since I was a child completing my letters and even taught for a number of years. I have now started practising those old exercises to build up my technique again. It is frustrating but I'm not giving up just yet.
Meanwhile life moves on. The builder has returned and the work on the house progresses. It is horribly hot here, I feel for those workers. Even the trees are in denial. This Golden Shower tree has put out another round of flowers. It should be getting ready to drop it's leaves at this time of year!
I have started work on a new Kogin project and am using the tea dyed hemp fabric. The fabric has become a little stiffer to work and the threads are not as smooth as they were before I dyed them. This will be a tote bag but I am experimenting with stitching over seams with this piece. I have withdrawn the side seam threads and back stitched the two pieces together which has resulted in the warp and weft threads lining up perfectly. I have used a traditional diamond pattern and then outlined this with a traditional surround pattern.
As you can see I haven't stitched over the seam as yet and I'm not really sure how this will work out. I think that I should have stitched a sample pattern first but this is about 18 hours of stitching to this point. I have a horrible feeling that it isn't going to work out when I get it in the round. Still I can use it as an example of what NOT to do.
What a mundane subject, but it is so hot and humid here. It was blowing a gale for over a week. I went to the hairdresser and my hairstyle was blown away. I read on blogs from the northern hemisphere that the weather is headed in a spring like direction. I can't see any sign of autumn on the horizon down here. And worst of all is that I am having to live in the cow house. I do not like it, not one little bit. I am counting away the days till I can move back to the other house, and I'm not to keen on it! But,It is a lot better than the cow house.
On a brighter note I have made my bookings to spend a week in Melbourne with my daughter. We are going to take our cameras and have some time taking photos. I have booked an apartment for us so that we can sit and relax when we are not out there doing things. I have only got as far as planning the photography and a trip to the Art Gallery. I must hit the tourist information site to see what else there is to do and I mustn't forget to look for the embroidery and patchwork shops. Melbourne is known for fashion and food. I think we will be able to fill in the week.
It looks like I have made a lot of progress but looks are deceptive. Those animals are quick to stitch, the trees on either side were more difficult. The problem is turning the work to start and finish threads. My wrist doesn't like this at all and because the thread count is so high I have trouble seeing the back of my work without the magnifying glass. The design has lots of isolated stitches in the background that are going to cause the same problem so I'm leaving them until the pain recedes from this lot of stitching.
I have been an Grandma duty this week and I think that this will continue every Monday for quite some time. That could mean more or less stitching we will see what eventuates.
After the first flurry of activity all is quite on the home front. Very quite. The builder has disappeared to do another job. There has been some progress. The concrete slab has been poured out the back. The ceilings and walls demolished in my workroom and the 2nd bedroom. The walls are going out to the end of the present deck.
All those horrible plastic clip floorboards have gone.
And the new doors are sitting under the carport waiting to be installed.
Even the panels in the wall have been removed to have my new pantry fitted under the stairs. Now all we need is the builder to turn up!!
Since having to move out of my house for the extensions to be completed I have had some very interesting computer problems. I have to say that I have multiple computers. My major one is my Apple Desk top backed up by my Apple laptop but I do have a PC that I use to run an embroidery drawing program. I don't use it for anything else. Well it would appear that my PC has fallen off the internet connection. I didn't need to use it so I never checked it. Now with the move I have packed up the Mac and transferred the PC computer downstairs into the temporary office and the first thing it did was connect to the internet.
This was a revelation to the computer. Over a year of updates hit it along with 5,500 Emails. I have no idea why they went to this computer and not to my Apple Mac but here they all were. No wonder people said they couldn't get in touch with me!
The other problem has been the mail. Now I live on a little island where everyone knows everyone else. I got all my letters but the parcels have been sitting down the road in the office. It is only luck that I found out they were there.And there was an important one from a friend A parcel full of lovely treasures. A water colour post card remembering our travels in France, a lovely pin, a box of knitting and some vintage fabric.
I think I like the back of this the best. Just look at these colours.
Thank you Pammy.
Now I am going to have to keep a better watch on my computers and just who they are talking to!!