SEWING a FISH
Our son has this gorgeous ceramic sardine shown above. Inspired by blogs written by Ann Wood (here) and Kate (here), who have both been making stitched fish, I gathered the materials to make a Christmas ornamental fish, too, based on this ceramic sardine.
I cut a pattern from paper, following Anne Woods template, but later I modified the fatness of the body to better reflect the shape of the ceramic sardine.
Sewed the fish pieces together, eventually. Went upstairs to my sewing machine and discovered it wouldn’t work. Baffling as I’d used it last weekend without any problem. Fiddled about but made no progress so went looking online. Thank you to all those wonderful sewers online who have written about solving problems with sewing machines. So helpful! I finally solved the problem and sewed the fish, leaving the tail open to stuff it.
Stuffed the fish with polyester wadding, poking it in with the scissor blade, then hand sewed the end of the tail. It could have been machine sewn, too, but this was just as easy.
Started pinning on pieces of ribbon, leaving enough on the middle one to create a hanger. Hand sewed the ribbons on when I was happy with their placement. Added a bead to make a hanging loop on the longer, middle ribbon then worked on the face. Tossed up between button eyes, as on the two blogs I refer to above, or sequins, which seem shiny and more fish like. Although I had lots of buttons to choose from I thought they all looked too big. The only sequins I could find looked strange, too, so I ended up stitching the eyes in place.
My mother harvested anything reusable off worn out clothes, including hundreds of buttons. I now have those jars of buttons. Looking through them was quite nostalgic as I recognised some from my childhood clothes.
The finished fish, ready to hang.
PERSIAN CARPET REPAIR
Running up and down the stairs, trying to get the sewing machine working meant I saw this chewed Persian carpet again and again. It’s not new damage; it’s the result of Louis teething one day when we were both at work six years ago. I’d done a temporary repair a few years ago but actually sat and fixed it properly today. Lots of stitching and trimming and eventually the edge is secure but a little misshapen. Louis lay next to me watching carefully. Such a help.
The finished repair. I used embroidery thread and some wool to secure the frayed edge.
MINIATURE PICTURE and EASEL
Last term our painting tutor gave us each a tiny canvas and easel to create our own miniature. She has a collection of traditional miniatures and some she has done herself. I painted a bird in a bird cage hanging from a branch. It was all right but not great. Time to repurpose the little canvas and easel.
Went looking for something to cover the painting and add interest to the little collection sitting under masses of pink roses.
Printed off a pretty peony image and glued it to the canvas leaving lots of paper to fold around the edges. I used Mod Podge to glue and seal the image. Smoothed the front and left it to dry, then folded and glued the edges. I cut the surplus paper from each corner to create a sharper edge, then glued them down, too.
Much prettier. Don’t know how long it will last before I want to change it again but for now the pretty pink peonies work well with the masses of pink Pierre de Ronsard roses I’m picking from the garden.
JACARANDA DRIVE
This time of the year the jacaranda trees are in full bloom. Heavy wind and rain has resulted in less dense flowers but I still really enjoyed driving around the older river suburbs to enjoy looking at the trees. My mother, who went to school in this area, remembers planting the jacarandas on Arbor Day. They are very beautiful.
CELEBRATING
Celebrated my birthday last week. Birthdays seem to come around rather too quickly these days. Way too many candles for my lime tart, but loved these number sparklers. Reminded me of Guy Fawkes night, which was such fun when we were children but was banned in Western Australia in 1967 to prevent personal injury and bushfires.
Our son came down from Kalgoorlie for the weekend and we celebrated my birthday by going to yum cha, one of our favourite family foods. We hadn’t been to the yum cha restaurant since early this year due to CV-19 concerns. We wont be going again for a while, either, as our hard borders came down last Friday night, allowing Australians from most other states to return or visit. Unfortunately the first plane load of visitors came from South Australia where there had been an unexpected CV-19 hotspot. We now wait to see if this means we now have active cases in Western Australia.
GROWING and PICKING
Cut the cos lettuce, washed the leaves and picked them over to remove any discoloured ones, then patted them really dry on a tea towel.
Planted a punnet of cos lettuce about two months ago and have begun eating them. Today I made a Caesar salad, without bacon as I didn’t have any left. Some recipes use anchovy paste in the dressing, I use finely chopped anchovies in mine. This is a classic salad using cos lettuce and tasted very good. A simple family lunch with cold roasted chicken, baby romano tomatoes, potato salad and the Caesar salad.
Friday November 13th was World Kindness Day. Well, that was easy enough to celebrate, wasn’t it?