No sewing happening here.

As I said in an earlier post, I have 'lost my mojo' for sewing at the moment.  In addition to the reasons I gave before, I now have a physical problem that has prevented me from doing any kind of sewing by hand or on a machine.  I had a motorcycle accident about 40 years ago in which my neck was nearly broken.  As the doctors and other specialists have put it over the years when they see X rays of my neck, "You've really trashed your neck!"  It will be fine for a year or so, then I'll get an episode of severe pain where a nerve is pinched by some of the vertebrae which are degenerating over time.   In the past month I have had 8 chiropractic treatments, four acupuncture treatments, dozens of remedial massages, and taken Panadeine Forte, Valium, Nurofen, and whatever else I can find that might kill pain.  It is finally all beginning to take effect, and tonight is the first time I've been able to sit here and type for more than a few minutes.
The doctors are all telling me now that I will eventually have to have surgery to fix my neck, but don't worry - surgical techniques have come a long way in the last few years, and it is not as invasive as it used to be.
Hmmm.   Time will tell.   The way I feel at the moment, I may as well just sell all my fabric and sewing gear at a market because I can't see myself ever doing much of it again.

Back online.

...thanks to a very good friend who is a genius with computers.  He is someone who was a friend of ours about 20 years ago, but moved away, and has only returned to Melbourne a year or so ago.  We happened to mention that we were having computer problems, and he offered to have a look.  To cut a long story short, it seems that Internet Explorer may have been the cause of my problems, so he changed me over to Mozilla Firefox, and everything is now A OK.  Ken and I have several friends who are fantastic with computers, and we have been very lucky to have them helping us with various issues over the years.   Thanks guys - you know who you are ;-)

Non stitching craft.

I have just posted pictures of something on my other blog (Patra's Other Place) that might interest some of you who enjoy other crafts in addition to needleworks.   Well, what do you know!  It worked.  Given the problems I've been having with links lately, I didn't know if I could put a link here to the other blog, but there it is. 

Please help me to find you!

Just a quick note to all my bloggy friends who visit this site: due to continuing computer problems, I can't access the blogs on my sidebar by clicking on them as I used to. The only way I can get to your blogs is if you leave a comment on my posts, and I can click on your name which takes me to your blog. I really miss visiting you all, so if you read this, PLEASE leave just a short comment so I can read your blog again!

Linens from Lee Ann.

Our friends Lee Ann and Rob visited us on Monday and we enjoyed a very pleasant day with them. We hadn't seen them for over a year (apart from Ken's Mum's funeral which wasn't the right time for a lengthy catch up), so we had a lovely talk over lunch, after which we took them up to Sugarloaf Reservoir for afternoon tea. Lee Ann manages an opshop and keeps an eye out for linens for me. Here are some of the items she presented me with on Monday. She also brought aprons, but I've posted those on my Aprons blog.


If anyone reading this can translate the writing on this lovely redwork piece, I would greatly appreciate any information!

Another chicken scratch gingham cloth for my collection!

This  uncut child's apron is printed on pink fabric and didn't photograph well.

Aussie doiley with cockatoo design.  I have an unworked set of three pieces in my collection of duchess sets, and am pleased to have a finished version.

Small project completed.

I saw this pattern in a magazine several years ago, and have been wanting to make it ever since.  It consists of the black area pattern traced on to a sheet of fusible webbing, which is then ironed on to black cotton fabric.  This is carefully cut out in one piece, and ironed on to the sunset print fabric.  Voila!  Aussie sunset!
Rather than make a wall hanging or cushion, I bought a nice frame for this one.

Aust. decimal currency cloth photos.

So here it is - a piece of Australian history.  I've shown this to friends who have no interest in embroidery, and even they have been impressed by the significance of it.  For instance, the one and two cent coins depicted are no longer in existence.  And the fifty cent coin has changed its face many times since this first one.