Stories of Hope

Stories of Hope

I'm delighted to announce that Stories of Hope is now available on various digital platforms. All profits will go to the Red Cross and WWF Australia for bush fire relief. There's a huge range of stories and genres!

I have one story in this anthology (which I, along with all the other authors, donated as a contribution to charity). I've read about one-third of it and a lot of it is quite high fantasy, but there's a wide range of styles ad genres. Mine is not high fantasy, more alternative history (in the future - is that a thing?) It's a good read.

Doesn't Time Fly!!

So ... it might be over four years since I blogged here. How did that happen!! I suppose I have been more active on Facebook, Twitter and Instagram (you'll find me there by searching Judy Edmonds, or in the case of Twitter, @AuntAdaDoom1

What's been happening? I know have a first class Honours Degree in Literary Studies and Creative Writing. (Up yours to Melbourne University who told me I was useless at English in 1979. But thanks, though, because you pushed me into a History degree which is an excellent addition to my current life).

I am currently researching material for an urban fantasy novel set in Regency London (NOT influenced by Georgette Heyer!). But that's what the writing blog is for.

I'm going to keep this as a personal blog and go back to posting pictures of dogs, craft and food. (My interests have not changed in this regard).

Edited to add:  I obviously can't count. I appear to have already introduced Cleo to the world and got the year wrong! Anyway, enjoy the photos!!

Three months after my last blog post we had to say a very sad goodbye to the goodest dog in the world, Sirius. It was heartbreaking. We loved her every moment of the 14 1/2 years she spent with us (even the time she ate the jumper I had just finished knitting in expensive hand-dyed 4 ply wool!) But the time came to be kinder to her than to us.

A few months later, actually on the day of the Federal Election in 2016, we adopted a 'twelve month old Whippet Cross' from a delightful, no-kill pet shelter in the country. She walked beautifully on a lead and was exactly what we'd been looking for.  The immaculate winged eyeliner around her eyes meant that she had to be called Nefertiti or Cleopatra, and you can guess which one is slightly less silly to shout out loud in a dog park.

On the long drive home I noticed that she had inflamed gums. This isn't unusual in rescue dogs (she'd been rescued from a pound near the Murray) so I wasn't too worried at first, thinking that good dental care and nutrition was all she needed. Then I noticed that she didn't have enough teeth. Some frantic Googling (George was driving), checking out when a dog's adult teeth came through, I realised that she was probably about six months old. This was only a worry because she was at the uppermost of the size of dog we had wanted and we were not sure how much she would grow. However, Sirius had only been six months old when we adopted her, and she had reached her adult size.

After a peaceful long ride home, our first new thing with Cleo was to take her to a polling station and share a Democracy Sausage with her. She met some dogs. She behaved herself. Then it was off to the vet for a thorough check up. The shelter had had her spayed and vaccinated but we always like our own vets to check a new dog over. She'd only been vaccinated six days previously and unfortunately had kennel cough, which has a longer incubation period than that. I learned how to administer Benedryl via syringe to a dog with very large teeth. They also guessed she was five months old, Greyhound rather than Whippet, and likely to double in size.

Um, they were right. The photos in this post are of her first few weeks with us, She did double in size, as you will see in later posts. I can't walk her because she likes to RUN and is incredibly strong. I had a doggy DNA test done on her to check. Approximately 45% Greyhound, 25% Rhodesian Ridgeback, 5% Kelpie, 5% German Shepherd, and 20% Unknown. We're still not quite sure what that means.

52 Weeks, 50 Items

I started my last blog post with this paragraph:

I've spent the year studying my brains out, and Facebooking rather than blogging. But I have realised, now that hectic year is over, that I have been doing things I have been proud of all year, that could be recorded more systematically. Hence the fresh start - 52 Weeks, 50 Things. I'm going to post things that I accomplish that I am proud of. It may include items made, mended, repurposed, altered to fit, or even written. This is actually the start of Week Three of my plan, but that's the next post.

It's now Week 5. I probably won't actually finish anything this week, as although I have knitted most of one sock, I'm in Adelaide for a few days now to attend a friend's wedding, and it's unlikely that I will complete the pair!

But:

Week 1, Item 1

I so rarely get my act together to actually mend something that for the purposes of this next year, mending is going to count. These were brand new jeans, torn when George rescued my disintegrating suitcase a couple of months ago as it fell apart on the way home from - actually, Adelaide. That was a mid-semester break. Now I'm here for a wedding. I love Adelaide but I must admit that I don't normally visit quite so frequently! So I had a good go at 'darning' these jeans. I must say I am moderately proud of the result. I never darn, for a start. And it is actually damn near invisible - I lightening the photo so that you can see the stitching, but in real life both cloth and thread are a very deep, dark black.

Item 2, Week 2

A nightshirt for George. Embarrassingly, despite having measured him carefully, I then went and carelessly cut out the largest size, which is at least one size too big. I had also carefully measured the extra needed to add to the pattern to turn it from a Tshirt to a nightshirt - and then carelessly made it much too long. It is however comfortable. It also was the first time I'd made a whole thing on my sewing machine in about nine months. It also reminded me that I hate, hate sewing jersey. Yes, I used a ballpoint needle. And an appropriate stitch. And I still hated doing it. And yes, the photo is blurry. Everything hates me, too :)

Week 3, Item 3

Socks for George. Patonyle, the usual generic toeup pattern that I generally use. He loves them. They were pleasant to knit.

Week 4, Item 4

Tubular socks knitted in Woolmeise sock wool. Boring, boring boring. For someone who is very sensitive about how things feel on his feet, therefore made tubular to avoid arguments about size - because no size is ever 'right' for him.

I suspect by the end of Week 6 I may have finished the socks I am currently working on. But then production of things needs to speed up as I have some small Christmas things to knit.

And I intend to make myself some summer dresses. All of the above have been for other people, which is fun, but I have so much fabric and a renewed desire to sew.

For the next few days, however, I intend to enjoy Adelaide and the wedding of my friend. And eat and drink till I burst.

A Fresh Start and a Fond Goodbye

I've spent the year studying my brains out, and Facebooking rather than blogging. But I have realised, now that hectic year is over, that I have been doing things I have been proud of all year, that could be recorded more systematically. Hence the fresh start - 52 Weeks, 50 Things. I'm going to post things that I accomplish that I am proud of. It may include items made, mended, repurposed, altered to fit, or even written. This is actually the start of Week Three of my plan, but that's the next post.

This post is to say a heartfell farewell to our beloved Sirius, who died in April. We loved you to bits for every moment of the 14 1/2 of your 15 years that we were lucky enough to live with you. I hope you've found room on Nana's couch 💖💖💖

And in May we welcomed Cleopatra into our lives. We were tempted by the description of the 12 month old Whippet Cross posted by the shelter, so schlepped off to Woodend to rescue her. On the way home I noticed that she had inflamed gums, which I initially put down to her life before being sprung from the Kerang pound. Until I Googled the ages of puppy tooth eruption, and realised that she was NOT 12 months old. She continued to grow over the next two months, was largely not house-trained, and was clearly a puppy.

I succumbed to curiosity and had a DNA test done on her. She is about 45% Greyhound, about 24% Rhodesian Ridgeback, about 5% each German Shepherd and Kelpie, and the remainder untraceable.
We've also found out from official paperwork that she was five months old when we got her. George had insisted that we get a young adult female dog, not too big, but I wanted a greyhound. He said they were too big. Well, she's female - one out of three's not bad! An actual greyhound might well have been quieter and less boisterous!

BUT she is totally adorable!!

She eats everything, has turned the back garden into a scale model of the Somme, and is stronger than me. But she's also wonderfully funny 😉😍😝and we love her!

Boro

No, I'm not even going to bother with excuses this time. I just haven't felt like blog writing for several months.

I've just started an upcycling project. Years ago I bought a denim trench coat with the intention of embellishing it in some way. I've had various ideas but none that ever really jelled. I've been reading about the Japanese art of boro and have been hankering to give it a go, so finally decided to try it on the trench coat. I have cut up scraps of denim left over from other projects, or from worn out clothes, into rough rectangles and I am sewing them around the bottom edge of the coat with running stitch. I don't really know what it will look like, but it's worth a go! The only problem so far is that I am sewing on the front of the coat where I have to go through two layers of denim plus the patch, because of the facing, and it's hurting my wrist a bit. Most of the patches will only go through one coat layer, however, so should be easier. Herewith some progress pictures:







It will a slow project, obviously, which suits me fine - it can easily be done in front of the television.

Dressmaking remained largely in my imagination during 2015, sadly. I did finally finish this dress - I drafted this pattern myself and the cotton turns out to be a little too robust for the style. It makes a very comfortable and cool dress to wear at home on hot days. I would only wear it out of the house with something under it (leggings? jeans?) and I guess that with a few more washes, the quilting cotton will soften and drape a bit better and get that lovely patina that quilting cotton gets after it's been washed quite a few times. I am halfwayish through a reversible dress - one side green, one side purple - so hopefully at least some progress pictures will happen soon.

A Tentative Foray into Poetry

Apologies for what is largely a repost, but I wanted to add something to this collection of images and it seemed best to repeat the information about the sculpture.

George and I spent a week in northern NSW and southern Queensland over Easter. Among other things, I was hugely taken with a sculpture in Brisbane called Forme del Mito by Arnaldo Pomodoro. It tells the  story of Agamemmon from Ancient Greece. Fabricated in cast bronze each piece has its own identity. ‘The Prophet’ Cassandra, ‘The Machine’ Aegisthus, ‘Ambition’ Clytesmnestra and ‘Power’ Agamemnon King of Mycenea.  I think it was commissioned for the World Expo that was held in Brisbane in 1988. 

It was, presumably, inspired by the gold death mask of Agamemnon, which is displayed in Athens after being found at Mycenae:

Last semester I studied the poetry of the early and middle twentieth century - mostly European, with some American and a very small amount of Australian poetry (the omission of Australian poetry was essentially because of the very late adoption of modernity by Australian poets, compared with the rest of the world). During the course of this (very interesting) subject we had to write poetry as well. This is a bit of an experiment - it will be the first time I have posted any of my creative writing in this blog. One of my poems was inspired by this sculpture. The style owes much to the Russian futurist poet Vladimir Mayakovsky.

Here's a couple of pictures of the sculpture:

FORME DEL MITO, ARNALDO POMODORO

It’s three o’clock

                should you be asleep?

Broken stars collide with bats

                so much for sonar

Fruit bats don’t need satellites

                actually they do

No, not clouds

                not rain

                                not fog

                                                not plagues

The Milky Way has vanished

That can’t be good

What is the morning?

                the colour of twelve

                                the hunter’s stew

The death mask four ways in a Brisbane square

The dog at the door and

                the wolf at the fold

And the colour of twelve

                and the water-rat drowning

Where can you get a drink, I’m hot

C Judy Edmonds 2015

The Adventures of Bobby and MoMo - Fiji

It became necessary for George and I to visit Fiji for a week. He was working a lot of the time, so Bobby and MoMo came along too, to keep me company where necessary. They thoroughly enjoyed the luxurious Westin Hotel on Denauru Island. The beds were very comfortable.

We visited the Marina, had lunch at the Hard Rock Cafe - and Bobby got a bit excited about the cocktail menu. Don't worry, we all drank iced water. I rarely go to a Hard Rock Cafe, though now I have been to one in America (cannot remember where), Paris and now Fiji. Three in 25 years is probably allowed.

Later, we stopped for a refreshing beer. I rarely drink beer, but Fiji beer suited the Fiji weather (mid to high twenties, pleasant breezes) so I drink more beer in that week than I do in a whole summer. It wasn't very strong. Bobby tried to steal mine, but I resisted,

 On Denauru Island there is a cute shuttle bus for tourists called the Bula Bus, for which you pay F$7 for a day ticket and can travel as much as you like. We used it to travel between the hotel and the Marina, and back. It has a thatched roof and is a bit of a tourist gimick, but quite fun and useful. MoMo and Bobby were a little disconcerted about it though, sitting on long benches with no windows.

They were all worn out when we got back to the hotel room. Can't blame them, so were we!

 At breakfast every morning I was given a hibiscus. I tried wearing it once and George laughed at me, so I let MoMo have them. They looked better on him anyway.

 And then good old Bobby got hold of it. Made a tasty snack after the photo op, I believe.

Now here, for once, is a genuine photo of Bobby with a bottle of water! I must admit I had always assumed Fiji Water was just a marketing lurk, but it turns out it actually is bottled in Fiji.

Finally it was time to leave. Bobby and MoMo relaxed for one last time under a vase of tropical flowers before we left for the airport, slightly tanned and having had a great time.

Bobby the Ram and MoMo do Springwood

George has been spending a lot of time working in Sydney recently, and as uni was finished for the semester we decided that I should pop up for a weekend - as it turned out, not in Sydney itself, but in the Blue Mountains, in Springwood. It was a most delightful weekend, staying in a cottage with an open fire and pottering around.

It's been a while since Bobby the Ram and MoMo had had a decent break, so they came too. And posed for pictures.

In the brief time I had in Sydney before meeting up with George, I spent a while in the Queen Victoria Buildings, enjoying coffee and cake and admiring the restoration.

Edited to add: in view of the tragic events that happened at the QVB on Sundau night, which were reported after I had published this piece, I have removed the photos and other references to my time there, as it seems inappropriate.

Then I was able to meet up with George and we ate a delicious French meal in a tiny French restaurant. Bobby's time in rehab has obviously been a complete waste of time :(

There is a fabulous secondhand bookshop in Springwood. These books followed me home - useful for Lit studies, of course.

Bobby and MoMo enjoyed brunch in a trendy Springwood cafe.

We went to the Norman Linsday museum, and of course, there had to be a Magic Puddin'.

I Know Not What I do

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Peeping From Under the Table

A month ago I wrote a post about participating in Me-Made-May. I then didn't write anything else during that month, but kept telling myself it would be fine because I would make myself post at least once a week during May to explain what I was wearing that I had made myself.

Now it is the last day before the start of May and I am exhausted and a little stressed from university assignments and feeling rather not like forcing myself to do anything. In fact I seriously want to hide under the table and let the whole world pass by for a while. Except that I would have to take a pile of books and my laptop in there. And snacks. And if so, I might as well write *something*, maybe even find some photos of something. Anything other than rewriting a short story for a major assignment!

George and I spent a week in northern NSW and southern Queensland over Easter. Among other things, I was hugely taken with a sculpture in Brisbane called Forme del Mito by Arnaldo Pomodoro. It tells the  story of Agamemmon from Ancient Greece. Fabricated in cast bronze each piece has its own identity. ‘The Prophet’ Cassandra, ‘The Machine’ Aegisthus, ‘Ambition’ Clytesmnestra and ‘Power’ Agamemnon King of Mycenea.  I think it was commissioned for the World Expos that was held in Brisbane in 1988. 

It was, presumably, inspired by the gold death mask of Agamemnon, which is displayed in Athens after being found at Mycenae:

These are three of the scultpures:

I thought they were very beautiful, atmospheric and exciting.

I also really liked this scultpure in the main mall, I think, which is shell shaped and kids can worm their way through it:

Hand Made

I haven't blogged for a month but have been productive, just not in the photographing and writing sense. The only finished piece of dressmaking is the totally handsewn Alabama Chanin inspired dress that I am blogging about today. There are another two dresses partially sewn waiting by the sewing machine, too, plus another cut out but not started, and fabric washed and prepared and patterns prepared to cut out another three things. (And uni starts on Monday, so I'm not really sure how quickly any of that will progress!) There are also two small shawls finished but not blocked or photographed.

I love the Alabama Chanin look (there's a link to her site on my list of links on the side of the blog, if you don't know what I am talking about) but for my first go I did not want to go to all the trouble of the stencilling and reverse appliqueing and stuff that looks so fantastic but I suspected I would get bored and grumpy with it. I intended to do a very simple tunic/short dress and make a feature of the seams with contrasting thread and possibly a little bit of stitched embellishment, just using one layer of jersey. In the end I gave up on the embellishment because I found it impossible to keep my tension on one layer of jersey - doing the seams and binding was easier because it was always at least two layers, so if I do another piece (and I would like to) I might consider double layers and a touch at least of reverse applique or something similar.

I used 1 metre of 100% cotton jersey from Clegs (navy blue), and the heaviest Guterman thread (uphosltery, perhaps? I can't remember) used double (bright red). I drafted the pattern from a jersey nightie I love could easily be worn as a dress, and it fits comfortably.

Navy blue is incredibly difficult to photograph. It didn't seem to matter whether I used natural light, filtered light or flash, it never came out the right colour. It is an ordinary, bog standard navy blue. It looks abominable just hanging on a hanger but I promise it looks better on, I'm just terrible at selfies.

This is a detail of the stretchy stitch I used to attach the bindings round the neck and armholes. There are a variety of options but I liked the simplicity of this one. The seams and flat felling are done in running stitch.

This is just another stitching detail, the same as before, but it gets a bit closer to the real colour.

I haven't worn it yet but will soon. Yes, I know summer is technically almost over in Australia, but there is always substantial warm (and often hot) weather during March and sometimes into April, and it's also designed to be a layering piece worn with a long or short sleeved Tshirt underneath and over jeans or leggings, so I intend to be able to wear it all year round.

It was fun to do. Yes, it was time-consuming, as you would expect with a totally handsewn item, but I could do it all in front of the TV and it was oddly relaxing to do. I'll have to wash it in a lingerie bag on the delicate cycle but that isn't a huge imposition. I really enjoyed the handsewn ethic, down to the fact that I drafted my own pattern from something I already owned.

Fun With Sharp Needles

Fianlly, what I started at Geelong Fibre Forum last year has been finished. Well, more or less finished - it is a triptych and I can't decide how to arrange them or finalise the piece.

The work is called (at the moment anyway!) We Look At The Land Through Different Eyes, You and I.

I won't go through every step of the technique I used, as Carolyn Sullivan teaches this and it is definitely not my place to reproduce her class! But I will run through the main steps.

The base for these pieces is wool/viscose felt from Spotlight - good quality and nice to handstitch through. Then I used an embellisher machine to apply bits of hand-dyed scrim (by me) and prefelt (not dyed by me), embellished a few pieces of hand-dyed silk ribbon (not dyed by me either). Then lots of stitching in Appleton's crewel wool, two strands in the needle - mostly kantha stitch and seeding stitch. Then I ran the embellishing machine over the whole piece again to embed the woolen stitches (and make sure the other bits were thoroughly embedded. Finally, lots of kantha and seed stitching in variaged perel cottons (commercially dyed).

The inspiration - we spent a morning sketching views and close-ups near Geelong Grammar, and taking photos too. During the afternoon of fiddling around with our sketches, narrowing down possibilities and in many cases making further sketches from photos, I settled on a sketch I had made of a photo of a eucalypt.

Carolyn helped me to isolate a section of the sketch I had made. While mulling over the final sketch I was suddenly sparked by memories of a lecture the previous night by an artist whose name I have forgotten, and a book I studied for Literature - That Deadman Dance by Kim Scott - and came up with the idea of looking through the tree and seeing the landscape at morning and night out over the water, and in reverse from the sea to the bush and midday. Using the lines of the bark and seeing the background through them - to me it gave me the idea of a 'ghost gum' - not in the sense of the actual gums that are known as ghost gums, but a ghost of the past/present/future of the landscape and the people.

It's another example of slow creating, as it took quite a while, but I can honestly say that I loved every second of doing this work. So much so that I have another one at the design stage, vaguely inspired by Mrs Dalloway - I certainly didn't start out intending to create works based on books I am studying, but it seems to be turning out that way right now!

Edited to add - an embellishing machine is a needlefelting machine - it looks like a sewing machine but is much lighter and has a set of needles (5 in mine) with barbs which mesh threads together when you run it up and down through the fabric. I have the cheapest domestic version.

One Word To Rule Them All

I've read a few blogs around the place about choosing one word to inspire them throughout the year. Apparently many bloggers have done this before. I did idly trace through some links to a website where this idea may have originated, even downloaded the 'worksheet' that was meant to help you define your special word. I then read the four page worksheet and realised that I would be wasting an hour or so to whittle down choices of a word that I would then completely fail to live up to, just like I do with all but the vaguest resolutions.

Damn it all, I thought in disgust, what I need to do is stop dithering around and FOCUS.

Oh, look, there's a word that might be quite useful in organising myself this year. Oops, it seems like I accidentally picked out an appropriate word while railing against the idiocy of trying to pick a word.

So, completely against the grain, I am declaring that my word for the year will be FOCUS.

Focus, to me, includes concentrating on what I actually WANT to do. Obviously there will be things that I NEED to do. But where possible I only want to embark on projects that fulfil a desire including both making and the result.

Despite the post in December about sewing, I realised that I had been dithering about all over the place NOT sewing. I cut out those two patterns, spent some time tissue fitting and writing down alteration stuff, washing and ironing appropriate fabric. Then every time I considered cutting out the fabric and making those alterations, my mind turned into a butterful and my attention was caught by something shiny. Once I started focussing on what it was that was preventing me from sewing these dresses, in fabric that I like and that I actually want to wear, I realised that I did not actually want to sew them. I would have bought those dresses but the process was putting me off.

Consequently I have packed those patterns away and picked some others from the stash, and will have another go at sewing. I feel quite OK about that - I wasted about six weeks of not sewing, but actually applying FOCUS helped me to work out why I had wasted that time. Now I suppose I may have to provide future proof that sewing has happened, so here's hoping!

I have done some baking for the first time in ages - Peasant Bread - which was quite delicious and very easy. It's a no-knead bread that was quite literally easy to mix by hand (in this lovely rustic mixing bowl) even with my weak wrists. You bake it in a Pyrex bowl, which I did, though I might try it in a bread tin next time to see if it gets crustier.

I also started knitting a new little shawl once I finished the Nuvem last year, It is another iteration of  this shawl but this time in a semi solid Woolmeise sock yarn, of which I have 150g so it will be a bit bigger. It's my first time knitting with Woolmeise and it is a bit odd.lovely colour but although being the usual sock mixture of wool and synthetic it feels and knits rather like a cotton yarn. Which does not matter at all as there is no need for gauge in a shawl but I did start off trying to knit socks with it and my gauge was all over the place. It is not really pink like this picture, but a lovely red, I just couldn't get the light right at the time.