Fibre book and market haul

Juicy fruit: lemon

I have finished the third fruit motif for my fibre book (the other two finished are pomegranate and fig). The lemon is stitched in long and short stitch (sort of) in stranded cotton. Also used silk perle, organdie ribbon, seed beads, and fused organza and cotton for appliqué leaves, stitched on osnaburg. Other stitches used – ribbon stitch, straight stitch, back stitch, stem stitch, whipped stem stitch and blanket stitch. The design is from 4000 flower and plant motifs by Graham Leslie McCallum. I made up the rest. I am pleased with the sparkle of the organdie ribbon and seed beads to depict the juiciness of the cut fruit. The colour of the leaves are a bit pale, at least compared to our lemon tree, but hey its ‘art’ right, not real life. That means I can do what I want! And the pale leaves, while not accurate, actually look quite nice – trust me! Trying to take photos in the dark in kitchen rather than waiting for daylight – sorry about the shadows.

The markets

The new farmers markets at Manly were wonderful. We were shaded by trees (very important even in winter); the sun was sparkling off the water, lots of stalls, and lots of shoppers. We used to drive into the farmers markets at New Farm (back in the old days when fuel was less than $1 per litre….) but no longer. The farmers markets at Manly are on the waterfront (bay, not beach) between the marina and a playground, and only about 6 km from our place. First through the gate was the lollypop lady. Four lollypops later (Matt didn’t want to walk around the market sucking a heart shaped lollypop for some reason; mine was rose flavoured) we set off in search of lunch. Didn’t buy much in the way of fruit and veg, (nothing we can grow ourselves) but couldn’t go past some tiger prawns. We don’t eat seafood anymore. I’d like to pretend it is because of my environmental sensibilities about overfishing, but frankly…we just can’t afford it anymore (of course I am worried about overfishing too…being poor is a great way to be green). But these prawns looked great, and because Jimmy is the only kid in the family that’ll even contemplate eating a prawn (unless it’s crumbed and deep fried and thus unrecognisable) we didn’t have to buy too many (we got 14 of them – 500 grams which is approx 1lb). Millions of strawberries around, and Rudi the profiterole man was there, so we had profiteroles and strawberries for morning tea near the playground. Also bought some marinated olives and Boemische sausage for lunch (with salad from the garden of course). Rice and beans for the rest of the week now!