An American branch of the good ol' family tree

This is my entry in this week's Show and Tell which is hosted by Kelli at There is no place like home. I had been planning this entry and, as co-incidence would have it, the theme for this week's Photo Friday is "Old" so I am linking this post there as well.

I love looking at this picture. This woman probably died before I was born. I think the photo was probably taken in the first quarter of the twentieth century but the clothes are what we would think of as nineteenth century. To me, she looks a strong woman - strong features, strong shoulders. Do you think she looks tall? I seem to think she might be. My Aunt Molly, in the later years of her life, passed some family photographs to me. She included with the photo the following note:

• This is Auntie Cross - as we knew her. She was Mum's aunt and the mother of Charlie and Violet. I think she was Mum's mother's sister but I'm not quite sure. Charlie went off to China and used to send Mum materials, gifts - all sorts of things. You might have seen floating round the house - either yours or ours - silver ash trays with a big coin the centre and a little one near the rim - or a little pewter bowl with copper wire outside. They came from Charlie and he once sent Mum a real eggshell china tea set - you almost could read the paper through it but when you filled the cup with tea and lifted it up the tea weighed the cup down and you finished with a lap full of tea - hardly the way to treat your guests. Violet was a great friend of Mum's - she was my god-mother. For her day, she was a bit of a rebel in as much as she just refused to get married, getting very choosy about the men who approached her. Eventually she decided to go overseas. She set sail for Canada - but on a shore excursion on the way over, she fell and broke her hip. She was put into hospital in Vancouver where, of course, she knew no one. The wife of the doctor who took care of her in hospital befriended Violet and it was at her home that she met Jack Roberts - and, if he was as nice when he was young as he was when he was old, it's not surprising she married him. He was a widower and she went back to America with him. Now, in those days, if you wanted to go to America as a resident you were put on a list and had to wait until your number came up which could be years. If Violet had ever come back here for a visit, she would likely have to stay here for anything from months to years even though she was married to an American. So she didn't see any member of her family until I arrived on her doorstep back in 1960 in Columbus, Ohio. Charlie died while on some sort of patrol (I don't know what he did, actually) but there was some talk that he was murdered by natives - if you could call any Chinese natives. All over the years, Violet and Mum kept in touch sending each other letters, gifts, magazines, etc. etc. They died within a couple of weeks of each other. [This was in the mid 1960s.] Violet and Jack had one son who is called Rodney - but sometimes Dallas. I, of course, met Dal and his wife, Virginia, when I was over there and we have sent each other Xmas cards ever since. They have five children - Mum and Violet were cousins so you can work out what relationship exists between you and Dal's children. One more word about Auntie Cross - she visited us a lot when she was alive. When I became engaged to my first husband, she took me aside and offered her advice for a happy marriage - "Always", she said, "oblige your husband in the bedroom." So that is Auntie Cross who would be your great-great Aunt!

So, dear Reader, somewhere in the United States of America - almost certainly in the vicinity of Columbus, Ohio - are cousins. First cousins twice removed? Third cousins? Well, lets just settle for that quaint term, "kinfolk", shall we?

Nectar: nature's own party drug

People, including Gina, have been blogging about parrot visitations. This week Poppalina has been blogging about her daphne blossoming. So I thought I would chime in with both parrots and daphne.

Two weeks ago our daphne burst into bloom. As Herself said, you watch and watch the buds longing for the time when that beautiful scent will invade your life. But, little do you know, others are watching too: watching for just the right moment for blossom to open, nectar to peak, and a strike must be made before anyone else gets to it.

So it was that a visiting pair of Crimson Rosellas feasted and partied in a quite single-minded fashion on the shrub outside our living room window.

Show and Tell Friday - Home School of American Literature

Kelli, this Show and Tell is especially for you - because you home-school your kids.

This was an Ebay find. I forgot to check postage on this and it was quite a shock because the book is s-o-o thick and s-o-o heavy. A lesson learned. I am always particular about postage since this purchase. But I don't regret the purchase. It is a magnificent old book in wonderful condition.
While the book promotes American literature, it is not exclusively American as it contains the works of major English writers. In fact, the three portraits on the cover include Tennyson beside Longfellow and Hawthorne.
The words on the title page are as follows:

Home School of American Literature or Easy Steps to an Education or The Lives and Writings of our Best Authors embracing The great poets of England and America, famous novelists, distinguished essayists and historians, our humorists, noted journalists and magazine contributors, statesmen in literature, noted women in literature, popular writers for young people, great orators and public lecturers, etc./Compiled and edited by William Wilfred Bursall, A.B., Principal of Central School, Philadelphia; Rufus M Jones, A.M., Professor of Philosophy, Haverford College, and others/Embellished with nearly one hundred and fifty half-tone portraits and about 200 text illustrations by Charles Dana Gibson, Corwin K. Linson and Others/Published by Elliott Publishing Co., Philadelphia, PA.

The facing page to the title page has a photograph of "The New Congressional Library, Washington, D.C." On the obverse of the title page are the words:

Entered according to Act of Congress in the year 1897, by W.E. Scull in the office of the Librarian of Congress, in Washington. All rights reserved/All persons are warned not to infringe upon our copyright by using either the matter or the pictures in this volume.

The book has a specific section for Recitation.

I purchased the book because I have a small collection of the works of Rufus Jones, a great Quaker writer. Some people think that if Quakers had saints then Rufus Jones would be one!

I find books such as these a delight - and some more might pop up in Show and Tell!

Blessings and bliss to you Kelli and to all Show-ers and Tell-ers

Shelter from the wind and the cold?

The camellias are trying to get in the living room window.

Could it be the weather?

Hands on - thread and fabric

The pictures below show some of the beautiful work on display at the Open Day last Saturday of the Embroiderers' Guild.

(Click on image for a larger picture)

Clematis and a tradition in tin

On Saturday, The Director and Miss Eagle attended the Open Day of The Embroiderers' Guild at Malvern. There is a slide show below of the beautiful things. But beautiful as all those things are, the most interesting was the Clematis tin. The Director drew my attention to it. It was sitting on the floor. The Director said: "Look at that! How many Australian women have kept their sewing things in a Mac Robertson's Clematis tin." Indeed. Our mother had done just that and how it brought back memories. Out came the camera and down I got on hands and knees to photograph it. A woman came along asking if she could help me and wondering what I was doing. I explained to her. It was her tin. She told me that she had found the tin among the things of her great-aunt who used it for her sewing things. The romance of the Clematis tin.

Do others in the blogosphere have a story about the Clematis tin?

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Crafted busy-ness

Hel-l-o-o! Yo-o-h-o-o! Yes, that's me waving at you. It seems like I have been gone for yonks but I notice that I have squeaked in one post this end-of-winter August. But life has been rather busy. I have been caught up with finishing the UFO above. Back in 1992, my mother died. Left behind was an afghan rug, unfinished, which she had been working of for a Family Member. The Director, mother of the FM, could not complete it so I said I would. Occasionally, it would come out and a few more rows would be added. Since I left work, I have put in a bit more effort going around and around until it seemed reasonable to stop and add a few more inches with tassels. Then it was done. And, coincidence, The Director was coming to overnight post-conference in Melbourne.

So, I decided to do something a little extra. I'm not very crafty but I have noticed that some craft bloggers in the USA are altered paper bags. So here is my version:

This afghan had a lot of sentimental attachment so I included an old photograph of the FM's grandparents. I wanted the bag itself, if the FM agreed, to become a keepsake so I put my mothers name on it as starting it, myself as completing it, and the FM's mother as carrying it from Melbourne to Brisbane.

One of my favourite pieces of literature is the piece from Ecclesiasticus, Let Us Now Praise Famouse Men. So, changing men to women, I wrote this on the front and back of the bag. And, as you can see dear Reader, there is much decoration on the front and back of the bag.
The, as The Director's birthday is later this month, I did an altered paper bag for her birthday present. At each corner, are cardboard hearts in a William Morris design sitting on two fabric rose petals laid together to form a heart. Birthday wishes are written around the inside of the rich ribbon and the name is there in print cut-outs. The back takes the shape of a paned window.

Both Val and Gina have posted about attending the Craft Fair held here in Melbourne recently. So I thought I would mention that I attended on the Friday - and, in spite of being highly organised, forgot my camera. I was there just after 8am waiting for the doors to open at 9am and left with head spinning about 1.30pm. In an organised fashion, I had mapped out before leaving home the workshops which I planned to attend. But by the time I had done three workshops, perused every stand, and was stunned by the museum quality quilts, I decided to throw in the towel and go home.

The three workshops I did were:

1. Working beads into your knitting
2. Printing on Fabric
3. Floral Fantasy

I was well satisfied with my choices. The workshops were informative and related to my interests so I think that is why my head was spinning and I felt sufficiently satisfied to go home earlier than I had planned.

The one I enjoyed the most was Floral Fantasy led by Gabrielle of Miss Rose and Sister Violet. I have seen Miss Rose and Sister Violet many times at Gift Fair. Gabrielle's specialties are flowers and beads and all things floral and vintage. The workshop discussed how to use the flowers and beads and the whole thing was interspersed with Gabrielle's philosophy of life: everything has to be beautiful, places like Ikea are ugly and they are invading our homes, behind every nasty man is a woman who lets him get away with it! I'm waiting for the book, I can tell you.

Anyway, here at The Trad Pad we need no encouragement to scatter flowers around hither and yon but, after half an hour with Gabrielle, I have to tell you, dear Reader, I am going OTT (over the top!). So, for Miss Eagle, it is a flower strewn path into the future as far as the eye can see.

The dining room has been the first place to feel the impact. It was already on its way but there has been a huge influx.

One of the inspirations from the Floral Fantasy workshop was to take my basket collection to another level. Miss Eagle does not find cane. It finds her. To date I have painted them pretty and lined them to make them even pretty. Now they will be going floral as well. But I practised first. This basket had remained unpainted and has being doing duty in the kitchen as a vegetable basket. I had these sprays (plastic) of olives and olive leaves. So I cut them up and started applying them to the basket. Simple - but oh the difference!

And finally I resurrected this item. An old piece of EPNS that I had painted ages ago but had never been presented in the best light. Now here it is!

Riding on the sheep's back

Over at Getting Stitched on the Farm, Kristin is talking about shearing the sheep.

So, Miss Eagle thought, I will talk about sheep and shearing in Australia.

Somewhere, sometime, during the last fifty years, Australia ceased riding on the sheep's back.

This was the phrase which highlighted Australia's economic dependence on wool.

This was the phrase which highlighted our interest in the price of wool.

To-day, it's sharemarket prices and not the price of wool that captures the nation's attention.

Miss Eagle recently spotted this beautiful merino on a gate in Dunkeld in western Victoria.

Did the owners make their golden pile from the sheep's back?
From beautiful flocks like this one, near Dunkeld.

Grazing sheep near Broken Hill in New South Wales is different from grazing in Victoria.
The desert, the rocky outcrops of the Barrier Range.
These pictures were taken in August 2006 at The Nine Mile.

The above collage shows the homestead.

Greg and Mia, the owners, are drafting sheep prior to sale.
They are assisted by Greg's father, John.


This ancient shearing shed is at Acacia Vale now part of The Nine Mile.


This is the interior...
the shearer's stands...
natural light...
the sorting table...


the pens...
another view of the pens...
the view from the shearing shed...
stencils hanging on the wall waiting for use on a wool pack...
the wool press...

The trough filled with artesian water.

Amazing grace and curious wainscotting

Miss Eagle went to a preview screening of Amazing Grace last night. I talk about it over here. At Q & A time with the Panel, one gentleman started to get picky about historical inaccuracies and had to be reminded - indeed, the reminders came from the audience - that it was, after all, a movie and there was a disclaimer in the credits explaining that there was some fictionalisation and some reworking of events for dramatic content.

Miss E's view is that she may have liked things a little better had it been a Merchant Ivory production. Not that there were not some good film settings of historic interest.

But you see, a few months ago Miss E picked up an interesting book at City Basement Books: Saints in Politics: the 'Clapham Sect' and the growth of freedom. Miss E thinks it would have been rather nice to see in the movie the following depicted in a nice Merchant Ivory sort of way:

After Henry [Thornton, Wilberforce's cousin] had married, his house at Clapham was the chosen meetng place of the broherhood, and his famous library, designed by Pitt, oval in shape, and "curiously wainscotted with books" became the G.H.Q. of the Clapham campaigns.

Now, dear Booklover, don't you get carried away into a wonderful imaginary place with that phrase - "curiously wainscotted with books". The Library was designed by a Prime Minister of England, William Pitt the Younger. Surely the house still exists. And, if so, surely The Library must exist.

Well, your correspondent did a search. Miss Eagle has found reference to the house which is now known as Battersea Rise House. There is even mention of The Library:

The Oval Library built in 1797 was reputably designed by William Pitt.

Such images as I can find of the house are poor quality. I can find reference to a photograph of a drawing of The Oval Library. But I would love to have seen it - if not the real thing, then a reconstruction of a magical place - so curiously wainscotted with books.

The Glitter Fairy casts her spell.

Herself has gone all a-glitter. She has fallen under the spell of the Glitter Fairy. Miss Eagle may have to watch out - if she stands still for too long it will be a spot of glue and a sprinkle of glitter!

Herself had previously painted the A, B, and C this lovely warm pink. The paint had been on a special at the paint shop.

I had picked up some sprinkly glitter at the last visit to the craft shop.

So, this afternoon was glue and glitter time.

Here they are. All done and all a-glitter.

And then they made their way into the styling of this corner!