Another day in the city.

No textiles to show this week - life has just got in the road. However I visited the City on Tuesday and remembered to carry the small camera - so I do have some photographs to share. On the way to the bus stop we were almost deafened by a couple of very raucous rainbow lorikeets. While they are so colourful they are also very noisy drunks! Lorikeets and parrots were very plentiful in our garden on the mountain and, while we do see the odd one here in town, there are not nearly as many. On Mt Tamborine the birds were very happy to harvest any fruit we managed to grow, except maybe the citrus, and sharing was not part of the deal as far as they were concerned . All our stone fruit had to be ripened under nets. Even green olives were not safe from the king parrots. Nonetheless I miss all those birds very much.

This is the Brisbane City Hall, a beautiful building which is currently falling apart. Hopefully it will be repaired (there seems to be some discussion at the moment on whether or not it is a reasonable thing to do) . I do feel since it is part of Brisbane's history, it would be very sad to do nothing about the problem. For many years the City Hall clock could be seen from all over the city - not so now - one can manage to see the clock face from only a very few vantage points, but at least we can hear the chimes! (If the traffic noise is not overwhelming). This year is the 150th anniversary of the declaration of Queensland as a separate state - just a youngster, really!

I love these lamps on the front of the building.

Not much lavender but some old lace!

I went to the City this morning and carried the compact camera. I found a few of the buildings that were part of Brisabane when I first arrived more than 50 years ago. The city has been almost rebuilt since then but a few of the old buildings can still be found.

The People's Palace is now overshadowed by taller, more modern buildings.

I still love its old lace.

The old Brisbane School of Arts - the middle floor of which housed the City Library for a number of years has its lace petticoat and the ground floor well hidden by the greenery that has grown so quickly.

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This was definitely not here in 1952! The multi storey carpark on Wickham Terrace has the dreariest interior but a most interesting facade. Dreary interiors must be a given for most carparks, I guess. I always find them very depressing places.

Now some real stitching to finish off. My (quite awful) experiments with Edith John's Spiral Buttonhole . I had a great deal of trouble with this but think I eventually worked it out.

The jewel colours of this DMC perle appealed to me in the shop but when I try to stitch with it on calico I wonder why. Perhaps it will look better on a dark fabric - I hope so.

I have been toiling on with another square of drawn thread work - this time it is more or less to my design. I would like to add a spiral buttonhole to this piece - but not in this thread and after momre practice!