A little bit of what I fancy....

I'll have to live to 187 to fit in all the things I want to learn, read, see and do.
Lately, I'm working 6 days a week and spending the other day doing family stuff (mostly family LAUNDRY and family CLEANING.... occasionally visiting elderly parents or attending a children's party or two).

I decided that the answer was to capture more leisure time in the little bits of in-between.....
I've been itching to make itty-bitty ruby slippers since buying this book early in the year. In between errands in the city this week, I found myself back at Morris and Sons, and bought this DIVINE "Paddington" 6-ply 80%bamboo - 20% merino.

Last night, in between episodes of productive instruction-writing and complete brain-fry, I squeezed in a spot of slipper-knitting with it. I'm onto the other slipper now (in between page loads).

At work yesterday, in the few minutes between my brain blowing a CAD-diagram-drawing fuse and home-time, I cut up cute kiddie fabric.
Tonight before I left work, I made those scraps into bias binding and sewed a few garment seams.

I'll finish these few little baby outfits tomorrow, in between the end of the Bag In A Day class and a semi-reasonable time to go home ...and hopefully in time to give to some tiny new people on Sunday.
In between an appointment time and the actual time of said appointment this week, I learned to knit socks 2-at-a-time. I used scrap acrylic yarn, and had every intention of making the full practise-socks..... but I wanted to play with nice yarn, so ripped these off the needles.
It's all about the yarn, isn't it?
The one-at-a-time socks were finished in Post Office queues and during swimming lessons, hairdresser visits and various waiting-for-kid times. (If you ask the wee girl, "They took THREE gymnastics to make!")
In between getting the girl and bloke out the door to school/work and getting myself dressed for work, I'm fitting in a swim every second day. Yep, I'm feeling SO MUCH BETTER for the exercise, the breathing space and the think time.... and feeling a bit more like the me of old.
I've even managed to squeeze in a few early nights and a bit of reading. Love a good cracking-read potted history, me.... And I think I may have mentioned my love of costume-dramas, before...
My Sunday night viewing of late is as many episodes of Downton Abbey as my eyes can take. My head is positively swimming with Edwardian collar and pocket details.

It's amazing how many little in-between times there are, and how much can be fitted in, when it's the stuff that I love to do. Not surprisingly, in making these things a priority, I haven't spent as much time online. I think that's a good thing. I feel like I'm DOING stuff.

I'm reminded of a story a friend told me,
about a friend of hers who met an old man in Ireland
who had hand-built an extraordinarily beautiful boat.
When asked how long it took to make,
the old man said casually "Nine years"...
The friend was astounded.
The old man said, matter of factly,
"Sure, it would have taken just as long
NOT to build it."

Now....If only I could fit in the finishing of umpteen half-developed Nicole Mallalieu Design patterns, a re-working of the wholesale pricelist and a website update....

Around the edges

So, another week has passed....
Last week, some recreational sewing and knitting was fitted in around the edges of contracted work. I've been stock-piling cutesy baby fabriics for a while. Friends and family members keep expecting babies and I'm always looking for excuses to buy cute fabric.

I thought that this duck fabric was pretty unisex.... and then, when I made it up, a few second thoughts crept in. People are particular about how they dress boys, and I've only got girl-baby experience. I don't know....

I tried dark green binding. I'm still not sure....
Other cute fabric (from Kimono House) was made into a shell purse (my demonstration-model for the Shell Purse workshop). In between times, last week, I finished sewing the red beads around the edges of the frame and I'm a bit in love with it.

This book arrived last week, too.... not looking very sharp around the edges. It wasn't damaged in transit - it was PACKED with those great big dents along the side! (Thankfully, Amazon refunded me when I complained).

Apart from the dents, the book is pretty impressive.

I don't know how it rates (re: instructions) from a user's point of view, but the designs are good and the samples are well-made, which isn't always the case with bag-making books. I'm looking forward to looking through it more thoroughly.

On Saturday, we had a fun, chatty, Pattern-free Wrap Skirt class. Cathie took to the industrial iron like the proverbial duck to water and double-turned edges like nobody's business. KA-shhhhhhhhhhh!

Other achievements, fitted in around the edges of last week....
I enlisted the help of my SUPER SISTER to help me turn the bomb-site upstairs sewing room at work into functional teaching space. We now have a HUGE cutting space and a few extra surfaces and sewing machines. Hooray.

Gymnastics and swimming lesson enrolments were made for the wee girl and we somehow even made it to the try-out classes (it's only taken me 9 months to get around to organising this).

I undid nearly 10 years of recovery from sports-injured knees with a few short runs to and from the swimming pool. Back to twanging, aching knees. Oh joy.

Bought a pull bouy, so I can refine my swimming stroke (and... ahem...still swim with dodgey knees).