Crazy Busy

This week at work was all demos, teaching and customer quilting as well as cracking out the machine inventory, preparing the classroom and all of my usual dashing about. Every evening I did some extra hours for my Friday job because they were short staffed. I was glad when the weekend rolled around and I did not have to set an alarm.

Consequently, last week’s laundry still has not been folded, my “sewing room / office” is in a muddle and I have been eating the same thing every day to save time. 

The Slug Pub was not a success. I was feeling triumphant the first night because there were 3 of them in the beer trap but by morning they had sobered up and dragged themselves off to wherever they hide. I ate 2 slightly under-ripe strawberries before they stole them from me. 

I was determined to do very little this weekend but that did not seem to include cutting the grass, re-potting tomatoes and chilli peppers, dog walks, batch cooking, hoovering, and grocery shopping. I WILL go and add some stitches to that patchwork coat…

Slainte Mhath, Slugs;)

First I tried straw, then I teased out wire scourers to apply as mulch, splitting open the end of my thumb but NOTHING seems to stop the pesky slugs that are trashing my strawberries. I have been out at dusk with a trowel, waging war against the slimy pests. My next strategy is to put out beer traps, otherwise I will not be able to eat a single homegrown strawberry without biting into something vile and squelchy. 

It was all-systems-go at work with customer quilts. I think 4 different ones were on the frames this week ranging from brightly coloured Kaffe Fassett fabrics to more traditional combinations. 

I had hoped to declare my patchwork coat pieces done but I could not do any hand-stitching unless I put a plaster on my thumb, which was very awkward. The coat pattern is for a single layer of unlined boiled wool so I have to figure out how to add a lining to hide all of the scruffy insides. It is times like these when I really miss having a big work table. 

I worked out that I only have 5 free weekend days to quilt the 2-person show quilt that I was hoping would be entered into FoQ. It does not feel like enough time and I don’t fancy having no weekend time off between now and the end of July, apart from Nella’s Graduation. I am disappointed because I thought I had come up with a good plan but it needs to be achievable as well as impressive so we will either have to defer the quilt or just apply an edge-to edge pattern. 

I have to say, full-time working has killed off any creativity I may have had. When I get home from work I really can’t be bothered to do very much - take Nessie out, eat, make packed lunch, perhaps an hour of telly, then bed! Gone are the long days of working on a show quilt at the expense of absolutely everything else…