Pale and Interesting

I started the week determined to make good headway on the Yurt book and began by printing out everything that I have written so far. There seemed to be 3 versions of an introduction and several partly completed sections. At least I can now see what needs to be done. I made headway on an article on Shape and Form despite looking up definitions in a dictionary and getting rather muddled. I just decided to write about yurts in general and the structure of mine in particular. I had to put the frame up again in order to make accurate measurements which Bruce in Vermont will need to make the USA frame. My Yurt is not what I would call precision engineered – the measurements vary slightly and seem to change if the grass is bumpy. I need to stand all of the roof spars upside down in a bucket of linseed oil since they seem to be getting brittle at the ends; there have been a few casualties, snapping off at their pointy ends that will need to be replaced.

I quilted the panel called Pi Squares with some curving lines and curved cross hatching, filled in with pebbles. The new Elna 740 machine arrived from Pembertons and I put it straight to work on couching some yarn around the circles and defining some of the curves. I am very impressed so far – it has not complained once about chomping through a quilted piece to do a bit of fancy stitching. The larger throat is great for manoeuvring a finished quilt for embellishing since the wadding I have used is rather stiff to make the texture puff up nicely.

I painted my bedroom bit by bit during the week. As I have a roll of subtly printed grey and white linen with which I intend to make curtains, I had to cover up the pumpkin coloured walls with something more Scandinavian. I used to paint walls in bold colours but I seem to be choosing paler shades nowadays – I hope it is not a sign of age! I can't say it was exciting decorating when the colour was an undramatic off-white and by the second coat I couldn't see where I had been.

I finally decided to order a Kitchenaid mixer this week as I came across a very good offer. This promotion did not apply to any of the gorgeously coloured ones so at least I was spared that difficult decision – the classic model only comes in white. This was partly prompted after I grated my thumb amongst the carrots again and I admit that I found the video clip on potato mashing impressive.

After working with all of these neutral shades there was some unexpected colour here this week – Fergus discovered a very old bottle of fake tan lotion in the bathroom cupboard and decided to apply it liberally to see whether it would work. The offending bottle had long passed its sell-by date and had a potent smell. Fergus maintained that the bottle "fell" on him. He did not consider rubbing the cream in or washing his hands afterwards so he gradually developed a patchy orange tan that fascinated everyone at school.

I ended the week getting frustrated by a program that is meant to make life simpler by synchronising my calendars and contacts between PC, phone and ipad – except that I can't get it to function in the first place and all it tells me is that my new phone is actually 4 miles away from where it really is so I expect I will have to waste some more time sorting that quirk out...