Spring!!

Spring!!

The weather was pretty good this week, indeed, unbelievably fabulous on Sunday and we even ate outside twice at the weekend without everything blowing away. The ground is actually dry and the wild cherry blossom looks lovely. There are hundreds of white anemones growing through the dead, winter bracken that may inspire a Yurt panel when I remember to take my camera on a dog walk. Fergus got a new bike since he wasn't looking forward to doing his cycling proficiency course at school on his sister's old one which was purple and too small. I was rather taken by a traditional ladies' bike with a wicker basket so wasted a little while on the Internet looking up Dutch bicycles in case I took a notion to cycle 4 miles for a carton of milk. Those bikes look such fun in Holland but the reality here in Scotland is that the main roads are too busy and the off-road tracks are too stony for that sort of contraption.

As it was school holiday week two I felt concerned that I was not progressing with business related tasks so got stuck into finishing off 3 customer quilts and a tote bag project that had been hanging around for a while. The bag was a little frustrating because it had an odd windmill construction method and I did not find it easy to get the lining to behave. I had hoped to have alternating coloured churndash blocks but seem to have ended up with a red side and a purple side. I utility quilted Catherine's Aussie animals, Alison's scrappy elephants and sewed the binding onto another quilt that I did before we went away.

The faulty Kitchenaid mixer had to be collected and will be swapped for one that doesn't mind making bread dough so I had a cooking frenzy one day trying out all of its attachments. It did a really good job of pancakes, pizza dough, mango yogurt ice-cream and also mincing cheese and basil. The children were impressed by all of this activity in the kitchen but after washing up a sinkful of dishes about 6 times I remembered why I am not a full time domestic goddess.

The APQS Lenni on the 8ft Bliss frame arrived from the USA and I put most of it together by myself. It looks great and I have had a practice piece on it. I love my great big Millennium but I think the Lenni is lighter and far simpler to use. There are no adjustments to make on the track or wheels although I was a bit frustrated that there was some vibration at certain resonances. This improved dramatically after we took off the castors. I may have to do a few minor tweaks to get it running as perfectly as I would like. Space is now rather limited in my longarm room; I could do with being a bit slimmer to get past Lenni to the back of Milli but I would prefer to keep the other room free for workshops and small classes.

All in all, I was pleased with my progress for the week and should be able to go to Inverness with the Yurt this week with a clear conscience – after I have done everything on my To Do list for Monday!