Stitch glorious stitch

Having spent a few days in France apparently to perfect the art of the parallel turn on skis, only to come down with a chest infection the day before we flew, I spent a good deal of my time near the slopes if not on them, snoozing, coughing and generally being a bit of a horror for other, less ill-inclined tourists and proper skiers.  An American may have referred to me as a CHAV, presumably unaware of what it actually means or assuming that my dusky cough was related to 100-a-day cigarette habit.  It wasn't.  I suspect it had nothing to do with smoking (because I don't smoke) and everything to do with a fun but germ-filled weekend with my sister and her children.  Anyway, there are worse places to be poorly than a sick bed with a view like this.

During that weekend, I went to a Rowan workshop at Poppy's on Colliergate in York.  During a break I had a wander round and realised that within a ten minute walk there are at least four craft or textile related shops.  Grace and Jacob, Craft Basics, and Ramshambles, and Poppy's of course.  I was sad to hear that the Poppy's in Pocklington is closing down and the one in York is moving to new ownership.  Given the resurgence of craft activity, it's a shame that there still isn't sufficient business to keep these shops afloat.  The craft revolution was at least partly down to the idealised notion of a new age of austerity and perhaps as people have realised that making your own is not actually cheaper than buying things from the cheap high street retailers - and are actively encouraged to keep these retailers afloat - the movement was always likely to slow down.

I keep harping on about this, but ultimately making your own shouldn't really be about thrift.  Mending is one thing, upcycling another altogether (and I'm fairly dubious about that) but the pleasure of making something yourself is really pretty special and despite the cost, it's something that will be loved for a long time to come, especially if you invest in the raw materials.  I'd rather spend the extra money on really good yarn (and then why would you skimp on needles, they'll last you a lifetime after all) then have another top cluttering up the dresser when after a mere 20 hours of knitting (or so) I could have a lovely garment that I'd made myself.  I'm going to slide past the fact that I haven't completed my jumper yet - it's too warm to wear a shetland wool sweater anyway - and say that the knitting process has significantly cut down on my knitwear spend this winter as I've been anticipating my own creations.  It WILL be ready for next year.

Aside from that the course was great - it was really good to sit in a room full of knitters with varying numbers of years experience, and chat about yarn, needles, and our own trials and tribulations with finishing.  It has encouraged me to keep a record of all the things I have made so I can chart my progress a little.  I can also report that the bonnets and booties I've made for a couple of friends whose babies have arrived at last both look very professionally finished (in my view) so lots was clearly learnt.  So much so, that I'm planning to attend another Rowan workshop soon - probably in colour work (more on that below).

Apparently Rowan also offer a Knitwear Design workshop (two-days at the Rowan Mill) but try as I might, I've not been able to find it.  Rowan - if something gets booked in, please could you let me know!  Might be a stretch but you never know with this world wide whatnot. 

While in York I was lucky enough to have a look at a wall hanging my sister has.  My maternal grandmother (the crafty one) made it and looking over it, it looks like a type of crewel work.  Thick wool embroidered onto a diagonally stretched piece of linen.  It was hanging in the house throughout my childhood and I always loved it - the heron on the right always looked to me like a fairly knowing chap and the scale of the piece felt exhilarating to me, particularly because of my relative smallness to the piece itself.  More than ever, I can't wait to start the crewel work module at the RSN now.  It will be an amazing experience. 

I am due to start swatching for my first commission this weekend – I’m knitting a lace bed jacket from Susan Crawford’s Stitch in Time.  For the first time, I’m also really looking forward to getting swatching.  Deborah Newton’s Finishing School has inspired me to think about the swatch as a working test fabric that has a life of its own throughout the construction of the garment.  I think my boyfriend thinks I’ve completely lost it (actually “addicted” was his exact phrase) as it’s an unputtdownable read and having to put it down to do things like, I don’t know, go to work etc has caused some irritation.  So I’m looking forward to actually thinking about the swatch rather than suffering through it, and using that as a working document if you like as I knit my way through the bed jacket.

(Susan Crawford; A Stitch in Time)

To test a few skills I thought I might need for the bed jacket I've been working on a baby cardigan.  As you can see from the change of colour on this baby cardigan, I’ve grasped the concept of seamless colour change but haven’t quite mastered doing it perfectly consistently; and I really want the inside of something I make to look as neat as possible so I already know that this is going to niggle me.

Inside of front left

Nervous as I’ve not set a sleeve in before on a knit garment, I finished off the baby cardigan I’ve been making, which is a MilliaMia design and will now be given to a friend’s newborn to road test. 

Sleeve pinned and ready to sew

Given that came off the needles a couple of weeks ago it has taken me a while to do the finishing and I’m now itching to get started on a new project.  I’ve also missed the sewing machine so want to start on a top (for me!) as soon as I have time.  Cutting something out and putting it together is such a different sensation to making a fabric yourself with needles that it will be nice to try something else. 

Ta-da! (MillaMia cardigan)

On that note, I had a go at free machine embroidery the other day.  Results were patchy but what a liberating way to use a sewing machine.  If the word “addicted” was bandied around before, I’m not sure this is going to help the situation.  Saying that, I could do with a few weeks just to focus on making so a sojourn to some kind of rural retreat (for my own good) might be quite timely.  Sadly, unlikely.

In the meantime, my father and his wife have been clearing through some of their family things and have found lots of embroidery related bits.  I was a very grateful recipient of a Mary Thomas embroidery dictionary and a Coats stitch dictionary, and boxes of beautiful embroidery silks in every possible shade of green, pink, blue, orange and brown.  I started reading the dictionary as soon as I got home last night and it’s impossible not to be boggled by the 300-odd stitches to master.  I’m going to take Thomas’s advice and start a sampler so that I can practice as many of the stitches as possible before the RSN.  It’s a lovely book; particularly touching is that it’s got an inscription “May 1952” inside the front flyleaf.  This book has been used and loved for sixty years, pretty much since the moment of its printing.  As my birthday is in May, I’ve taken that as a sign it was meant to be passed from an expert embroiderer to a fledgling starting out on their stitching adventures. 

I’m on a bit of a high after spending Saturday morning with Catherine Hirst who I first met at a class at the Make Lounge during which she refreshed the memories of rusty intermediate knitters about pattern jargon and pushed us past the safe confines of the flat square knit item.  Much as I’d been knitting since I was little, it was sporadic, always square, and never useful.  Since that class, I’ve had several 1:1s with Catherine and it’s probably the reason I’ve started attempting to make actual things.

So, on Saturday we had a whistle stop session on the ins and outs of designing knitwear, specifically a pencil skirt.  Catherine has an amazing way of cutting through the complicated bits and making it sound very simple.  It must work because I had to knit another tension swatch and I was able to translate what we did on Saturday to my new gauge on my own which was reassuring. 

I probably shouldn’t say this out loud but here I go.  It’s all maths, and I loved it (less so the measuring part but it did push me out of the door running this morning so that's something).  I’ve always enjoyed maths but have a pretty instinctive ostrich response when called upon to use it; this was very fun if a bit confusing at times.  I spent a very happy 90 minutes on Sunday evening tootling around measuring things and doing calculations.  I have realised that owning a calculator would be quite a handy thing especially when using the calculator on my mobile which switches to locked mode the minute your gaze shifts; and I'm not so confident that I haven't emailed asking Catherine to check my maths. 

Also don’t try and avoid blocking the tension swatch – I didn’t with the first one and felt very sheepish when Catherine arrived.  I did with the second and it definitely helped with measuring up and to get a sense of what the finished knit fabric will look like.  Obviously knitting the correct number of rows would also have helped but I had enough and the sums all worked out proportionately but next time I would make a note of how many rows I should have done rather than remembering that it was 40-something and working to that.

Having knit the first swatch Continental, the comparison with the English knit second swatch was also interesting - I don't have any pictures but I've got to figure out a way to even up my tension on both knit and purl sides with Continental.  It looks quite lumpen which is fine on the jumper I'm (still) knitting as the yarn is variegated but on something like the skirt yarn, which is a smooth and consistent colour, it looked pretty choppy.

Catherine brought Debbie Abraham’s book “Design your own knitwear” and that had some incredibly useful hints and tips in it.  I’m going to pick up my own copy and I can already tell it’ll be something I end up reading cover to cover.

In the meantime, with the Olympics looming (boo hiss) I’ve been very lucky that my boss has allowed me to take some unpaid leave in the summer to do one of the RSN certificate (in Technical Hand Embroidery) modules full time.  I haven’t studied full-time since I was 18 (I did my degree part-time at Birkbeck) so am really excited about being a proper student again even if it is only for two weeks and a rather painful commute.  Can’t wait.

The creative writing course is also paying dividends – it’s rekindled my dormant love of reading, which I think was put into hibernation by the turgid academic material I had to read for my HR Masters; and I’m starting to write again, not just the homework but all sorts of new ideas are floating around and finding their way onto a page.  It’s been really interesting reading the other students work, although it’s daunting having to put your work out there for others to read.  We have a workshop this week so it’s quite a gentle introduction to the world of criticism but for most of us it seems to be the first time we’re letting others see what we’ve written.  There were a lot of raised eyebrows and panicky exchanged glances.  All good experience though.

Quilty pleasures

I’ve been having such a great time crafting that I’ve not had a chance to update the blog.  I’ve finished a second quilt, again a really simple set of squares with diamond quilting which I plan to give to my niece, and am currently plotting a larger quilt with a saw tooth star motif in the centre.  Over the weekend I also had a dabble, admittedly after a glass or two of wine on Friday night, with an alternative log cabin style pattern.  There may well be a name for it, and I’ll take pictures once I know more where it’s going, but the block will be made up of four sections and a central square (turned on its side).  So far, it looks really interesting as I’ve not been cutting straight and using slightly wonky off cuts to make the edges with a view to squaring the block once it’s sewn together. 

The jumper is taking shape but I’ve slightly lost motivation at the end of sleeve one and as spring starts to thaw given I know the jumper won’t be wearable until next winter.  I’m also halfway through a baby cardigan – pattern from MillaMia – and have completed the tension swatch for a skirt I’m planning on designing then knitting.  Am having fun and games with Excel trying to figure out how to make graph paper based on my own gauge and the resources on the internet have been less than helpful.  I’d ask for comments/suggestions but honestly, if I get one more comment from a Russian Mail Order Bride service, my blood will boil and leak from my ears.  Don’t know why it makes me so cross but SERIOUSLY, what benefit can they possibly think they’ll get from spamming a craft blog.  Some people, pah. 

Prioritising the creative writing has also been a struggle but I’ve started blocking twenty minutes in my lunch breaks to do writing and hopefully that will get me to the forthcoming assignment deadline.  I had several ideas for stories I wanted to write but the tutor’s feedback (on a short piece I’d submitted for comments) was so helpful I’ve decided to develop that – will be a good change for me too, pushing past the first 750 words and actually developing an idea, narrative, story and characters.  Literally, I love the abstract.

My first submission for the Writers’ Hub is nearly finished so I hope that will go up soon and my little blurb about vintage is now on http://vintagebrighton.com/2012/02/what-vintage-means-to-me-the-bloggers/ (and I wasn’t kidding, I love that yellow tank top).

Does anyone else (not mail order bride websites please) find that the more they know about something the less confident they feel?  In some ways, when I started doing crafty things a couple of years ago (not knitting, I’ve always been a knit(ter)) I would just have a play.  Now, I tend to research myself into total paralysis and then have a sudden spurt.  So it was with embroidery until I just realised that, the worst that can happen, is that someone else says it’s rubbish.  It really spurred me on and I’ve been motoring along now.  I am thinking of investing in a stand for the slate frame though as the best place for me to get comfortable with my current home set up is to sit backwards on the sofa resting the frame on the back.  Not great for the lower lumbar at my age.  Anyway, I’ve attached a couple of pictures of work so far. 



"From a distance... la la la" etc



The detail ...

 

... and with the original image

 It was very slow going but think I’ve now spent about eight hours in total on the whole thing, with about three of them totally on my own without the wonderful Lizzy who's been teaching me; albeit I have admittedly been faffing about, unpicking things, stepping back to look from a distance, threading needles (tricky), choosing colours, tidying stuff and other displacement activity. 

I took that to an extreme yesterday when having spent an hour sewing I went to get started on writing before deciding that my embroidery thread could be tidier.  I attach a picture of four hours of labelling, tidying and sorting by colour/value etc.  No writing was done.  Satisfying but much as I resisted leaving the house for the office this morning, I also realised the value of being out in the world and not being at home alone during the day to go more quietly OCD.

From two boxes and threads everywhere, to order wonderful order

Saying that, I potentially have two craft classes of my own to teach – subject to lease regulations at the venues – and am pulling together work sheets on paper piecing and learning to knit.  If they don’t come off, I might just post them on the blog for people who might be interested (again, no mail order shenanigans – see, that’s the OCD side of me coming through again).  And from a learning perspective have signed up to a creative textiles course to start in April - hopefully that will be some compensation to not being able to do the RSN course this year.  Am really disappointed but with a full-time job there's just no way I can give it the attention that I want to.  One for the future though ...

Ongoing projects include craft room blinds, the Colette Ginger Skirt and the Sewaholic Renfrew top for which I bought the most lovely John Kador fabric primarily because I thought it was in the sale.  It wasn’t.  A good lesson learnt – always check all the tags and not just the one that you think tells you what you want to hear.

Mooove over Darling

Having finished at last the quilt for my friend’s baby I’m excited about trying more challenging quilting.  It’s not a complex design - just squares sewn together although I’m considering hand quilting round some owl shapes for definition, maybe one owl per square – that it whipped up really quickly.  I stitched the squares together in rows first and then stitched the rows together.  I’ve read different things about pressing seams in quilts – pressing them open or to one side - and decided to go for the to the side option.  Given it’s for a baby, I thought that might add some strength to the stitching as they wouldn’t be under pressure where the seams were pulling apart by being pressed open. Maybe that’s factually incorrect but was my sense when looking at it. 

Sewing the rows together, I thought I had matched up the seams perfectly but on the first row one of the square is out by about 2mm.  This of course means that my rotary cutting was also off on a couple of squares but sliding past that it made me really focus on matching my seams for the rest of them and gosh darn it if it doesn’t look pretty flipping good if I do say so.  I had a bit of a tip off that the baby’s room is yellow so am glad about the colours I’ve chosen for it.  The OH thinks it’s very bright but I did remind him it’s for a baby and besides, OH lives in a world of magnolia and coffee coloured things – and in my view a bit of bold never hurt anyone.  How we’ll manage when we live together I don’t know – the first time he came to my house, I saw him balk at my Wedgewood blue dining room and vintage yellow Royal Ballet poster.  Hey ho, change is evolutionary so I’m hopeful he’ll see sense about colour adding richness and excitement to life in general.  And I am already convinced that neutrals help to bring those colours to life so there’s room for his pale (and not stale) muted tones. 

Too bright?  For a baby?

I had been hemming and hawing about what to do for the backing and binding and settled on a white cotton with a sage green stripe for the back.  For the binding I was going for a taupe mini dot and thought I’d put a thin band of this across the middle of the back to break up the stripes and unify the binding, back and front.  Once I’d pinned it together and machine quilted it was obvious that a dark solid would really pull it together so I opted for dark brown – one of my original purchases so the tip is to listen to your instinct.  Plus I’d forgotten to do the strip of brown mini-spots across the back.  Cough cough.

When putting it together, I was a bit uncertain about the basting stage.  Given time constraints and lack of experience I thought spray basting (I gather in the community of quilters I should probably whisper that) might be the way forward but given it’s for a baby and I didn’t plan to wash it before giving it to my friend (hence it being stored in a ridiculously cautious way and washing my hands every ten or so minutes when I’m working on it) spray basting concerned me slightly – what are the risks of using spray adhesive on a child’s quilt?  Anyway, after I’d rolled the top and batting together and then started smoothing the three layers together it dawned on me I was too late anyway and I quite liked the pin basting – it’s repetitive and soothing, and to quote a great man those curved pins have a “nice action”.  Sigh, Alan Partridge, how right he was. 

Onto the mojo part.  My boss brought in a selection of children’s books that she no longer needs and she thought my nieces and nephews might like.  One of them was Click Clack Moo – Cows that Type by Doreen Cronin.  I hadn’t seen this book before but I was pretty uncool when I read it.  I think “laughed like a drain” probably best describes my reaction to it.  Now it might be that I’ve been working in HR for too long, and it had been a particularly tedious day of disputes, conflict, grievances and petty griping about all sorts of stuff and nonsense that would push a nursery teacher to their limits but a simple soul like me to near hysteria - but the protracted negotiations of the cows and chickens, and then the militarism of the ducks at the end struck a chord.  The pictures are lovely and reminded me of blocks for a quilt so I thought about using them as inspiration and trying to make a story quilt for my littlest niece perhaps with a copy of the book as a gift for her.  A long-term project with all the other things I have on the go but I do like the idea (clearly I wouldn’t infringe copyright and it would be a source rather than a copy, but it is just a thought). 

My jumper hit a bit of an impasse and I had to seek expert advice – I would blame the pattern (who wouldn’t) but I can’t.  I’m always nervous about ripping back as I’ve never managed to get the stitches back on a needle when I’ve done that.  I carried the picture around with me for a day or so then spoke to someone who really does know what she’s doing and almost as soon as I had her on the ‘phone it was obvious what was wrong.  That’s always the way – sometimes I ask someone else in the team just to pop in if I’m wrestling with something technological as it always resolves itself magically as soon as they’re nearby.

We had a very relaxing weekend in Suffolk – it’s a place that really shakes the cobwebs out, not least because it’s flat and quite windy - and came home feeling like we’d been on holiday.  Then tried to change a light bulb in the bathroom.  I love my flat but it’s fair to say the DIY Dad who lived there before me seemed to have a pathological fear of a job well done.  It’s as if he couldn’t bear to get a light fitting in straight, or fix the giant hole in the ceiling he had made trying to put up something in the hallway (I still don’t know what).  He was a barrister.  Now I’m not casting aspersions on his profession or practical abilities, but something about the state of the finish of the DIY tells me he may have been better suited to more “thinking” pursuits than practical ones.  The light fitting in the bathroom is such a total b7g8er to undo and redo that it took an hour to change the light bulb.  It was not our finest moment.  Chatting to my sister last night she told me about her husband grumbling that she had forgotten to pack his mobile charger for a business trip he was packing for himself.  I was reminded of the OH’s comment as I stood on the bath several feet away from the offending light fitting looking at his grimacing and unhappy face when he dropped a bit of the fitting.  “You moved it” he squawked with not a trace of irony.  Which led to one of those conversations reserved only for couples – “how could I have moved it, I was at least a MILE away”, “ I didn’t say “you”, I said “we”, you misheard” – not convinced I managed to bite back “you misspoke” – I’ve had a bathroom in darkness since before Christmas and I really did need that light to be fixed.  Ah love, it’s not for everyone.

 

2012 projects for the New Year (or thereabouts)

Happy New Year to anyone who may be reading.  It feels I’ve missed the boat for a round up of 2011 adventures and besides, I’d much rather look forward to 2012 and all the adventures to come.

I do have a couple of pictures from my first forays into cake decorating.  This isn’t me diversifying my hobbies as frankly at this rate I will have no time for anything else.  It is an essential skill that, having made and nurtured no less than six Christmas cakes over the last few months, I simply had to learn.  I took myself to Cakes4Fun in Putney for a Saturday of cake decorating and was genuinely surprised by the results.  The tutor made everything look incredibly easy which it wasn’t, or at least certainly not for me and my impatient, large-handed self, but with a few simple techniques the class were able to pull off some pretty great results, if I do say so myself.



First steps - crumb coating



Next step - icing

Final step - decorating

Glad I got a snap of this one - the holly leaves fell off during the car journey home

So to home and the cakes for the OH’s mother and my family Christmas (the latter of which travelled to York, Putney, Winchester and then got mislaid in Winchester so didn’t make it to Devon – I hear my brother has scoffed the remainder which has to be a good sign, although the niece thought the icing “tasted funny” – well, that’s Dr Oetker’s problem and not mine; besides, I rather liked it and for us the priority was a super thick layer of marzipan – in an ideal world we would reverse the current ratio of cake to marzipan I think).

My first solo flight

Although I sewed my sister a very small Christmas token – we don’t do presents for Grown Ups – I’ve not been at the sewing machine much.  However, I have treated myself to some lovely, simple dark green 100% wool crepe from Linton Direct, suppliers to several of the top fashion houses including Chanel.  My reasoning was that every woman should own Chanel, but most women can’t afford it – I certainly can’t so this gave me a cheap-ish thrill (it was in the sale section) and I still feel rather darned special.   I plan to use this for the Merchant & Mills trapeze dress once I’ve tracked down a lining fabric (quite hard to get as excited shopping for the linings isn’t it). 



www.merchantandmills.com

My sister-in-law also very kindly gave me some fabric for blinds for the craft room.  After the “Great Light Shade debacle” of December 2011, where two lightshades arrived very squashed and then didn’t fit anyway (“what the blazes” were not my exact words but you get the gist) it will be nice to get started on the finishing touches.  I had a devil of a time cutting out and squaring up and I managed to very slightly burn the lining fabric so there is an iron shape on the top corner of the back of one of the would-be blinds.  Could have been worse I grumbled.  If these go well, I might even make blinds for the living room and take down the rather too-grand-for-the-room theatre style curtains I have up at the moment.

The OH has started mentioning moving again, and although in principle the idea sounds good, I am both incredibly attached to my flat and very averse to the hassle of moving.  Now I have my lovely new craft room the motivation dwindles further.  Oh, if only he would consider living in my lovely flat but men are funny souls and this one is funnier than most.  Clearly my almost bat-like tendency not to be dislodged from a comfortable spot also makes me a rather funny creature so I’m not complaining, just observing.  Anyway, his mentionings have meant I’ve pushed my RSN course back to later this year which is sad but practical and it doesn’t stop me continuing to learn techniques and skills.

So I mentioned I’ve not been at my sewing machine much but I have been knitting up a storm – here is even a shot of me knitting in the car on the way back from New Year in Devon. 

For reassurance I’m just backseat driving on this occasion.  It will eventually be this jumper with one important adjustment.

from http://www.knitonthenet-shop.com/

The front is done and I’ve nearly finished the back.  The reason it’s taking about half the time it should is because I quite clearly missed the festive deadline so decided to veto the colour work.  The colour work was about a quarter of the reason I decided to make this jumper, and the rest was the fabulous sleeve shape.  I’m a huge fan of 40s and 50s styling and am always sad that my day-to-day lifestyle of City work means I can’t really indulge my passion for dressing in a way that more positively reflects me.  It’s always a watered down version which only started to happen when I moved into this type of firm six or seven years ago.  I’ve noticed that the tendency to “tone things down” has spread into my home dress sense too which I think is a shame, but ultimately as you get older you tend to dress more practically anyway.  For example, for Christmas Day lunch with my lovely sister and all her lovely little people (the children, her husband is a very tall man) I had plotted a rather natty little dress and cardigan ensemble in the morning but thought about three children and their sticky fingers and opted for the failsafe jeans option.  And I was jolly glad I did – mini-Moo started teething in earnest so by the end of the meal she had wiped turkey and veg all over herself and even getting her upstairs and into a nice toasty bath meant I got covered in food too.  She looked a real poppet in her romper afterwards though – all cherubic and lovely.  Anyway, it’s just not practical to wear something that you really love in that situation as you know it’ll end up being ruined so there’s inevitably a compromise between the inner style maven and the external presentation of conservative girl about the City. 

Just before Christmas I had to work from home to wait for a couple of deliveries and it made me love my new craft room even more.  Not only could I work at my desk properly, but whenever I need to find anything, I know where it is.  Ah, well I will do – there are a few teething problems on the organisation front (anyone else find that?) but I am getting there and things are starting to find their natural spots.  Who knew I owned such a vast array of old biscuit tins although it explains a lot about my current fitness level.  Keeping things simple is definitely my motto for this type of organisation, but it’s just a case of things finding their place and me getting a proper chance to use the room more. 

I’ve already lined up my projects for the coming months which will help with that.  First and foremost I must clear away the last of the piles of dislodged debris.  Largest of these is my shoe collection which I think will need to be housed in the loft (with my rogue Wasp nest) with just a choice few pairs retained for day-to-day use.  There is currently one last Dratted Corner of Shame, the last area to be sorted and then the flat has been reclaimed from fabric, yarn etc.

Once the piles are dealt with, I need to make the blinds for the craft room, and possibly the living room (and the dining room could do with something too).  I’ve done the cutting out for the baby quilt I’m making for a friend so must crack on with that this weekend – I’m still not confident I’ve grasped doing a border but that’s a way off and I think I need to find a new fabric for it anyway.  I really need to plough on with my embroidery which has been very slow going so need to ramp that up a bit.  The knitted baby blanket also needs some attention.  I think I’m nervous of the entrelac border and so am neglecting the body of it.  Surprisingly, the border worries me less than the likely boredom of sewing a long border on; but if the worst came to the worst I could always crochet something.  I’m no longer sure that I like the colour though which is more problematic. 

Once those shoes are in the loft, the room really will take on a life of its own for working in.  It’s such a cosy spot and already feels like a haven.  Once it gets some projects under its belt I see it becoming very hard to leave.  And just in case I wasn’t busy enough, I start my creative writing course next week – all those years of writing scraps of fiction that never come together into a whole will have been good practice I hope.  Having read Dorothea Brande’s “Becoming a Writer” it certainly seems that regularly writing is the key.  Mine has never been regular but learning how to structure things would be rather useful and even if the scraps remain in the bottom drawer forever, it will still be a really interesting way to spend the next few months.  I spent a good chunk of Christmas reading the collected short stories of Agatha Christie and it has left me pondering many things about short fiction and answered a lot of questions I should reasonably not have had about why my efforts have been unsuccessful. 

So 2012 kicks off busy but it sure does make time fly.