A Week With Some Free Time - W/E 7th December 2024 - Part 2

Following on from my last post, Thursday this week was another day off. I booked into the gym first thing and took myself off for a good workout.  When I got back, I had wanted to trim the ivy hedge in the front of the house, as it was getting a bit overgrown, but it was a bit wet, so it will have to wait for dryer weather. 

As a consequence, I decided to do some sewing for the rest of the afternoon. There were quite a few sewing jobs on my to do list and I wanted to make some progress with it. I decided to start in the shed, sewing velcro onto the sofa, to hold the new cover in place. 

It takes quite a long time to sew the velcro on the sofa, partly because of the thickness of the fabric and the velcro itself. It takes it's toll on your fingertips. I managed to sew three quarters of the front strip of velcro on before I started to lose the light, so I had to stop for the day. I'd made good progress though.

I then decided to do some other sewing jobs indoors. The first job was to sew a new zip into a jacket I wear to go to the gym. The zip on this jacket broke a week or so ago, so I ordered a new zip and tacked it into place. I just needed to machine stitch the zip in place, which was a fairly quick job.

Once I'd done that I moved on to making another seat cushion for the chair I sit on in the kitchen. I made an Xmas version this time, using blue and green Xmas scraps from my stash. I was pleased with the outcome. Here's a picture:

In the evening, OH and I decided to head to our local mall for our usual yearly Xmas shopping trip. We like to go early in December before it gets too frenzied. I didn't really need to buy anything much, but I did need to try to exchange something I'd bought for LB for a different size. We decided to eat out which made a nice change. We got everything we needed and then had a drink in a bar there before heading home.

Thursday, was a bit more productive in terms of completing things on my to do list. I think I completed 5 or 6 items from the list, which was much better progress.

Friday, was my last day off before going back to work on Saturday, so I really wanted to make the most of it. When I got up the sun was shining and the ground was dry outside, so after breakfast, I decided to do the job I hadn't been able to do the day before, namely trim the front hedge.

It didn't take long and looked so much better. Here's the before:

and after pictures:

I did a bit of a hachet job on the ivy, but it's so resilient and grows back really well. It all looks a lot neater. I also removed quite a bit of moss from the front path and pavement outside the house. I'm not anti-moss, but it can make paths slippery and treacherous in the winter.  It was a quick job, taking little more than an hour. I then re-filled some bird feeders after cleaning them and went in for lunch. Two more items off my list, another bag of leaf mulch to rot down and some ivy trimmings to decorate the house.

After lunch, I went back into the shed and did more work on attaching the velcro to the sofa. I got a bit further with it and am almost half way around. It's going to take quite a bit longer than I thought, maybe I should have bought the stick on velcro for this job. It would have been a lot quicker.

Once the light had gone again, I came indoors as I was getting very cold. When I got back inside, I'd had a delivery of some more vintage ornaments for the tree, that I'd bought on eBay.  These were a lot cheaper than the pine cones. I thought they were going to be glass, but they were in fact plastic.  It didn't detract from their cuteness though and I immediately put them on the tree. Not before taking a photo, of course:

The late afternoon/evening was then spent tackling another item on my to do list, namely the ironing basket, which was full. Later still, after supper, I did a bit financial reconciliation for November and finally did  a bit of work on my hexi quilt. Not as many things ticked off today, only three, but good progress made with others too, which is all good.

On Saturday, I was due at work for 11am, so I couldn't go to the last free gym session of the year, which was a pity. Anyway, work was good. It was fairly busy all afternoon, so the time passed quickly and I was on my way home again. I did drop into Poundland next door for a few bits before heading home. 

We just chilled in the evening and watched a very odd film that OH had recorded. I won't recommend it to anyone, as it was very strange. Whilst watching the film, I did some work on my hexi quilt which made for a very relaxing end to another week.