Pottering

Yesterday morning, I had a lovely leisurely dog walk, during which I made this little video to show you the view from a path that we took. I looked around me and I was completely surrounded on all sides by cow parsley and birdsong. It was surreal, but very beautiful.

I usually WhatsApp people I know whilst I'm out walking and on this occasion I messaged a volunteer from work who is currently self quarantining at home after catching the virus. He's been quite unwell, so I've been checking up on him almost daily for the past few days, to make sure he is okay. He was feeling a little better today, which I was pleased about.

When I got home I had a lovely lazy day pottering around doing itsy bitsy jobs that I've been putting off for ages. These things were mainly located in the sewing room and included such activities as getting my glue gun out and mending as many things as I could find that needed mending, i.e. glueing the braid back on a couple of self-upholstered blanket boxes, mending a sewing box, re-attaching an owl's eye (don't ask), etc. I hammered a few nails in the wall to hang a few more embroidery frames alongside some others, put some batteries in some string lights that LB threw out and draped them over the mantelpiece and then tried to sort out and re-organise the mound of stuff on the bed.

The under bed storage bags that I'd ordered on eBay had arrived when I got back from the dog walk, so I sorted through my vintage linens and re-packed them into the bags before returning them to their home under the bed. I did take a few items out and put them into my quilting drawer to be used as fabric, mainly because they were either ripped or stained. One item I put in the bag to donate to the Give and Take, as it was a bit bobbly and not even worth using as quilting fabric. Someone else may be happy to use it for something. The new storage bags I'd bought were disappointing, as they weren't very good quality.  They'll do for now though, as I don't go into them often.

I also took some time to wrap the presents I'd bought for OH's birthday later this month and made some gift labels using some ink stamps and plain brown card tags. I still need to get him a main present - he needs a new drill - and some chocolate, but otherwise I've got everything.

Later, (despite saying that I wasn't going to start any new projects until I've finished the one outstanding quilt that is left to complete) I cut out the pieces to make another single quilt, which I'm going to wad using one of the single duvets currently clogging up the sewing room bed. I took a while to decide on the colour scheme and what fabrics to use.  It was super easy  to access them all now I've reorganised all my fabrics, but choosing ones that I felt went together well and would look nice when used in the living room wasn't so easy.

Eventually, the decisions were made and all the strips that I needed to complete the quilt top were cut and they now just need sewing together. It's going to be another simple strip quilt, no small fiddly patchwork pieces, so it shouldn't take much time at all. I am using some of my favourite fabrics, that I've wanted to use for a long time, so I will enjoy the process. I've decided that I need to just use the fabrics I like and not hoard them. It's such a waste for them to sit in drawers unused.  I'll create another post when I've sewn them all together and progressed with the project a bit more.

The one thing I didn't do today, was to continue painting the mini storage drawers for the sewing room.  After spending most of yesterday working on them, I just couldn't face working on them again today.  Maybe I'll do them tomorrow or later in the week. Once they're done, I'll be posting again about the progress in this room.

Tonight, whilst making supper, I made some mince pies in order to use up half a jar of mincemeat in the fridge and some puff pastry that was going out of date. They weren't the most beautiful specimens, but they'll be nice to have with a cup of tea and at least used up some things that would otherwise probably get thrown out.

It's been a bitty day, but sometimes it pays to just get all those little things out of the way all at once and free yourself up to do something more interesting.