The fabric hoard

Oh boy.

I finally dug one of the big boxes up from the basement for a declutter. The boxes were packed so long ago that I now only have a vague memory of what is in them. This one was marked 'craft' so I knew it was more craft supplies. This is what I found:

The box was full of old clothes and scraps of fabric that I had intended to turn into a quilt at some point. I think I had wildly overestimated how much fabric was needed for a quilt, and what was suitable fabric for a quilt, and was quite clearly incapable of letting go of jeans with holes in - eight pairs. EIGHT! I have always hated clothes shopping, I think this must represent the bulk of the jeans I have owned since my early teens.

 You see that blue check dress? It was one of my favourite things to wear - when I was about 9 years old. I think I might have a hoarding problem.

I've been very strict with myself. Everything still in wearable condition is being donated (apart from one top I had forgotten I have but really like). I'll cut up one or two pairs of jeans for my quilt and the rest will go in the bin (unless anyone has any genius ideas?)

I've also got a big stack of cheap t-shirts from summer holiday activities. I'm torn between donating them to people who could really use a free t-shirt (as there is plenty of wear left - at least one of them has never been worn, and several were only worn for the individual project they relate to), and cutting them up into t-shirt yarn. What could I use it for? I could make a tarn rug but I'm not sure where I would put it, and suspect it would just end up being one more thing to clean. However, we do lose a fair amount of heat through key parts of the floor in winter...

Let me know if you have any crafty suggestions for the jeans or the t-shirt. Either way, I want the content of this box gone in short order - so I can get on with the next one!

Of birds and stones, or crafty decluttering

Hello and welcome to everyone visiting from Stitches and Seeds. I'll be joining the Around the World blog hop next week, but in the meantime if you haven't already seen Eleanor's beautiful Persian sweetie shop blanket, then get hopping!

I've been tackling my craft-related clutter recently. I've been pondering this, and particularly Rhonda's thoughts on a stash of yarn or fabric as another kind of stockpiling. My stash is just clutter - I don't know what to do with it, a lot is poor quality, none of it goes together and I still have to go out to buy new fabric or yarn for a new project.

There's one exception. I'm cutting up off-cuts and torn clothes into patches for my first attempt at a quilt for our bed (partly because I want to try quilting, partly because we don't have anything between heavy duvet and light sheets, and parly to use up the huge pile of fabric odds and ends I have accumulated). Wondering what to use for backing fabric, I came across a vast quantity (about 3m by 2.5m) of plain white cotton which I bought on the basis that white cotton would always come in handy. I bought it from 'les puces' - the fleas - at my favourite fabric shop, Le Chien Vert (the green dog). It's all the ends of rolls that have been moved to the back storeroom to save space and they are super cheap - my 3m of white cotton was €5.

I can see that with a little more understanding of the kind of things I do make, I could accumulate a small stockpile of quality, versatile, low-cost fabric which would come in useful when the crafting bug bites on a Sunday and nothing is open, and help keep the costs of that down when I'm tempted by €12/metre fabric. It's like stockpiling food - only do it with things that will keep and you know you will use. Most of what I have really falls under the heading of 'wishful thinking.'

So this has convinced me. I'm no longer going to try to go no-stash, but I do want to clear out what I have and start to think about building a small but versatile stockpile. I'm trying to find ways to clear the decks without either buying more stuff or just chucking it out, and I have had one small area of success.

Killing two birds with one stone, I have used all the leftover odds and ends from other projects involving cotton yarn to make some lovely new washcloths. I was running low and thinking of getting some nice pretty cotton for nice pretty washcloths and then decided I can do that when I've used up all my cotton stash. These washcloths are noticeably better than my first attempts - looser knit, bigger and a better pattern/texture for washing. Plus I enjoyed getting my needles out again, and the feeling of frugal smugness when knitting washcloths in leftover yarn.

Have you got any top tips for stash-busting?

Aspirational clutter

Last weekend I spent some time with my mother, a dedicated mother-daughter I'm-not-hear-to-do-the-clearning day. (Or at least that was the idea).

My mother has had a number of health issues in the last two years and I've not been able to support her in a practical sense anywhere near as much as I would like to. The price of living in another country (and a cost that seems increasingly high for the benefit.) On one notable occasion, I wasn't able to take the time off work to be there during her operation but managed to come for a weekend shortly afterwards. I woke up early because of the time difference and, with the house to myself, just started a bit of tidying. This rapidly became an epic cleaning session, partly because I just knew my mother was sitting looking at the mess and grime accumulate, feeling miserable and guilty but unable to do anything about it, and partly because once I started it was so satisfying to see the space emerge from the stuff. When I finally finished and sat down for a cup of tea with my mother she burst into tears, she was so touched and it was so lovely to be able to do something for her.

I was determined this weekend we would not get side-tracked by cleaning, but in the end we spent most of the day decluttering her bookshelves. We had a total blast and talked and talked and talked, and I was struck by how much easier it is to help someone else sort through their clutter than it is to deal with your own. All the things I challenged her on - have you ever read this book? Wouldn't you just look it up online? Does it add value to your life? - are echoing back at me in my own home.

One thing in particular struck me. The stuff we hang on to because, very deep down, we want to be the kind of person who has x or does y or knows z. I realised this a little bit when I first went through my books - I had a copy of Samuel Beckett's short stories. I read them alone in a pub when my friends were late and it was a thoroughly depressing read, made me feel utterly friendless and despondent. I have no wish to read it again, but I quite like the idea of being the kind of erudite person with Samuel Beckett on her shelf. I let go of the book.

My mother had several books on wine - in particular, guides on which wine to buy. She was keeping them because of a vague fantasy of exploring the world of wine with someone discerning. The books dated from 1996 and had never been opened, and for me it was so easy to suggest that if she does think about exploring the word of wine, perhaps she might want to either buy something up to date, use the resources of the internet, or even better, go to some wine tastings.

I do need to find a way to capture that clarity for my own things. But one thing I have let go of is the lace pillow. I learned how to make bobbin lace at school when I was about 10, and I loved it. I have since then accumulated bobbins, books, patterns and a lace pillow but have never made anything out of bobbin lace. I have finally acknowledged that, at least at present, I have limited time for craft activities and I prefer to invest my time and energy into things like knitting and sewing which give me practical, useful and wearable outputs - I don't really know what I would make bobbin lace for.

It was a bit of a wrench but I have let go of the image of a life when I can spend hours clacketty-clacketting the bobbins to make beautiful, delicate lace. 

I have also tested my fabric stash and given away all the synthetic fabrics which realistically I will not use. For some reason, I have never thought of craft materials as clutter because they are 'useful' and crafts are an integral part (for me) of a more simple, homemade life. Now I see that one of the areas I have accumulated the most clutter is in the various crafts I would like to do but have never really had time for. I have NEARLY got my entire craft selection to fit tidily into my craft cupboard, with four substantial exceptions - my current work basket, my yarn stash, my ragbag and the pile of odds and ends intended to become a patchwork quilt. (So really, it's not nearly at all...)

The thing most holding me back is a wish to be a thrifty crafty creative person who finds a use for old discarded things, rather than just throwing them away, but to be honest I have more things and ideas than I have time to implement them. I also have a stash of dubious quality, bought before I had learned what I liked or planned what I wanted to make - and this stash is preventing me from getting started on projects I know I will enjoy and benefit from. Time to let the stash go?

The crafty home

This post is part of a series on homes that inspire me, as part of mulling over what my dream house looks like and to help motivate gmy declutterin. Part One | Part Two | Part Three | Part Four | Part Five

This home is rather different from the others I've blogged about. It's not an example of small-space living or building your home from scratch, but rather of making a space utterly your own. (Warning: this is quite a picture-heavy post.)

Source: seedsandstitches

Hannah is a professional stylist/design/generally creative person, which is blindingly obvious as soon as you land on her blog. She made the (I think) very brave decision to become a mother at what is now a relatively young age (though as my boyfriend's grandmother likes to remind me, for previous generations having kids in your mid twenties was already late, hint hint hint...). She left the world of steady employment and is now making a career as a freelance writer/styler/generally creative person.

Source: seedsandstitches

Source: seedsandstitches

What I love about these pictures is how an already beautiful space becomes totally alive, thanks to the simple, personal and often seasonal touches she uses. Some of the things I love, some are less my style, many I would never think of in the first place, but she has made her home a space that speaks very warmly of her, her life and her imagination. I am increasingly aware that my home is rather impersonal in some ways - I have all these ideas and never really have the time/discipline/competence/courage to implement them. Hannah's blog is gradually giving me the courage to make some bolder moves in my home.

 Source: seedsandstitches

Source: seedsandstitches

The same space evolves through the year - all the photos below are of the same kitchen table through the seasons:

 Source: seedsandstitches

Source: seedsandstitches

 Source: seedsandstitches

Source: seedsandstitches

Source: seedsandstitches

I love that's both simple and chaotic, colourful and calming, and above all - unpredictable. This is not a home you could pick out of a catalogue, it's been pieced together like a patchwork quilt, with colours and patterns that my brain tells me don't go together while my eyes point out that this is quite evidently not true.

Source: seedsandstitches

Definitely food for thought. Plus she's given me some fabulous ideas for homemade birthday and Christmas gifts.

Pictures from http://seedsandstitches.com/ used by kind permission.

The dilemma of decluttering

I love reading about de-cluttering. I love the idea of getting rid of all the stuff that's clogging up my space and my energies. But I also love the idea of being ultra-frugal, of avoiding waste and getting as much use as possible out of something before passing it on or disposing of it. And these two often come into conflict. Add into the mix that I am by nature a MASSIVE hoarder, and struggle to let go of the most mundane, useless, impersonal things (say, a packet of noodles that's several years past it's use-by date), and you have a constant inner battle over what to do.

A classic example of this is my craft pile. Consisting of half-finished projects, fabric and wool bought for things I've not yet made, and numerous scraps and old clothes which I am holding on to in case I ever take up quilt making, this pile spreads through three cupboards, the wardrobe, under the bed and most recently, a growing pile on the sofa. Hardly ideal!

So I'm slowly trying to work my way through my project pile and my stash, as this is the only answer for both frugality and decluttering. My latest achievement: an oven glove! This project was started quite recently (I ran into issues with insulation) but is pretty frugal - the main part is made from a tea towel I picked up in a flea market in Finland (isn't it gorgeous?!) for a tiny sum, and the mits are cut from odds and ends of previous projects. I did buy the binding and the insulation, but there's plenty of insulation left for me to make further oven gloves as gifts. (Although one way of looking at this is: I have added more to my stash than I used up in this project...)

Honesty compels me to admit that I did get the main panel on the other side (hidden in the photo) the wrong way round but after four and a half hours, I couldn't face unpicking everything. The stitching is also a little messy as I had to sew over the bias binding several times to catch all the edges, but this is the first time I've used bias binding so I'm pretty happy with the way it came out. And it works!!

Clearing the crafting decks

Following the completion of the second set of miniature stocking advent calenders, I am being very focused and non-spontaneous. I am aiming to finish off ALL of my works in progress before I start on anything new. I have several on the go, which is adding to the clutter and mess of my crafting supplies. I am working up to sorting through these supplies but want to do myself the favour of clearing as much out of the way as possible before I do so.

Step forward, WIP number one: cross stitch panel.

Never again

I have finally - finally! - finished the second miniature stocking advent calendar. I completed one of these for each of my two young cousins, and it has taken me about two years to do both. Finally I can sit back and relax! (Well, not quite - I have a few more Christmas presents to work on!)

The stockings sure do look cute, but boy did they take some work! Each stocking contains four pieces of cotton cut to my own homemade template. One piece of cotton is embroidered with sequins to make the number, then the four sheets are pinned together with a ribbon, marked using a second template and stitched. I trip the seam, turn them right side out, turn down the 'cuff' and hem it into place. The end result is a stocking with no visible stitches, which can be turned inside out without revealing its hem and which has a different colour for the lining than for the outside.

This one is in yellow, blue, orange and green for the boy cousin, J. The previous model was in myriad shades of purple, pink and blue for the girl cousin, E. The idea is that they can eventually fill one another's advent calendar with chocolates, notes or artwork - or nasty surprises, knowing them! I'm really glad I made these, because I know they will treasure them for years - but never again!

Only 7 months late

Finally! This morning I finished the last of these teeny tiny stockings. It's taken me quite a lot longer than I expected - hence a project intended for a birthday present last November has only been completed now.

On my mind

This is a Friday photo feature that anyone with a blog can join. To take part, post a photo on your own blog, write a short caption explaining it, and link it back to here from your blog by saying you're part of "On my mind". Please write a new post, don't link to an older one. When you've done that, come back here and add a comment below, with a link to your blog.

This picture is of my current sewing project - miniature stocking Advent calendars for my cousins - but what I like about this is all the bits peeking out of corners which are unique and individual: you can see the three blankets I've crocheted, under the table and over the sofa; you can see the cushion with the signatures of my schoolmates on; and you can see the mug of tea - the mug was handmade by my boyfriend's best friend's sister, and hand painted by her. (You can see more of her work on her blog)

Giving in to the fabric-y goodness...

I pottered along to my favourite fabric shop in Brussels today, in search of some scraps of silk - I very much want to try this tutorial for homemade silk flowers to decorate my hairstyles. They look unbelievably beautiful and deceptively simple. I thought I would try to get a small bit of silk to try, but wow - the smallest amount I could buy would still be €6! So I decided to save that project for when I ever make something out of silk, and then I can use the off-cuts.

Friday night sew-in

Last night, I curled up under my crocheted blanket with Pride and Prejudice playing, and spent some time working on my current procrastination *cough* project - 25 miniature embroidered stockings to form an advent calendar for my cousin.

I intended to make it for her birthday last November, and one for my other cousin by last Christmas. I slightly underestimated the amount of time each stocking would take, and I'm still on number 16 of the first set. I felt rather daunted by the work around January, and put the project on one side in favour of some cross-stitch, but it is now looking like next Christmas might come around before it's finished, so I've dusted it off. I will be so proud when it is finished!

Overambition?

I know it's not only me - I read several blogs about people doing much the same thing. Simple living, thriftiness, the new home front - call it what you want, it essentially comes down to trying to buy less and make more, to do things for yourself rather than paying someone else to do it for you.

It's easy to feel disheartened by the number of things not yet achieved. I look around and see the housework not done, see the things I still buy instead of making, things like bread and soap which are among the first things that you start making for yourself, as well as cleansers and make up and toothpaste, containing chemicals I would rather eliminate.

Homemade beauty recipes

I have discovered A Mrs Thrifty - head on over to check out her very cool tips and recipes. I am off to try her recipes for tea face pack, and brown sugar and vanilla body scrub... Plus I LOVE this entry about building Christmas hampers. Definitely feeling inspired!!

I should probably post a list of all my favourite recipes from the blogosphere at some point.

Discovering the secrets

I have discovered the secret to a clean and tidy home with no effort! This miraculous revelation really is having a huge impact on my life - I can't stop reorganising, sorting and streamlining my stuff.

1. Don't allow pile-ups - doing the washing up every night before I go to bed and wiping down the surfaces means that I basically don't need to clean the kitchen - it's always clean. (Well, apart from the floor).

2. Every item should have a home - if things are in cupboards and on shelves, you can hoover the floor. This sounds so obvious, but it's been such a pain keeping the living room tidy with stuff everywhere. Now that (nearly) everything is on a shelf, it's so much easier to keep mess and dirt under control.

3. Not all homes are created equal - by this I mean that, again strikingly obvious, if I either never put things in their home or never get them out of it, it is almost certainly because I'm trying to put it in the wrong place. I have found that by moving things to where I want to use them, and putting stuff I don't use in storage or giving it away, I suddenly have a lot more space and I am using it so much more effectively!

These three simple things are so obvious, but I have not always been very good at following them. Over the last month, since our big clean out, I have been sticking to them more and the flat is actually tidier and cleaner now than it was when we moved in... And I keep getting more ideas! I actually woke up in the middle of the night last night, thinking about how I could store my fabric and wool stashes more effectively so that my sewing kit would be more useful. I tried it out first thing this morning, and it's looking good. Now I have space for more fabric, rather than so much fabric I can never find what I want.

In other news, I finished the first ever dress!! It's a bit big, so I will adjust it. Pictures to follow. I am also making a lining for the drawer dividers I made yesterday with some scrap fabric. Is crafting addictive? I can't seem to stop...

Has anyone tried crocheting baskets or anything out of raffia? I'm not sure how durable it will be, but want to use something cheaper and more neutral in colour than wool or cotton.

My first dress

Well, this is obviously not my first ever dress, but it is the first time I have tried to make a dress. My addiction to craft programmes and passion for doing it myself have prompted a friend more than once to suggest I try sewing, and even gave me the Cath Kidson "Sew!" book (which, like almost all of my craft books, is in storage...)

Well, after working up the courage through two hand-stitched tablecloths, I bit the bullet. Following my friend's recommendation, I thought a Vogue Very Easy pattern was definitely the way forward, hopefully offering a balance between doability and wearability. Then fabric from my new favourite shop in Brussels, which HAPPENED to be having a buy 1m, get 1m free sale - it's called 'Le Chien Vert' (the Green Dog), and has a section out back for odds and ends called 'Les Puces de Chien Vert' - the Green Dog's Fleas (Market)!

I'm on the home stretch now, and it is starting to look recognisably like a dress - albeit a rather shapeless one... Still, I will remain hopeful until the whole thing is finished, and even if I do look like I'm wearing a potato sack, I can still wear it around the house and enjoy doing so!

At any rate, I've got some scraps for patchwork and rag rugs!

Knittingness

So this month I’ve been easing myself into knitting with some knitted washcloths. The logic behind this was that these are useful, so I’m not wasting wool; that they are small, so I won’t get bogged down in a daunting project; and they allow me to experiment with different stitches.

I’ve been using cotton, bought in bright and cheerful colours from the Veritas around the corner. I’ve discovered that I really like cotton – this is the first time I have worked with it, and I’ve been surprised. I was expecting it to be really unforgiving, really inelastic, but it’s flexible and versatile. I will be interested to observe its durability – does it wash better or last longer than wool? Travel better?

So far, I’ve made washcloths in seed stitch, in horizontal stripes, in box-stitch, in daisy stitch and I’m currently doing one in basketweave. I have fallen in love with daisy stitch – it’s a very dense stitch, coming out much smaller than other cloths with the same number of rows and stitches, but I love the texture and the pattern. It’s very small and subtle, but really pretty. Horizontal stripes really didn’t work – but I’ll have a go at changing colours soon and see if that looks any different. The seed stitch is incredibly elastic – it stretches a lot in all directions. The basketweave is fun in a gimmicky sort of way, but I wonder whether or not it would wear evenly – there seems to be more flexibility and less strength at the changes of stitch.

My knitting style is evolving as well – I started off taking my right hand off the needle to wrap the yarn around the needle, but now I keep it wrapped around my forefinger at all times, which has made me a faster knitter, and given greater evenness to my stitches, which I like. I’ve also started casting on by twisting loops onto one needle with my fingers, rather than knitting each stitch into the last. It’s much faster, but still means that the first edge is too long and ends up rumpled.

Next up will be something a bit bigger, I hope - maybe a hot water bottle? I want to have a go at ribbing and cable, and I'm really looking forward to Celtic knots! Feel free to share any good patterns or ideas...

Craft Workshops

Hello! I am still alive, you can breathe a huge sigh of relief. Life caught up with me, so I do in fact have a long list of blog posts I'd like to make on various topics, some of which are looooong overdue. Like this one.

As part of my interest in the journeys that our possessions take from the extraction or production of the raw materials through to the disposal of the used product, I am just a little bit interested in craft. I work with wool, and I am interested in all of the stages of the process from fleece to jumper. When I started working with Sunbeams, a Brussels-based charity promoting ecological issues in the English-speaking expatriate community here, I mentioned my interest in craft, and eventually we organised a Christmas Craft workshop.

It was a really good fun afternoon. There were several different activities going on, and the group of children moved naturally and easily from one to another as each was completed. Most of these involved using items that would normally end up in the bin - the insides of toilet paper rolls, scrap paper, and especially Christmas wrapping paper. My own contribution was introducing them to crochet, making creations vaguely resembling snowflakes. I did find that teaching crochet to that age group was rather tricky, as you can't do any of the fun stuff, but that's just something I need to work on.

I really enjoyed learning to make, for example, plaited heart-shaped bags to hang from the tree, using old wrapping paper. And I loved sharing my passion with a group of little people, who were all really proud of their creations. I think what made the craft afternoon so successful was that there was a range of different activities, so that the pressure didn't fall on any single person to keep people interested for the whole afternoon, and that it had a fairly specific focus. The range of activities also meant that people could arrive and leave whenever suited them, and do as many or as few projects as they wanted to, as quickly or as thoroughly as they liked.

I have attempted to get a craft workshop focused on crochet up and running, but I think the brief has been too vague and I haven't reached my target audience very effectively. Looking back at the success of this workshop, I think it would be advisable to choose a specific brief and bring together people interested in different crafts for a similar afternoon. Hmmm... It's a shame I missed the boat for Easter, but perhaps a Midsummer festival theme would work. Feel free to contribute suggestions.

Happy Imbolc!

Tonight is of course Imbolc, the pagan festival that falls between the Winter Solstice and the Spring Equinox. In a perfect world, I'd have had a mahusive party with loads of friends, an array of seasonal (organic, locally produced etc) dishes, candles, a big fire in a fireplace and far too much homemade wine. With that in mind, I made a Moroccan dish with lamb and apricots cooked in orange juice, honey and cinnamon. De-licious.

Imbolc is a time for creativity and inspiration, and I have been very creative in the past week. Coming up soon will be details of the range of home-made toiletries I've been making, but the highlight of today was making hummus for the first time. It worked! I made HUMMUS! And it tastes NICE! And I made it the low-tech way - almost every recipe I found basically ran, "Step 1. Place the ingredients in a food processor. Step 2. Blend until smooth." I used a potato-masher-thing. It worked surprisingly well, and my hummus has a delightfully rustic, homemade texture to it. Definitely one to repeat! I also added some cumin and coriander for extra flavour, but I was a bit too careful. I think I need to be more daring with the spices next time.

Other creative projects currently on the go:

• A crochet blanket. Not particularly fancy or complex, but something comforting for my bluesy days.
• Valentine's Day cards for my lovely, lovely friends who should really be told that they are beautiful people more regularly.
• Crochet flowers for keyrings, and other simple demos for the crochet workshops I am setting up this month.
• A bookmark for my mother's birthday. Don't tell her. I made her one last year and it got lost in the post (Sod's law!) so I plan to make another this year, and supplement it with a book. And maybe a cake. You can never go wrong with a cake.
• Many additional crafts are in the UK awaiting my return - including a couple of simple, beginner's dress-making patterns and my mother's sewing machine, the Cath Kidston 'Sew!' book which I am dying to get started on, and many other brilliant books of recipes, patterns and crafty ideas. (Soapmaking and churning butter are on the list...)
  

Little things

Long time, no blog.

I have been thinking recently about how much difference the little things make. As Sherlock Holmes says in the new film (which was *ahem* rather creative with the original characters), the little details can be the most important.

In this case, the things that have cheered me up in the last few days have included: polishing my boots with half an onion (woohoo! No need to buy polish), drinking multiple cups of tea after The Day There Was No Milk Anywhere, and beginning to crochet a blanket with the wool in my bag. Why is that, whatever is on my mind, I feel an immense sense of peace as soon as I pick up a hook? The world somehow makes sense when I'm crocheting. I don't care about the large pile of marking, the current state of my finances and the fact that all the people I care most about in the world feel terribly far away from me (yes, I know, it's no distance at all really, but it feels far).

Partly the black cloud is due to the natural response to a fantastic Christmas/New Year period, full of family and old friends and dangerous things like elderberry gin. The fun times were paced out by volunteer work for Crisis at Christmas, which was immensely rewarding and thought-provoking. It really makes me appreciate what I have, and it's definitely something I'll be doing again.

Anyway, I'm off to rearrange things and otherwise pretend to myself that I'm busy. I wish you all a productive January!

Do you see that grin?

That's the grin of a mad person, as my parents will readily tell you. I'm back home for a couple of days during the half-term holiday, and I've taken this opportunity to treat myself. Ignoring the bag of half-complete crochet projects, the piles of yarn waiting to be worked, the stacks of fabric and patterns, I embarked on a completely new craft - spinning.

Spinning is something I've been interested in for a while, if only for the historical world it seems to open up. For centuries, nay, millennia, spinning was a constant in the lives of women. While you're gossiping, you're spinning. Rocking the baby to sleep? Spinning. Hence the distaff sex (a distaff being a stick used to hold unspun, prepared wool). At university, I studied fairy tales, in which the symbolism of the wheel or spindle is more complex than might at first appear. I learned how to spin at a Viking history event in York, aimed at people approximately ten years younger than me, and I've been dying to have a proper go ever since. Thus the purchase of a spindle and some wool.

I've actually got a spinning wheel upstairs - it's very old, bought from a local charity shop by my mother for my 21st birthday (best present ever!) but before I work out how or even if it works, I wanted to learn the basics with a drop spindle. Which is very appropriately named, I find. But the great thing about spinning is if you make a mistake, it's relatively easy to fix it (although very hard to fix it neatly).

Now my yarn is thinner and more even, with fewer slubs, and I'm starting to plan all the fabulous things I can make with it. I really should finish my last blanket before I embark on a new one, shouldn't I? But craft isn't supposed to be sensible!

The rest of my trip has thus far consisted of crossing many things off my to-do-list (currently several years long) and enjoying the very welcome luxuries of: Georgette Heyer, bath-tubs, Haagen-Dazs ice cream and my own, fabulous bed. In various permutations and combinations.