Friday, 08-09-23

Morning, everyone.  Goodness, it was a scorcher yesterday, to be sure.  Bright sunshine and temperatures up to 30.5C, according to my in-the-shade garden thermometer.  Today looks like being very similar so that's put paid to the gardening jobs that are slowly building up.

Yesterday was a workshop booking day!
Sharon Blackman emailed me details of her next applique workshop at the end of this month so I emailed back and booked.
Then Victoria posted info about the annual Christmas Wreath making workshops and I've booked that too.  December 1st.  I gather people were starting to ask so she and Hazel decided to get the info out there.  If anyone local is interested, I can post details.  
It feels great to have two creative things in the pipeline.

Talking of creative, as I was putting together the fill-in shapes on the blanket, I discovered that I would need to make a couple of quarter hexagons that were mirror images of each other.  I searched You-Tube but there wasn't much and the most useful looking one was demo-ed using a dark thread so it was really hard to see what was going on.  

So I looked carefully at my half hexagons and have worked out how to make the quarters - I didn't have to be too clever, just logical really.  :-)

My morning chat with Chris was great.  We sat in the shade in her garden where it wasn't too hot and put the world to rights, as you do!  How time flies - her little grandson, Bertie, is one in a month so I have a very good excuse for a project!  I'll searched through my patterns in the next few days and I'm sure I have a nice pattern for a little Aran-style jacket and hat set that will make a nice gift, perhaps with a few little books - I'm a great believer in toddler bookshelves!

Chris was telling me about Heybridge Basin which, she said, is a nice place to visit.  I've never been there but it's now on the list.  It isn't exactly proper coastal, more on the Thames Estuary, not too far from Maldon, and it does sound interesting.  Suze, or anyone else local - what do you know of it?  Ever been?

Today is Slimming World and we are back in the local hall which has now reopened after some flood damage last December.  Goodness knows why it has taken so long but I am guessing, perhaps wrongly, that they had to wait for the insurance to come through as, like many councils at the moment, they are strapped for cash with many competing demands for it.
Anyway, we are back there so not only can I leave later, I can walk so don't have to brave the school traffic.

I got everywhere sorted and tidied as much as it ever is on Fridays so the cleaners can turn up any time.  I will be crocheting but it's just the fill-in bits so a hook and a ball of yarn, no other mess created.  I wonder if I will finish it today - I have other projects knocking around in my poor old brain - I found a pattern for a crochet bucket hat that I just want to try, I want to make another hexagon blanket using totally random colours from my stash that I will give either to the Sally Army or Help the Aged or somewhere like that.  I wonder if the local food bank takes things like that for children.  Must ask Linda.  And, of course, there's Bertie's gift although that will be bought yarn, I think, not stash - I will look but I want the softer sort of stuff.  He's only little.

What with changing the sheets, washing, maybe ironing, etc, I have plenty to be getting on with and no chance to be bored.  So nice.

What do you have in the pipeline today?  Stay safe and have a great day.  xx