A good [long] weekend!

Despite the weather.

A few good nights’ sleep helped, of course.

On Friday I managed to finish the new bag – it looks good, provided you don’t look too closely. And although it is only a couple of inches wider than the previous one, it holds all my gubbins comfortably – so much so that I am trying very hard to resist the temptation to put even more essential stuff junk in it.

So, flushed with success, I made another one.

This has to be the world’s quickest bag – a pair of bag handles, of which I have several, and a scarf, of which I have far too many.

So quick that I spent longer photographing it [using the camera’s different colour settings], than making it, and that included finding the scarf.

Instructions here. If you have a genuine Furoshiki, lucky you, but I made do with a bit of hand-dyed silk.

On Saturday we went to Chawton House, which was open for Heritage weekend. We went a couple of years ago and inspected the house, the horses and gardens, but the weather deterred us from doing more than the house on Saturday. Still interesting, though – and W waited patiently while one of the room stewards and I compared the relative merits of Colin Firth and Toby Stephens…

Saturday ended with a very enjoyable visit to see Babybel, Babyboy and their mum, dad and dog. We delivered the socks, and got a cuddle and some cakes – and other lovely food as well.

We also got to read most of this collection of Topsy and Tim books, which Babybel enjoys as much as her dad used to. The collection doesn’t include the book with the dinosaurs, though – does anyone know what the title of that one is? I can’t remember.

Today has been quieter, but a little college work has been achieved, in between the housework. 

This is a little sort-of-book of litter kaleidoscopes, inspired by this one on donna Meyer’s book a day blog. I’m still off the idea of making books for my final year’s work – but this treatment seems to make the most of the kaleidoscopes.

 

I’m afraid that my other college work this afternoon is also derivative – inspired by the work of Bonnie Epstein. I have a lot of photographs arranged on the ironing board, which is the biggest clear space in my work room, waiting to be sewn together.

I am very ambivalent about working so derivatively – it doesn’t feel right, but when I tried it with the work of Karin Wach, but then wandered off onto a road of my own. A dead end as it turned out, but still my own road – and I make revisits the dead end to see if I can find a path out. [This metaphor is getting a bit overstretched.] As something may come out of this, I’m persisting with it for now.