Four things I did this week.

 

1. Assisted Babybel and the VHC, with crafts at the museum again. This week was a rather clever idea, involving clear sticky back plastic (of course!) and felt. Each child made a felt picture on the sticky side, and when it was finished another piece was placed on top to seal it. The only problem was that the VHC got frustrated because he couldn't manage the scissors himself, so in due course we left big sister to it and went over to get him a library card, much to his delight. We left with some Thomas books, to nobody's great surprise.
2. Finished this, at last. It's a glove, in case you hadn't realised.
   
3. Took some time out from knitting gloves to make a quick pair of slipper socks, because my feet have been cold in this lovely summer we've been having. I hate to wear shoes in the house, but I refuse to give in and wear socks, (because it's summer!) so slipper socks seemed to be an acceptable compromise. Except it's got warmer, and I have put them in a safe place, so of course I can't find them to take a photo...
4. Done some of the decluttering I said I wasn't going to do until we'd got rid of the 25 bags of books. I'm continuing to work through the book 'Playing with Sketches', and Exercise 10 was doodling. I like using prepainted paper for doodling - so I started looking for a notebook with painted pages. Which led to going through all many of my notebooks, hand made books, sketchbooks, scrap books etc. etc. etc. By the end of the afternoon I had:

a. Some notebooks with painted pages, ready to doodle in; b. A few notebooks with contents I was still interested in, (in contrast to the large number I no longer had any interest in at all.) (I can hear someone saying 'You should have kept those!' No, I shouldn't, some of them have been up there, unlooked at, since before I started City & Guilds!); c. Six hand made books which need to have the pages replaced because I like the cover but I'm no longer interested in the contents; d. A box of blank notebooks; e. A box of sketchbooks with some pages left in them; f. Half a shelf of sketchbooks with no empty pages to speak of; g. Two boxes of hand made books too small or too interesting in structure to actually use; h. More space in my workroom; i. A bag of paper rubbish and a bag of non-recyclable rubbish; j. And a partridge in a pear tree. (Not really, though we often have a magpie in an apple tree.)   And I actually did some doodling!   Four things I haven't done this week.

1. Finished sewing the new buttons on the long buttoned glove. I'm probably about 2/3 of the way there, but taking one set of buttons off and replacing them with another set is more than twice as boring as putting them on in the first place. And I sewed the first lot on very firmly...
2. Replaced the pages in the hand made books that I decided needed new pages. I've done the three easiest ones, but the rest all have multiple signatures, and non-standard sized paper. And for some reason, replacing pages makes my back ache!
3. Started a new glove. Too busy making slipper socks.
4. Finished this month's Advent decorations, despite cutting them out in July. I did make a start but they are quite fiddly and I was tired (Excuses, excuses.)

  Next week will be busy, as the little guys are doing a dance summer school and need ferrying about all week. However the week after that we have off, so although we did think about going away, it's ended up being filled with optician's appointments, hair appointments, car services and so on.      That's the trouble with being retired, there's no time!