Wisley in April

Wisley in April is very colourful. The alpine daffodil meadow is at its height. There are magnolia trees in flower and the Alpine houses are a riot.

Dorothy and I went there yesterday. About an hour and a half from here except that we got snarled up in two different traffic jams coming home and it took more that an hour longer. By the time we reached home we were both frazzled. The way we organised it. Dorothy is doing an online course with a lot of sketching in it so we went place where she could sit down and sketch whilse I prowled about with a camera. I have forgotten all that I did on the OCA course and, although I have been taking a lot of photos recently , I need to do far more. Anyway out of 66 photos yesterday, I onlt had to discard 7 which is getting better.

I have nearly finished weaving on the Schacht. In fact I have done a first!! I have run out of weft yarn before getting to the end of the warp! I have about 0l.5 metre left and have found some darker brown to finish off the warp.

Getting more adventurous

I am getting to the stage where I can do without a nap in the afternoon and as a result, can accomplish much more. Recently I have been concentrating on gardening. That has ended by my attending to the auriculas. They have had no attention since September. This started yesterday by my making up a special compost and drenching it in Provado which kills vine weevils.  It does not do much good to dogs and cats either so the greenhouse is on the forbidden list.

Then today, I removed everything from the two cold frames (the plants have been on an etagere since last summer,   They were both thoroughly washed down with Dettol. After that, I set out on  the plants, removing dead leaves, repotting with the prepared compost. And Triumph!! no live vine weevils any where. When finished, they were all transported to the cold frames and they will be there all summer. Tomorrow I hope to do the auriculas in the theatre.

Not much time for anything else today but I do have a nice photo of Jerry

More each day

i did not have a nap yesterday— I did not want one and instead turned my studio out. It was done with the aid of a cleaner and there was much exclamation as items lost for years surfaced! I found a whole large cardboard box full of thick wool. I rather think that will be taken to the next Guild meeting. I cannot remember where this wool came from. Not me, certainly.

So what else? I am trying to sort out books and must finish off today. Although it is such a nice day that I must put in some gardening first. Now the greenhouse is clean, I must plant seeds.

So today is clean up garden first, then do bookcases. And if all goes well, a bit of weaving. One thing I omitted to say is that I currently have several ideas for projects .from time to time i write up possible projects and I dug out all my design books. I came across a nice one but the write up is incomprehensible! Anyway I must write up the current ones buzzing round.

Fish curry

Ten days ago, my sister went off to London for the day and family came round to keep me company. And the point of this story is that I made a fish curry for lunch and it is not a success. In fact, it was very bland. I was upset. So today I made butter chicken with all the steps required and found it wearing. I started at 0900 and we ate at 1230 and it was successful !!! So I feel better.

Every day that goes past I do more but I still need to rest for a couple of hours everyday.

Another box ticked

Because the doctors do not see many examples of my disease, they were unsure about recuperation and so driving was declared to be a bad thing. Well that was terminated last week and this week I got round to driving which I have not done since November 2018. But it seemed to me that a lesson might be a good idea and so I booked a two hour slot with and AA instructor for today.

I  went out yesterday in the car (with my sister to scream at me sitting beside me). And that all worked.

Today was an experience. Jumping to the end, he thought there was nothing wrong with my driving. I did not need any more lessons. Just get on with it. But I have to admit that I learnt a lot. And one thing really frightened me. He thought I merged into a motorway far too slowly and I should be going faster. Well I did it twice his way and I agree it is much better but I was scared stiff. After two hours driving round housing estates in Reading, I was very tired. So have spent the evening dozing.

I am beginning to think of new projects. Dorothy has a gorgeous book about abstract quilts and I can see that I could create a draft based on a triple cloth - very much shades of Anni Albers. Also I have a book to be bound for the Bookbinders competition. It is rather an odd choice for such a purpose - it is a reprint of a very old mathematical games book. And my mind is creating and discarding designs at a high rate. I know how it will be physically made but no idea what to put of the cover or on the end parers

A bit of weaving

My salt level is now normal and life is returning to normal. I got to the bottom of my I tray the other day. And I have done a load of small jobs. Yesterday I wove some inches on the Schacht. A bit slow but correct!

The Sewing Bee started up last Tuesday and I was inspired to think of making a jacket. The trouble is sizing. Do I make a jacket to fit me now or one size up in case I get better bigger. Or can I not do a fitted jacket. I will have to consult Jill Arnold. I have four jacket lengths in my cupboard

A horrific dicovery

I suspected this yesterday but confirmed it today. Because I have been so unwell, I had taken to using a blogger app on ipad - and discovered that by no mean everything has been appearing on the blog website. No idea where they are in the ether!. So in future everything will be put on here on the desktop. So I had not written quite as little as seemed.

I have got interested enough in weaving to think of the next project. I belong to the Weave of the Month Club and the February photo took my  fancy. And then I ran into problems with trying to download the file. It turned out that I had not downloaded any files since November and anyway they had changed the download procedure. But eventually I won and printed everything out. And February was indeed interesting even though it only uses 4 shafts. It is something called Swedish overshot. and then came the discovery that I do not have any suitable yarn. THat was comes of downsizing one's stash. Well even if I ought not to do this, tomorrow I phone Mr WilliamHall - so there. I will also put the draft on Fibreworks. and I have to say that it looks difficult - more than any draft I have done for many years. Nothing like a good challenge.