Busy, Busy
Dear me, I haven't been on here for what seems like ages. I've been working all week, and all last week, and the week before, and feel permanently exhausted, but generally much happier with something to do. A normal job involves taking 30-40 paint samples, setting them in resin, polishing them, and looking at them under the microscope, and the polishing and setting takes about 1-2 days. The Canterbury job has so far involved 300 samples, and the client wants duplicate copies of all of them, so I've done nothing much for the last three weeks but set and polish the bloody things. Several minor jobs popped up as well; a Joseph Paxton conservatory, a panelled room in an Essex pub with what might be Victorian graining and a mysterious encrustation (looks like paint but seems to be something else) as well as that ceiling at Chatsworth, which is beginning to look quite complicated. I've also demonstrated my colossal inefficiency at ordering supplies of chemicals. I do enjoy getting out of the house and seeing people, even if I do spend most of the day alone in a dusty workshop.
The pile of needlework projects I've taken on this spring is now getting dangerously belated. The brother's anniversary quilt is at least progressing; I now have most of the square panels finished, except two embroidered ones (one with the happy couple’s initials and one with mandarin ducks or possibly pigeons). It's going to look pretty good, I think, even though I can't get the panels quite exactly square. Here’s a picture of two of them. The background is a shawl the brother brought back from Afghanistan. The pink knobbly thing is my big toe, only accidentally in the picture.
I haven’t even started the sari silk shrug or the sunflower cot cover (although I have bought some yarn for that), and the baby is due in September. I also, in a moment of insanity, bought a very pretty little carved Indian writing slope that needs a good bit of tidying up. It looks like this;
Some of the bone inlay strip is missing from the side, so I'll have to find something to replace it with. Otherwise it just needs cleaning and a bit of glueing.
The pile of needlework projects I've taken on this spring is now getting dangerously belated. The brother's anniversary quilt is at least progressing; I now have most of the square panels finished, except two embroidered ones (one with the happy couple’s initials and one with mandarin ducks or possibly pigeons). It's going to look pretty good, I think, even though I can't get the panels quite exactly square. Here’s a picture of two of them. The background is a shawl the brother brought back from Afghanistan. The pink knobbly thing is my big toe, only accidentally in the picture.
I haven’t even started the sari silk shrug or the sunflower cot cover (although I have bought some yarn for that), and the baby is due in September. I also, in a moment of insanity, bought a very pretty little carved Indian writing slope that needs a good bit of tidying up. It looks like this;
Some of the bone inlay strip is missing from the side, so I'll have to find something to replace it with. Otherwise it just needs cleaning and a bit of glueing.