pin box, smultrons, and a cloak in progress
Today was reasonably productive--I managed to finish putting away everything from the event, did four loads of laundry, and spent a fair bit of time on projects.
This morning's project was replacing the (somewhat embarrassing) paper and duct tape liner for the nice wooden box in which we keep pins with one made of wool. I had made the paper one right after we bought the box, so that the pins wouldn't scratch up the wood, and to have something between the pins and the hard drive magnets we use to keep them in the box. Now the magnets are sandwiched between two layers of wool, and the box is fully lined. This took just over an hour and was clearly a task that I could have done at any point in the last year or so, but I had so much other stuff that really was more urgent, so I never got to it.
I also put in another hour or so stitching on my beard--the bottom part of my chin is now nicely covered. It is starting to look like it really will be possible to finish this before the event I need it for (just over a month from today).
And this evening I finally managed to start the embroidery part of the embroidered applique that is going onto the sexy viking cloak I started sometime before November of 2012 (I know this because that was the month I mentioned the "cloak in progress" in an email to a friend). I have no idea how many hours the first few steps of the cloak took (basting the lining to the main fabric, sewing the tablet woven trim to the cloak edge, and doing a tipple row of decorative running stitch around the edge of the fabric), but so far I have put in about eight hours into the embellishment, just over three of which were spent embroidering the face onto the cat.
I also watered the berries and ate the 10 or 20 smultrons (wild strawberries) that have ripened in our yard. Yum!
lord_kjar was also productive today. It was his first day back to work after his summer vacation, and while there he got to talking to one of his colleagues, who has been doing a major project in his yard. The colleague has had a problem with deep puddles forming on his yard every time it rains, in part due to the clay rich soil and regolith in his yard. Therefore he has installed a drainage system, and in the progress generated a large pile of dirt, stones, etc. that he wanted to get rid of. He had planned on shoveling it onto his trailer and hauling it to the part of the tip (or "dump" for the Americans who read this) one load at a time. However, that was going to take a long time, since he would need to load the trailer one day after work, haul away that load the next, and then repeat. So lord_kjar said that he would be willing to bring the tractor over and help out, in exchange for being able to take the dirt back to our place instead of sending it to the tip.
Therefore, as soon as he finished eating dinner today he attached the giant trailer to the tractor and drove off. He returned a couple of hours later and dumped the dirt (which totally filled the giant trailer!) onto the area that we plan to put the new shed once we re-assemble it. He would have promptly smoothed out that pile, but I noticed that there is a bunch of still green sheets of grass in the pile, and the part of our yard we leveled last autumn still doesn't have much grass growing on it, so I suggested we wait and give me a chance to rescue the newly imported grass and see if it is willing to grow in our yard.
His timing was perfect though--after he dumped the load the storm that had been threatening to arrived started rolling in. I had just enough time to sweep the last traces of dirt from the bed of the trailer before it started raining (with thunder and lightening) hard enough that had the dirt still been in the trailer it would have quickly become mud. So we went inside, and shut off the computers so that any electricity surges from the storm wouldn't be an issue, and he took a nap while I did the above mentioned embroidery.
Now it is way past any reasonable bed time, so I should put down the computer and do my yoga (which will be my first exercise of the day--I appear to have forgotten the plan to go for a walk) so that I can head to bed and get some sleep.
This morning's project was replacing the (somewhat embarrassing) paper and duct tape liner for the nice wooden box in which we keep pins with one made of wool. I had made the paper one right after we bought the box, so that the pins wouldn't scratch up the wood, and to have something between the pins and the hard drive magnets we use to keep them in the box. Now the magnets are sandwiched between two layers of wool, and the box is fully lined. This took just over an hour and was clearly a task that I could have done at any point in the last year or so, but I had so much other stuff that really was more urgent, so I never got to it.
I also put in another hour or so stitching on my beard--the bottom part of my chin is now nicely covered. It is starting to look like it really will be possible to finish this before the event I need it for (just over a month from today).
And this evening I finally managed to start the embroidery part of the embroidered applique that is going onto the sexy viking cloak I started sometime before November of 2012 (I know this because that was the month I mentioned the "cloak in progress" in an email to a friend). I have no idea how many hours the first few steps of the cloak took (basting the lining to the main fabric, sewing the tablet woven trim to the cloak edge, and doing a tipple row of decorative running stitch around the edge of the fabric), but so far I have put in about eight hours into the embellishment, just over three of which were spent embroidering the face onto the cat.
I also watered the berries and ate the 10 or 20 smultrons (wild strawberries) that have ripened in our yard. Yum!
lord_kjar was also productive today. It was his first day back to work after his summer vacation, and while there he got to talking to one of his colleagues, who has been doing a major project in his yard. The colleague has had a problem with deep puddles forming on his yard every time it rains, in part due to the clay rich soil and regolith in his yard. Therefore he has installed a drainage system, and in the progress generated a large pile of dirt, stones, etc. that he wanted to get rid of. He had planned on shoveling it onto his trailer and hauling it to the part of the tip (or "dump" for the Americans who read this) one load at a time. However, that was going to take a long time, since he would need to load the trailer one day after work, haul away that load the next, and then repeat. So lord_kjar said that he would be willing to bring the tractor over and help out, in exchange for being able to take the dirt back to our place instead of sending it to the tip.
Therefore, as soon as he finished eating dinner today he attached the giant trailer to the tractor and drove off. He returned a couple of hours later and dumped the dirt (which totally filled the giant trailer!) onto the area that we plan to put the new shed once we re-assemble it. He would have promptly smoothed out that pile, but I noticed that there is a bunch of still green sheets of grass in the pile, and the part of our yard we leveled last autumn still doesn't have much grass growing on it, so I suggested we wait and give me a chance to rescue the newly imported grass and see if it is willing to grow in our yard.
His timing was perfect though--after he dumped the load the storm that had been threatening to arrived started rolling in. I had just enough time to sweep the last traces of dirt from the bed of the trailer before it started raining (with thunder and lightening) hard enough that had the dirt still been in the trailer it would have quickly become mud. So we went inside, and shut off the computers so that any electricity surges from the storm wouldn't be an issue, and he took a nap while I did the above mentioned embroidery.
Now it is way past any reasonable bed time, so I should put down the computer and do my yoga (which will be my first exercise of the day--I appear to have forgotten the plan to go for a walk) so that I can head to bed and get some sleep.