pure velvet

A country drive yesterday. I'm not sure whether it did any good as I think I was in a daze for most of it. There certainly wasn't any thinking or pondering happening, I seem to have spent the day on a very superficial level. I even walked slowly, quite treacly in fact, no rushing to see/do everything, just meandering and pottering.

I ate a giant anzac biscuit and drank a pot of tea while thinking about bugger all.  I fossicked through expensive crap. Sent silly photos to friends of weird things I was 'buying' for them. Indulged my collection of enamel mugs. I drove through fog and into sunshine. I tasted violets in the air. I pootled about. That's all really.

yawn

So here we are. We've come through two markets in a month and a flurry of Winter glove orders and have managed to survive. I may have fallen asleep on my bed for an afternoon nap yesterday, a well deserved nap I think. I used to love afternoon naps, in fact back in the Brunswick Street days they were essential due to all the nighttime interruptions (bar patrons, rubbish trucks, tourists...) but my nights are less disjointed up here in the 'country town' end of Fitzroy. I never realised until I moved here how sleep deprived I was.
I'm making myself do as little as possible at the moment. I'm still writing emails, moving stuff around, loading and unloading but I feel the need for a bit of quiet. Thinking time if you like. Planning. Napping. I'm still toying with the country drive, tomorrow perhaps, but even that will take energy.
I managed to trip over a power cord at Markit and came down heavily on my left leg. My back went 'ping', I went 'ow' and I am still wincing whenever I stub my foot on anything (foot bone is connected to...) or roll over in bed. It's easing off a bit though. Boring. Yawn.
The photo is of Jethro yawning this morning. He about sums it up.
I still haven't written the satchel update.....

bittersweet

Could we possibly start today again?
You might remember the (crazy) person who ripped the doilies off the magnolia way back on New Year's Day? Well I got to meet him at 8am this morning. As he ripped the doilies off again, chatting all the while to the tree, I slammed the flat of my hand against the glass door and yelled at him to bugger off. He decided to ask me if we had 'listened to the tree' and wasn't going to listen to my argument that I had listened and the tree was happy. He sprouted Socrates at me, I threatened the police and when our faces were an inch from each other separated by the glass I asked nicely if he could explain why his eyes were pinned and the situation ended with him walking off. Sometimes you just have to use a left hook.
Sad I know. Young, intelligent, a dash of schizophrenia and a touch of whacked off his face. And really no point in my anger or trying to reason with him.
Like I said- can we start the day again?
Now I need to factor in a repair job on Miss Magnolia.
On the home front I also have a slightly (amusingly) delinquent cat to deal with. I have probably told you Jethro has penchant for 'fetching' gloves and bringing them to me in bed. It started with glove offcuts as a kitten, then sample and seconds 'stolen' from plastic bags in the kitchen. It's pretty cute and amusing but last night he took it to the next level and pulled 4 pairs off the hanging display in the front window, one and a half pairs ended up in bed and the rest dotted around the house. After playing 'scare the doily vandal' this morning I then had to play 'Hunt the Glove'. I rehung a couple of pairs to then get home from the newspaper run to find he'd done it again. Little shit.
Saturday morning shop shift. New Welsh blanket cushions in, the fabulous Brynkir Navaho blanket design, new fingerless glove colours, new hand spun yarn hanks, new dip dyed angora scarves. That's it. I'm toying with the idea of having a week where I don't make anything to put in the shop......
Don't forget! Markit@FedSquare tomorrow!

waiting for mr sockbar

'I do not know the whereabouts of your grey spotted sock.'

Oh, look. It's 9.45 and I am barely dressed, tea-ed and need shoes and a hat to get through todays rainy weather. There was meant to be a location photo shoot in the shop at 9 this morning but very late yesterday it was cancelled. Good in that I didn't have to spend last night lugging boxes about and doing stuff to make the shop look respectable, bad that I ended up brain dead and exhausted from all the late nights I've been putting in this week and feel like I forgotten to do something (you know that feeling, when something isn't happening and you are at a loose end). The flow on today being that the appointment I had organised for this morning and had to delay isn't happening until 11 and I am floating about until then.
I've chucked on another dyepot to soak, bright yellow, as we seem to have sold out of that colour... and magenta and denim and the poppy batch is almost gone too... just as I thought I was getting a little ahead  with 21 colours (yay! over a third of the tally done!) I'll have to spend more late nights stirring the copper (and that is not a euphemism...).
I've organised the van for Markit@FedSquare on Sunday, I need to get to the bank and get change, go to the studio and pick up the trolleys and storage boxes and decide whether I need to have a making spirt this afternoon and get some more product finished. Tomorrow night I start packing the shop into boxes. I'm thinking of lots of lovely wooliness- tea cosies, angora gloves, beanies, scarves, socks, Welsh blanket cushions, quilts- and perhaps a few satchels and purses for good measure. And yes I will be reporting on important satchel news very shortly.
Now, where are my shoes?

ceiling

I so didn't want to get out of bed this morning. I lay there and stared at the DellDreamcatcher™ hanging from the Tord Boontje lightfitting and toyed with the idea of closing my eyes. A week of late night working and I could barely roll over this morning. The plans for an early start at the studio.... hmmm.... not happening now. I've got wholesale shipments to sort before walking out the door.
Did I tell you I managed to turn an afghan rug into a smouldering mess last last? Yep, couldn't work out where the acrid smell in the front room was coming from. I just thought it was the metal plate on the ironing press needing a good clean. Then I discovered the gold leather pouffé had been kicked towards the heater and the afghan on top had made contact. At least the heater was on low..... The windows have been thrown open and upstairs has now been aired..... which leads me to wondering how people who live in McMansions with sealed up tinted windows manage to air their houses out, there is nothing better than throwing a window open. Anyway, it's just the bone weariness drivelling on, I'll shut up soon.
I better dash.
Things to do.

storm in a dyepot

I've got my electric copper sitting in the shower cubicle. Every day I have to lift it out when I want to wash and then pop it back in to dye more gloves. I fill it up by positioning the shower head over the top and turning it on full pelt. As the water level rises it reminds me of dodgy storm scenes in old movies, the ship fighting against the rage storm tossed sea.
This morning's dye pot is red. My plan for 60 colours is progressing, so far there has been 24 dye batches and 18 colours, so getting close to a third of the way through. Pretty good I think for the last week of May.
Now of course all this dyeing is not only to top up the trays in the shop and fill wholesale orders. This Sunday is Markit @ Fed Square day. We'll be packing the shop up, loading it all into the borrowed transit van and setting it all up in the foyer of BMW Edge in the exact same spot we were in last December if you came to that  event.
I'm thinking this will be the last market we do in some time, two in a month is stretching things a bit. I don't know how those carni-folk marketeers do it week to week.
Then next week if I am really lucky I'll have a drive up country for the day. Look at the autumn colours (if this wind hasn't stripped the leaves) and get some chill into my cold loving bones. There really is nothing like coming inside after a feeling the brisk Winter on your cheeks and in your toes.
Time to stir the dye pot.

jubilee

In time for the Jubilee I've re-wired Lilibet- and doesn't she look stunning?! I couldn't get her to hang properly facing the front in the window so she had to go on the side wall. There are plinths piled precariously with Welsh blanket cushions  (Nerys can you email me as I don't have a way of contacting you, address in sidebar, thanks) and I strung up the gloves in the window. I always think hanging the gloves is like trimming the Xmas tree, I know Winter is definitely here.
I have a stack of gloves to press, trim and tag before heading to the studio this morning. They sat there all day yesterday taunting me and now the pile is even higher. Jethro is sleeping-in so I had better close the shop screen door whilst I have the chance. There is the wire shelving unit out of the front window I need to stash somewhere before the shop opens too. Perhaps best to tie it to the car roof rack and cart it up to the studio. And I seem to have lost one grey and cream spotted sock and a pair of pink and grey argyle socks, if you see them anywhere can you send them back to me? I am wondering if they are having a little sock menage a trois off in a corner....