cake, stew, flu

Sorry for the lack of communication.
I had a post written and ready to go on Saturday morning but something went haywire and I thought it was Blogger's fault but actually my modem had a touch of the interflu which has resulted in my hanging on the phone for an hour and a half on a public holiday trying to get it fixed. All done now.
I managed to sneak in a sleep in this morning, a double batch of poppy red gloves dyed, an apple and walnut cake cooked and a chicken soup/stew on the stove. The washing has even been hung out. Crazy huh? If you are thinking that looks like a lot of cream next to that slice of oven warm cake then I refer you to my friend Beck's comment yesterday that there is never too much cream (made as she spooned whipped cream onto my golden syrup sponge cake filled with cream patisserie and coated in chocolate ganache).
I really do like a two day weekend, I seem to only get them if it's a public holiday on the Monday. I wonder sometimes what it would be like to have them every week. I'd probably get bored.... and I wonder why it is that on some days it is so much easier to get things done.
Hope you've had a lazy few days, it's the last of the off-days for some time here, Winter is settling in hard and fast. To all those people who tried phoning the shop today to come in and buy gloves and satchels, just have a day off from shopping, OK?

wan

Morning all.
No 'good' included there, sorry.
My cheekbones feel like concrete and may make my whole face pitch forward into my porridge if I'm not careful. On the up side I managed to neither burn nor boil over said porridge this morning and though it was delicious to eat I wasn't in much of a mood for actually eating it, spooning was very slow.
I think last night's post was probably a bit garbled and weird, sorry about that, blame this silly cold. I did have things to tell you. Things like...
Our lovely Lisa B socks on the D-Files sock post, more socks in very soon, today hopefully!
I've just popped some vintage capes and jackets into the shop made from... Welsh blankets! Yes our addiction grows ever stronger, 'hi my name is Pen and I seem to have a bit of a fascination for carthen...'. We have a couple of capes and a fabulous jacket made from the same purple/pink/black colourway we've done cushions in. We have some more on the way.
And there is satchels.
And there are new glove colours.
Even when sick I seem to get a bit of work done but I should probably get a couple of hours in at the studio if I can today. A friend's mum said I looked a bit 'wan' yesterday and I have to say that little word quite sums it up. The face in the mirror this morning was really quite pasty. And my iPod has had a spak-attack and lost every bit of its music and won't talk to my computer, contagion.
OK time to make a move.
Oh and I enjoyed reading this about the rise of 'professional amateurism' whilst eating my porridge in bed this morning, it applies equally to craft and making.

cold and counterfeit

I am still fighting the lurgy sadly, a right little snot monster, but I've been soldiering on though. One minute I'm feeling fine-ish, the next pretty carp. I haven't got to the studio, tomorrow perhaps, but there are some new glove colours done. I've had to change the window display as Mr Furpants has taken to 'stealing' the gloves hanging in the window, he likes to play fetch with them, I often wake up to the bed covered in gloves. He got a smack on the nose for doing it but that only resulted in him looking sulky and affronted.
This evening we discovered someone had managed to pass a counterfeit $50 on us yesterday, resulting in 50% annoyance and 50% amazement. We spent some time checking it out. I'm thinking of giving it to that annoying whispering beggar we all dislike (I know... that's mean... but he drives everyone mad... and I am joking... ).
What else to report? Nothing much I think.... I have a stack of work I really need to start/finish, the clock wall is looking very very bare. I think the lurgy is creeping up on me... I know I had interesting things to say when I first started typing... the couch is calling.

dreaded lurgy and darkest derrimut

The Dreaded Lurgy has really got it's claws into me. I'm coughing and spluttering and sniffing. See, as soon as  one slows down this is what happens, it pounces like an evil troll and drags you to its lair where it precedes to do nasty things to you. Blah. Cough. Sniff. Yawn.
Yesterday I had to get in the car and drive to glorious Derrimut (yet again) as Fedex had managed to deliver three out of the four boxes we were waiting for and I had to go pick up the one that had 'missed the bus'. I sometimes wonder what I have done to deserve the courier crap I seem to regularly have to sort out. Is it some form of karma? Or is it that courier services are just generally pretty poor? Perhaps I am just impatient.
Anyway we now have the four boxes clogging up the shop. A small shipment of Cambridge Satchels. Not the big shipment we ordered 2 months + ago but an apology shipment that will hopefully tide us over until our next big deliver at the end of August. There is a story there and I will write it today, nothing interesting but just an explanation of why the satchels are late arriving.
On the up side we have some new glittery satchels! 'Graphite' which sparkles all silvery and the black with multi-coloured glitter which we like to call 'Starry Starry Night'. They are pretty fabulous! We've also received 15" Classic pink and purple, 13" and 14"  dark brown and 11" in dark brown, black and pink. No fluoros so please don't ask! I'll post a list later of exactly what we have in stock including the leftovers from the last massive shipment.
Now I need to go stir the dye vat, take some medicine and eat some porridge.



ps I burnt the porridge

naught to nought

Well all those plans for the weekend clean and technical investigation came to naught. That bug that has stalked me for the last month took it's chance when I slowed down last week and pounced. Sniffles and sneezes, swollen glands, sore throat and a blocked ear, headaches and a cough, your usual Early Winter Cold.
Most of yesterday was spent in a daze on the couch. I am wondering if I can do the same today.
I did pop out for the paper yesterday and there is a whole swag of Cottage stuff on the cover of the M section of the Sunday Age. Angora gloves, woollen scarf, handknit beanie, a couple of Welshies and a prop stick from our Xmas window.
And if you go over to the D-Files you can go in the draw for the annual Winter Week Giveaway. Look! A yellow mohair hottie! And lots of scrummy stuff from some of our favourite people.
Need to fire up this creaking body, feeling not sick enough but very old and flat today.
Jethro is of course still asleep in bed. Brat.

mountain, molehill, morass

Saturday.
Here again.
Blah blah blah.
I'm longing for a day in bed (won't happen tomorrow, vintage tour due at 10.30 am), even got a head start on the washing last night and have managed to pick up half the clothes on the bedroom floor (wasn't as hard as it has looked for the last 6 months... although the need for a damn good vacuum is really obvious now). I do want to allocate a couple of hours with my brain turned on to read some technical books, no TV in the background, no distractions, in the hope that my brain does actually take it in (it's felt very slow on the uptake for sometime now... creak creak...).
I did get into the studio yesterday. Made up some Welsh blanket cushions in new colourways, a few flax seed and lavender eye pillows, worked on some purses, spilt lunch down my leg, stared at the mountains, molehills and morasses of muck and stuff dotted and piled all about the studio. The lift has been broken in the studio building for a couple of months and this has led to rubbish bin issues, there has been a build up and everyone is via for the first fill on the day after the bins have been emptied, I seem to have missed the last few weeks and my off-cut bags are overflowing. This coming week I must be first to the bins! Chores... the bane of my life.
Jethro has finally decided to get out of bed (it's alright for some) and  I suppose I better get the Saturday shop chores done.

winter of our content

This week hasn't amounted to much. A lot of farting about and procrastinating, no dye pots, no sewing machine, a bit of tea cake eating yesterday. 

Now it is Winter and I am bravely attempting to leave the house. I have a huge pile of Welsh blankets to lug to the car and have just realised I may be almost out of cushion inserts. Damn. This is what happens when you leave the elves to run the studio. 

I had an old photo of my studio that I took ages ago emailed to me this week and I was so embarrassed by the state my studio is in now. You can't even see the floor or a have a clear sightline from one end to the other, I really need to do something about that before I am found dead under a hoarding avalanche. And home isn't much better at the moment. The bedroom is sporting a clothes carpet and there is an trail of escaped beanbag beans through the big room. 

Time to face the elves at the studio.