melodyssister | Entries tagged with sewing

For the past five years, my parents have been taking all of us - me, my siblings, our spouses and children, now 16 people in total - to the holiday camp at Dor for a few days during Sukkoth. Traditionally, time is spent sunbathing, swimming and eating. My father gets up early to go fishing, and various children and adults accompany him. There is barbecue two out of three nights, and ADC and I make a vegetarian meal on the third. We get away from the beach for one morning or afternoon.

This year, we arrived later than usual, as we went to the market on Friday morning and then continued unpacking until S got home from school. When we arrived, it turned out that we had more space than usual, as my parents had bitten the bullet and instead sharing a chalet with

eumelia, she was by herself in a honeymoon suite / 2-person igloo, including a jacuzzi, which meant an extra kitchen and fridge, as well as empty floor space for the traditional board games played by the boy cousins, ADC and myself in the afternoons. We also had a slightly different location from the usual one, and it was even more peaceful than in past years.

On Saturday, S and I joined my father for fishing, together with my brother-in-law, R and his children SR and LR. While the men fished (quite successfully), LR and I looked for shells and talked. I haven't spent much time alone with LR, and I enjoyed the bonding experience. She is very conscious of being a girl, and in some ways she is very Victorianly accomplished- she plays a musical instrument (cello), learn dancing (flamenco) and loves drawing (on Monday she sketched the fishermen and the fish); so Victorian with a twist, I suppose. It was warm even at 6:30 a.m., and I was glad to be wearing an activewear t-shirt and shorts (the first pair I made) over my swimming costume, for a bit of extra protection.

After breakfast, we had a quick swim and then showered and changed before setting off to visit NN, almost exactly a year after she visited us in Takoma Park. It took us a long time to find her house, as none of the houses have actual numbers, and their name is quite discreet, since they are renting. Lunch - made by her husband AN-D - was mainly quiches, with the correct ratio of vegetables to pastry/filling, i.e. about three times the amount of vegetables you find in commercial quiches! We had a good time catching up, although as usual - NN is so polite and I'm not - we talked more about what we were doing than what they were doing, before moving onto politics and academics, and ending up playing a new-to-us board game, called Dixit, in which the three C family teams took the first three places. At least I was able to compliment AN-D on the new machzor (prayer book for the High Holydays) for Yom Kippur, as he was on the committee that compiled it, and to tell NN that my father missed her Torah reading.

As soon as we got back to our igloo, we began preparing supper - this year, the vegetarian meal was on the middle night, since guests had been invited for the third night, which also happened to be the first night of the Sukkoth festival, the week-long festival ending the series of New Year festivities in which observant Jews spend as much time as possible in transient structures, whose sorts are covered with plant material through which one can see the stars. (A funny story about the rabbi of ADC's parents' shul in the Negev desert: when he made aliyah to Israel from Minnesota, he included his sukka in his lift. As the sukka was meant for mid-September/early October in Minnesota, he has never used it since, the temperatures in Israel at that time of year being far too high for it. I digress ...) This year's theme for our meal was Persian food, including spinach cooked in pomegranate juice until it was completely reduced (very yummy and worth doing again). The only leftovers was the plain rice we'd made for the younger members of the party who reject any kind of sauce as the devil's work.

On Sunday there was no fishing, as my father had to make the trip back to Kfar Saba and open his pharmacy for several hours. We spent the morning at the beach (at the next lagoon over, where there are fewer people and more waves than at the main beach, and some people did not apply sufficient sunscreen; fortunately, all my nuclear family were sensible) and then played Kingmaker in the afternoon until the guests arrived and a fish barbecue was prepared. A and S had a major epiphany: they do like fish! (Or at least, they like fresh sea bream cooked over coals). Everyone was very excited and my mother immediately began planning to serve fish next time we come for supper.

On Monday, S and I once again got up early for fishing. It was less successful this time, but still enjoyable. We left Dor shortly after lunch, as we had another exciting day ahead us on Tuesday, and got home in time to complete unpacking, apart for the children's books. I even had ADC set up the converter for my sewing machine. Happily, he found an unused electric point next to the dining room table, so I will be sewing there - with much more space - rather than at my desk.

Yesterday was something completely different: we went to the major Israeli sci-fi and fantasy con, called iCon. This was only our second time, and once again I was struck by how exhaustingly hot it is in Tel Aviv. The cosplayers all seemed a little miserable after a while, and the people wearing t-shirts proclaiming "Winter is Coming" are clearly delusional, at least for the next few months. I spent most of my time at lectures, two of which were very good and one of which was terrible. We also all went to a game show on logical fallacies, which was very amusing. The two good lectures were a panel on translating books featuring time travel, which quickly became - at the audience's urging - a discussion of the difficulties of literary translation generally, and of translation of speculative fiction in particular; and a really excellent talk on dragons and their natural/cultural history, given by an arachnologist who is a technician in the collection ADC curates and hopes to become one of his doctoral students (as soon as there is funding). The bad lecture was quite appalling: purporting to discuss "the Odyssey: from Homer to Tolkien," the unfortunate lecturer quickly proved to know very little about either Homer or Tolkien. This did not prevent her from retelling the stories before getting to the point that Bilbo = Odysseus and the trolls = the Cyclop. If there are parallels to Homer, could it be that this is because Tolkien had read him?! I don't expect an academic lecture; I do expect to be treated like an intelligent person. I expatiated on this to

eumelia, who met us for ice-cream after her work and before we went to the dragon lecture, and she suggested that I give a talk myself next year, on Snape and Richard III. Definitely food for thought ... ADC (who was only persuaded to stay in the Odyssey talk because there was air conditioning) is also thinking of giving a talk. Happily, A and S only had positive experiences: they heard a different lecture, comparing the cultures of Marvel and DC comics (one is a workplace and the other is a family, in a nutshell), which provided them with a prism they hadn't thought of before. S also blew about 500 shekels (about $130) on comics and action figures - but this was his birthday money and savings for him to spend, so I can't really complain. We returned home tired but happy.

This is a scheduled post ... I will probably not yet have internet when it goes up :-(

Moving back home after a year away is a good time to rethink the way one's house is arranged. I will begin by saying that I live in an apartment block that was built in the early 1950s, a time when Israel was at its poorest and desperately in need of housing for the mass immigration of the early years of the State. By the present day, some sixty years later, the entire building is in need of an upgrade, and there are in fact plans to do just that, in the form of National Plan 38, intended to retrofit old buildings for earthquake protection, while at the same time adding new storeys. The idea is that the contractor would cover all the costs of retrofitting and enlarging the existing apartments and recoup his expenses by selling the new flats. Our building had begun that excruciating process, which has been dragging on for about three years now, and we haven't even signed a contract yet. We seem to be very close, though, so it is not worth our while to invest too much money in the apartment as it now is - but we still want to make some changes so that it feels airier and less full of stuff (we are incurable optimists). The main idea is to free up floor space by utilising walls better.

Our current apartment is a three-bedroom, with a bathroom, a separate toilet, and another en suite toilet (but no extra shower) off the master bedroom. Due to a miscalculation, our bed, while extremely comfortable, is a little too large for the room, and there is barely space to open the closet doors, and no way for me to have a bedside table. I will, however, be getting a corner shelf, thus enabling us to remove a small triangular etagere from next to the chest of drawers. We use one of the bedrooms as a study, the place where we watch TV together, and a guest room. It will now also have to be my sewing room (although I'll be cutting out patterns and fabric on the dining room table, which is better than the floor I used in Takoma Park). In short, there is no way we are going to give up this room at the moment to allow each boy to have his own one. The boys currently sleep in a bunk bed, which is a bit narrow, but still long enough for A to fit there. They are in great need of extra bookshelves and storage for comics, so we plan to have all games and puzzles move into storage units underneath the window of the closed-off balcony, thus freeing up space in the current bookcase, as well as adding shelves on the wall between their bed and the clothes closet. We have got rid of an elderly and decrepit fiberboard cupboard that stood in the study, and will somehow find space for everything that used to live there in other shelves on other bookcases. The area behind the door where that cupboard stood will become the hobby space: where the guitar, basses, ukelele and sewing machine will stand.

The major changes will be in the living room and the kitchen. In the living room, we have rearranged the inside of the storage/entertainment unit along one wall for efficiency. We intend to get rid of the big coffee table, and have already got rid of the big carpet we used to have there, allowing us to be much more flexible with the placing of the two armchairs. The long sofa remains along the other wall, and the triangular etagere that used to be in our bedroom is now functioning as a side-table. I would like to buy another side table of Damascus-work, inlaid with mother of pearl (probably the only instance in which I'll be coming anywhere close to emulating

shiv5468's style), preferably with some kind of storage space. There is a shop in the Christian Quarter in the Old City that sells Damascus-work furniture, but I have no idea how much something like that would cost. I think it would go really well with the Turkish rug that will now be the main carpet in the living room. As for the enclosed balcony, formerly the children's play area, that will now be only one of its functions. We bought Nordli units at Ikea, which will replace the plastic sets of drawers in which the remaining toys are now, AND have space left over for tablecloths, fabric for sewing, and more. The old clothes' drying rack is now broken, and instead of it taking up space on the floor, I intend to get something along the lines of this: an extendable clothesline that folds up onto the wall when not in use. Because I am on the ground floor, on a slope, I don't have an external clothesline, as clothes hung from the outside wall would drag in the dirt. I use a dryer most of the time, but sometimes you need a clothesline, too.

The major change will be in the kitchen. For this, we are going to get a carpemter and have things made to our specifications. About the only thing that ADC liked in the kitchen in Takoma Park was the pots and pans hanging from hooks rather than in drawers. Our kitchen is L-shaped, and currently the short leg is partly blocked by an ugly white plastic cupboard, which we will get rid of. On the wall against which it stands, we will have a set of rods and hooks from which to hang pots and pans, thus freeing up space in the deep kitchen drawers for the current contents of that cupboard. Additionally, in the pantry area beyond it, currently filled by a rolling unit we got from a credit card catalogue, we will have a set of drawers (for cleaning materials and plastic wrap/silver foil/etc.), open shelves (for a microwave, toaster oven, and all the cookbooks), and closed shelves (for a pantry). The whole will be on legs, so as to retain access to the drainhole beneath the rolling unit at the moment. The dryer will be turner 90 degrees so it is next to the new pantry unit, and brooms, mops, vacuum cleaner will be opposite it, out of sight from the main kitchen but still easily accessible. The only question is where to put the recycling bins, but I imagine we'll find a solution for that ...

These changes are much less drastic than ones involving separating the boys and moving the study into the lounge (how claustrophobic would that be?) or onto the balcony (freezing and with a tendency to leak in the winter; even though the last problem will be solved before this winter, I do not intend to put a computer there), but I think they will make a big difference to the way our house feels. If I were

teddyradiator I would be putting up before and after photos; I'll see if I can get ADC to cooperate.

This week has gone by very fast. Not as much time was taken up with packing as I thought - but we did sort out a lot of stuff. The Lupus Foundation came this morning and took away four big bags of old clothes and shoes - amazing, considering how much we got rid of just over a year ago, when we left Israel.

What else happened this week? The boys and I had haircuts on Wednesday. S and I are quite happy, A not so much. He has a very clear idea of what he wants, but isn't able to communicate it quite so clearly to hairdressers, it seems ... The rest of us think he looks good, though. I spent a lot of time sewing - I completed a second pair of Tofino shorts that I began last week, and made a pair of pants from start to finish - with perfect seam matching at the crotch, if I say so myself. It was an interesting experience to sew with linen rather than cotton. I'm planning to wear these pants on the flight to Seattle next week, and I hope I don't discover that I should have lined them. I'll see what another round of laundering does, though.

We saw people and said good-bye to them three evenings this week: on Monday we had dessert with our new next-door neighbours. S continued to win the heart of their five-year old daughter by reading aloud to her for over an hour. On Wednesday, we went to our old next-door neighbours, to their condo in Bethesda, for supper. I continued the mission of finishing what's in the pantry by baking a cake. I used a recipe I found on the internet "closely adapted from Nigella Lawson", that used canola oil, brown sugar and melted dark chocolate, as I didn't have butter, granulated sugar or cocoa left. Tonight, Friday, we went to SG and HG for the last time. It was lovely, as always. I;;'m glad we got to know them.

Happy 4th of July to all American friends - I'm looking forward to seeing my first parade and fireworks.

..the last week with any sort of routine for a while, I think, since the second week of camp was cancelled on Tuesday. A and S were very disappointed, as they were looking forward to a marine biology camp - but I guess not enough people felt like paying that price for four days of camp. They thoroughly enjoyed Japanese art camp, though, coming home today not only with manga booklets they had prepared themselves, but with papier-mâché Noh masks, origami animals, kimono designs and durga(sp?) heads. They also experienced a sushi workshop, and are now prepared to eat some kinds of vegetarian sushi, which is an improvement over refusing to eat sushi at all (they both reject fish in any form).

We spent three nights this week watching movies: two nights watching The Last Waltz on Netflix, while last night (Thursday), we went on a family outing to the cinema, for only the second time since coming to the US. We saw Inside Out, which deserves its rave reception. I won't go into the plot, so as not to spoil anything, but it was a complex and original story, with really fantastic animation and artwork. I thought that all the sweaters worn by the characters had really been knitted. Surprisingly, the traditional Pixar short before the main feature was terrible, in my opinion, by any standards, but especially considering how excellent Inside Out was.

Today M and D came over for supper - part of the campaign to finish everything in the pantry. As a result, we served meatballs, brown rice/wild rice/barley and succotash, with challah to start and brownies and biscotti to finish. We finished a bottle of wine (opened that evening) and a bottle of port (opened several weeks ago). M and D are such nice people; D is excellent with the boys, the kind of cool uncle Y was before he had kids of his own :). We made tentative plans for them to come over to watch the Fourth of July fireworks, which apparently are across the road from us, at the middle school field, and help us drink another bottle of wine, as well as taking everything we won't be able to donate to a food bank, like open bags of flour and jars of jam.

My own week was productive: I edited two articles and reviewed another. The article I reviewed was for Journal of Ethnopharmacology, and I am not sure I am really competent to review there. In this case, however, I thought the methodology sound and the information useful, but the English was so bad (the authors were Turkish) that the article was almost unreadable. I sent it back with an "Accept pending major revision / revise and resubmit", but ADC told me I should have rejected it. I'm not sure about that: the topic was certainly suited to the journal and really my only problem was with the language. I don't think the authors should be penalised totally for spending more time on their research than on their language skills.

I also started sewing another pair of shorts, which I intended to finish today but was attacked by a bout of lethargy/want to read all the fics instead of anything else.

The weekend has been boiling hot, and spending Saturday on the Shenandoah River was a very good idea. We reached the rafting company at Front Royal around 10:30, and were on the river just after 11:00. We floated along until 15:30 - the Shenandoah was much wider and slower than the Jordan was when we went rafting there, and we got stuck at every "riffle" - places where rocks are high enough to cause very mildly choppy water, but it was still great fun. ADC and A did most of the rowing, and every so often we stopped at an island and had a dip in the lovely cool water. I am still trying to get the algae out of my shorts - admittedly I made them for this kind of activity, but still, I'd like them to look newish after only one wearing. You can float so well when wearing a life jacket! The boys insisted on racing the other people who had been in the shuttle to the rivers with us - two men who were camping with their six-year-old sons. Unsurprisingly, we reached our end point - 7 miles from the start - before them. On the way back, we decided to take a scenic detour along the Skyline Drive, in the Shenandoah Valley National Park. We had been there before, in early October, and this was our last chance to be there again. Unfortunately, I think we were too tired to appreciate it properly - and also the view, when we stopped at overlooks, was quite hazy.

After such an exhausting day, we had a much quieter time yesterday. ADC finally went to buy bagels for Sunday breakfast. He said that he was one of the few male customers not wearing a kippa, and that all the staff were clearly Orthodox Jews - which to my mind seemed a good indication of quality control, and indeed the bagels were delicious. I wonder why American bagels are so much softer than the ones Granny and Grandpa used to make - a difference between Polish and Lithuanian traditions, perhaps? We then slowly wended our way to the weekly farmers' market and listened to a few acts at the Takoma Park Jazz Festival. It was incredibly hot and humid - Tel Aviv seemed cool and dry in comparison - so we didn't stay as long as we might have. We ended the day by watching Flash Gordon, which A had been very eager to watch due to the soundtrack being by Queen. I saw sometime in my childhood, but remembered very little of it. It was quite hilariously campy and bad, with enough woodenness to furnish a carpenter in every scene with Flash and Dale Arden, on the one hand, and Brian Blessed chewing all scenery he came within point blank range of: "Hand me the remote control!!" sounded just like "Release the Kraken!!"

Today was the first day of the summer holidays. The boys and I have begun packing - in the sense that they went through all their school stuff, and there is now a pile of paper almost 23 cm high waiting to be recycled - and I began inventorying which of the things we bought for the house we plan to send in a lift and which we plan to leave behind as it's not worth sending them, when you factor in the cost of shipping and customs. Tomorrow a rep of one of the shipping companies I contacted is coming to do an in-home survey; another company estimated (based on my very preliminary listing) that we had about 5 cubic metres to ship. I think the cost of shipping will come to almost equal the value of the things that we are shipping, and that's before customs is calculated. The state really wants you to buy things in Israel, rather than importing them personally!

Today was the last day of elementary and middle school in Mayland. Since A has finished 8th grade and S has finished 5th grade, today was devoted to their promotion ceremonies - a new usage to me, BTW. I had not previously run across "promotion" in this sense. I would have just said "finished primary school" and/or "finished junior high".

Anyway, we split up, with ADC attending A's ceremony (12:30-14:00) and me attending S's (11:30-12:30, clap-out at 15:15). It sounds as if both ceremonies were very similar: the children marched in, speeches by the principal and student representatives, a musical number, prizes, names of each student read by homeroom teacher. A's ceremony, from his report, was of course more elaborate, with a PowerPoint with pictures of all the children and a short film with all the teachers wishing them luck. The TPMS principal apparently spent her day going to various promotion ceremonies, elementary schools in the morning and the middle school in the afternoon. S received his certificate in his classroom. While everyone was milling around before the children had a picnic lunch (parents were sent home and returned to clap the mortarboard-wearing children out of school at the end of the day), I took pictures of S and his teacher and best friends on my cell phone. I hope they are viewable. ADC said the same for his pictures of A's ceremony, taken on a real camera and by a far better photographer.

On another note entirely, I spent my free minutes today and yesterday crafting: I finally finished my Tofino shorts, which I decided to lengthen by adding a cuff (just in time to go rafting tomorrow), and I swatched my next Miette cardigan. It seemed oddly appropriate to be knitting while watching Brazil. Very excitingly, when I logged into Ravelry, I saw I had a message from the designer of the baby blanket I knitted for my latest neice, asking permission to feature my project on the pattern's main page. Admittedly, I knitted the blanket in December, but only added the pictures (again, ADC must be credited) a few days ago. What a compliment!

Today was a very productive day, both in terms of editing (finishing an article, taking anoter step towards submitting a grant), finances (getting the ball rolling on money owed - both reimbursement from the Rutgers visit and an editing job back in January), A's Arabic lesson (revision, but hopefully things have now sunk in), and most of all: sewing!

I am making myself badly-needed hiking shorts, using view B of the Tofino elastic-waisted shorts pattern by Sewaholic. As this is going to be a wearable muslin (I hope), I have not done any serious fitting, apart from cutting the front pieces a size larger than the back pieces, in the hopes of disguising my tummy somewhat (or at least not having fabric straining). While I skipped the piping and the fabric belt, in the interests of simplicity, I have added pockets to the side pieces, in the interests of the bird/plant/butterfly-sighting notebook I usually carry when hiking. Before leaving for Israel I cut out everything and sewed the pockets. Today I sewed all the seams, up to and including the crotch, which latter involved a great deal of head-scratching until I reached a Eureka moment. I've decided to reinforce the crotch seam with another line of stitches, just to be on the safe side. Tomorrow I have less paying work today, so I'll try to finish these shorts - all the remaining steps seem to be obvious.

Surfing Ravelry today, I noticed that my cardigan was started on February 27. All I have left to do is sew on four buttons, so I MUST do that tomorrow - 3 months is a good time to spend knitting an adult-sized garment!

Yeterday was all about jetlag - although I woke up what seemed like a reasonable time, I was completely washed out the whole day, and found it difficult to concentrate well enough to work. The heat didn't help, although at least our AC is working, unlike A's school ... It was such a relief when the heavens opened about 8 p.m., and it continued raining at least until I went to bed at the absurdly early hour (for me) of 10 p.m.

Today was a much better day. I filled in my bimonthly income tax and VAT reports for the Israeli tax authorities, finalised a grant proposal (but can't submit it yet, as the admin people have to first upload the sections they are responsible for), put the final touches to the book I was editing before leaving for Israel, and began peer-reviewing three articles for a collection to which I have contributed (and will be paid for). So a very productive day all round. Now to make supper, and afterwards to sew buttons on ADC's trousers, a top of mine, and the cardigan that will be M's.

The flight was OK in the end - the boys were not bothered by sitting apart from me, but I got a bit claustrophobic towards the end, sitting between two men larger than myself, and the person in front of me leaning back. It was lovely to see my parents, siblings and nieces and nephews. Everyone was very pleased with their presents, and very impressed with my sewing and knitting. After my sisters tried on the Miette, I decided that it fit M much better than myself, and I would give it to her, and reknit it with a needle one size larger.

The only irritating thing was that I have mislaid my Israeli phone - I thought I had left it with my parets, but it can't be found. Maybe I did take it with to America, and it is now inside the box in which my American call phone came? That would be such a smart and obvious place to put it that of course it would be forgotten ... at least there is a place that sells SIM cards just down the road, and I'll go there first thing in the morning.

... but a productive one. I completed about a quarter of the remaining part of the book I am editing, so I am well on track to finishing it by Friday. After supper I sewed for an hour, and then completed the neckband of my cardigan, and wove in all the ends. Only the buttons left!

The children had more exciting days. A's English class had their dramatic readings today, and apparently he did quite well. He chose an abridged version of Pirate Jenny from the Bertolt Brecht/Kurt Weil Threepenny Opera (the link is to Judy Collins' performance of it). Not being very musical, he had to work quite hard to learn it by heart and to be able to recite it not in a monotone. S, on the other hand, registered today for a MOOC run by the Smithsonian, called The Rise of Superheroes and Their Impact on American Culture - right up his street, and I'm glad ADC knew about it. He is very enthusiastic about it, and I wouldn't be surprised if he was the youngest participant.

Today had its ups and downs. Just as I set off into DC to buy gifts for my nephews and nieces who I'll be seeing next week in Israel, I got an e-mail from my mother-in-law that basically said that the day I was coming to visit her and my father- and sister-in-law was very inconvenient and could I change it. Now, I will be in Israel for six days, with the last two days - the Friday and Saturday - basically being devoted to my nephew's bar mitzvah, which is why we are going (we = me, A and S. ADC is going to visit colleagues in Arizona). That leaves four days, including the day we actually land. Can I change anything at this stage? Not without a huge hassle which I am not prepared to do, especially since I sent everyone my schedule on April 18 precisely so that if anyone needed to change plans, they would be able to do so.

I bitched about this to ADC during lunch with him in a lovely Asian-fusion restaurant called Teaism, and he took my side against his mother, thus proving once more that he is a Good Husband. On the metro on the way home, my sister-in-law ("the only sensible adult in that house," to quote ADC) e-mailed to apologise for her mother's earlier mail, and to say that everything had been sorted out and I should come as planned. Whew! Much mental agony wasted.

I managed to get quite a lot of editing done even with arriving home at 2:30, and I cut out a new pattern: Tofino shorts. I'm not sure about the fabric, it might be a bit sheer, but that's why this will be a wearable muslin...

The warm weather is making me both happy and productive. I must have been suffering from some mild form of SAD during the winter. I've edited two sections of the current book I'm working on, and sent them back to the author with some content-related comments.

I have also done a load of laundry and had the dubious pleasure of unblocking the toilet. I hate the temperamental plumbing in this house, can't wait to get home where it's the bath - rather than the toilet - that gets blocked, and even that only every few months rather than weekly.

Now to reward myself by hemming my skirt!

I have been thinking for a while about making this more of a blog and less of an open archive of letters home, so when

teddyradiator announced a challenge to post Something Every Day during May, I jumped at the chance for a framework. This is a good month to do something like this, as I will be spending a week in Israel, so less letters home will be written in any case.

I will start with the list of the things I want to do before the 9th, which is when I will be travelling with A and S to my nephew's bar mitzvah. Workwise, I have just finished editing one book-length manuscript and already started another. I will be meeting both authors in Israel, so I definitely need to finish book two, but instead I cleaned the house and went shopping. My supermarket trolley was a bit schizophrenic: healthy fruits and vegetables for us to eat over the coming week, and chocolate bars, ice cream toppings, peanut butter and maple syrup to take to Israel (well, the last two are OK, I suppose).

Craftwise, I want to complete my Miette cardigan (only the second sleeve ribbing, buttonbands and neckbands left, and my Hollyburn skirt (only the hem left). This is the first time I have made any kind of garment - knitted or sewn - for myself. I've only been knitting for 17 months, and I got my sewing machine in March, so I think I can allow myself to be very pleased with myself. If I have time, I want to make drawstring pouches for some of the presents I'm bringing, and maybe a pair of shorts.

Wow. This has suddenly reenergised my editing mojo - maybe I should start my work day like this?