Getting Plastered

I hope that I’m coming to the end of posts with pictures of building works, it may be informative but they are hardly the most colourful things to decorate my blog.  I’ve been debating whether to put the latest ones on first and get them out of the way, or whether to save them till the end and start with prettiness.  I’m really failing on the creativity front at the moment, with all my stuff in boxes, so I’ve been making the most of the colour in the garden and elsewhere.

Tim is away at work again so I am back on dog walking duty, and with the bright sunshine it’s been good to take the camera along.  Bright sunshine, but still an iciness in the breeze so the walking has been brisk and photo opportunities taken speedily. I’ve just discovered that I have managed to delete the  photos of Higgins on today’s walk so if anyone is waiting for an aaah moment, sorry but no doubt another one will come along tomorrow.  He seems to have got the cute thing down to a fine art.

So, let’s get the exciting pictures of drying plaster out of the way.  Actually that sounds as if I’m not excited, and I am. With any luck the studio will be all but finished by next weekend. I had been hoping to be painting this weekend, but the weather hasn’t been helpful with drying out.

and, complete with builder…

..and, you can see my stable door!

Meanwhile, out in the garden…

..actually Higgins has managed to get in on the act…

..I found the first primrose…

…tiny cyclamen under the weeping willow tree…

Delicate blue crocuses …

Bold and brash, purple and gold…

…and blue and yellow.

Meanwhile, back indoors, the tulips are going all unneccessary.  Why do they do that?

 ..and down the lane there is lichen…

and moss and ferns…

Spring is definitely springing…

Thinking Ahead

Now, I know you’ll going to look at this and think, NoooOOOh, don’t even mention the word, but I’m going to anyway…Christmas!  Yes, Christmas 2010.  Last December in the midst of the preChristmas panic, I got out the little note book in which I put my Christmas lists and found a little piece I had written in 2007 about my lack of organisation at Christmas, and how the next Christmas was going to be different.  Actually, I’ve been saying the same thing for decades, and haven’t cracked it yet.  I excelled myself in 2009 by not even getting my cards posted so I know I have to do something drastic.   The plan is, a monthly ‘Christmas’ day. Every 25th of the month I have to spend some time thinking ahead, buy a present, make a present, design a card and put it away in a designated place that I will remember.  (I lost Christmas cards bought in the January sales for two years once).  I have a lovely place to keep it all, an empty hamper left over from Christmas 2009, which will go on a shelf in the new studio.

I let myself off January 25th, I’m sure I don’t have explain why, but on Thursday 25th February I applied my mind to the dreaded subject.  One  little idea which had popped into my head in the night was written down and tucked into the hamper awaiting the time when I have more room for creation.   My second was my usual fall back position, when in doubt, apply wool.  Last week I was travelling around blogland and found this on Knitting Iris…

Scarf from Knitting Iris

Who sent me from Montana to Norway for this pattern… from which I made this…

It’s really simple, can be knitted in a couple of evenings with just two of balls of wool.  The pattern is called Baktus and is an elongated triangle which wraps and snuggles beautifully.  I’ve added my own spin with the tasselly ends and made it in a thicker wool than the sample in the pattern using slightly bigger needles than recommended on the ballband to make it softer and more drapy.  I’m pretty sure that popping a couple of these into the Christmas hamper will solve some present dilemmas in a few months time.

Our local store supplied these balls of yarn…

…and I soon had the first scarf underway.  I’ve been amazed at the colour variation, I’ve knitted an entire ball and can’t find a colour repeat.

Now a studio update for those of you asking about developments.    I managed to get past the stapled plastic over the doorway and into the studio this morning.  Work went on late on Friday to get the rest of the plasterboard on the walls of the studio part of the building ready for the plasterer on Monday.  The window frame is awaiting glass, but even with black plastic over the door and window, I was really pleased to see the amount of light coming in through the Velux roof lights.

xxx

The doorway behind Tim goes into the store on which I have designs at a later date, but I shall take one step at a time!  I’m hoping this next week will see the bulk of the work completed and that next weekend will see me wielding a paintbrush!

Grand Designs

 

 Now I know I’m only having a studio built and I am not renovating a villa in Tuscany and Kevin Mcloud has no idea where I live (damn)but I’ve just realised I”ve talked a lot about the building works and haven’t really shown much of what has been going on.  I will spare you a picture of the mud.  We live next to a narrow country lane and large lorries delivering building stuff has made the area round our house a quagmire. (I love that word, so descriptive and just to add a little extra je ne sais quoi we have a tractor muck spreading in the adjacent field – we’d been blaming Higgins!)

Firstly this is the drawing from the plan:

The little bit at the end fits round the existing brick shed making a really good area in which to put shelves and storage. You can see that the building will not be entirely at my disposal, Tim is having a workshop at the end and we do need storage for bikes etc.  However, there will be an internal door between the studio and the store because the architect pointed out there was a chance I will need more space and I could then take over another room… (Tim is now trying to work out how he is going to keep me out of it,  it wasn’t my idea, but…)

The main light source is from Velux roof lights on the north facing pitch of the roof.

We’ve had to resign ourselves to losing a bit of the view, in fact once the fence came out we enjoyed a really good view of our neighbours garden but once the wall started being clad they got their privacy back.

It all started off under a tent to try and beat the bad weather although there were several hair raising moments when I thought the tent with both builders hanging on for dear life was going to sail off over the roof of our house and end up three miles away in the middle of a Norfolk Broad!

The weather is not being helpful, but at least its not snowing.  Meanwhile I am poised indoors with my boxes, longing to get inside and start working, but it will be a little while yet…