June 2020.

Early afternoon..... in early June.

It has rained and blown all day. Have scampered across to the studio twice and nearly been blown over each time! Hopefully all the veg are OK? Certainly the size of our  kindling pile for this winter will be increasing, tomorrow maybe the weather will have blown itself out so I can pick my way around with a container and clear the garden a bit.

For now though I am left with my thoughts, a large pile of assorted blue fabric pieces and plenty of time. Everything that can be machine sewn has Been machine sewn and all that  I am left with are numerous trailing ends to hand sew into place.

The process of slowly ( oh sooo slowly at times!) clearing, sorting, relocating or repurposing has started again. Lockdown has meant that my shopping bag is abandoned and the afore mentioned sorting process has brought to light precious cushions made with the same fabric. Clearing a bedroom cupboard brought to light enough bits and pieces of the shopping bag lining to.....er.....make something?

Well, it is That. Or throw the fabric out. 

Because fabric stashes Do Not seamlessly fit into a household with the propensity  for adventurous field mice. 

Just sayin'...........

Plus I would quite like spare covers for the day bed in our studio.

Sounds dead posh eh! Said bed is my daughters old bed and the studio came with the house. I think it Was an artist's studio. Now? Now it is where I corral all the nick nacks and personal stuff that was dragged into our marriage. You know. The lacquered  amphibian brought back from some journey, the preserved piranha,  falling apart children's books, jars of beads, meccano,  crayons and paper, pictures special to my Own journey through life, books that have my beloved screwing up his face in bewilderment, lumped cushions that I am very attached to ( but which do not spark joy across our entire household!). 

What else? Ah yes, one utterly broken but very beautiful chair. Two ancient footstools that have got most of the way to being totally stripped back to their bare bones.  A long(and in the cool light of day quite a tatty ) woven stool that I used to play boats and trains on when young. Two very tiny slip chairs ( well that is what my great aunt called them, but ah, she may have been mistaken.....) The studio also contains a newish  humongous  desk that came with the house, an equally humongous but very ramshackle chest of drawers and endless accumulations  from over sixty years of life.

The photo above was taken last year, think all of the furniture seen is now inside our home.

The studio is where I would rather be right now.

But the weather is foul, starting the woodburner with This amount of wind would be plain crazy and there are always those big old overhanging branches from the land behind our garden and directly over said studio!

Windswept rain is beginning to look suspiciously like hail and I simply can't bear it. Four pots of peas were set out yesterday and another three trays planted up. The kale and calabrese....I dont even want to consider. And as for the Cos Little Gem lettuces? They are being  blown horizontal.  As is the chard. 

Yet through it all  the aqualegia and poppies dance together, Jacob's Ladder is swaying like a professional dancer and our fuchsia are having a party.

So instead we have sat and watched gardening programs. I have to trust the garden to the weather that it has always known and there is always that sewing to get back to. 

There will be no more large fabric stashes, but equally no throwing away of perfectly good cloth. If not today, then when? Two old felted jumpers have been turned into cushion covers. The fifteen year old curtain off-cuts will become a spare day bed cover.  Endless spare cotton reels will have the last of their threads used up.

 And........ finally! ......there will be some much needed space in my upstairs cupboard.

Tomorrow?  Tomorrow I ll go see the veg

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Update:

Mice have used upstairs cupboard as a playground.

No words

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