Catch up time

On Monday I returned to work after my weeks annual leave. On Sunday evening I felt great and ready for anything but by lunchtime on Monday I was feeling very tired. I'm sure many of you have had the same experience, thinking your are fully fit and then finding you are exhausted by the end of the working day. By going to bed early I managed to slowly feel better over the week, enough so, that I was able to go out with my older daughter on Friday afternoon. The week at work passed quickly as I had  a lot of work I wanted to finish up. 

Over the week whilst relaxing in the evening I have done some work on my sashiko embroidery.  I haven't got as far as I would like but I'm happy with what I have achieved. This is what I will be working on later today.

I have some navy fabric that I want to use when I turn the Japanese panel I have into a quilt or wall hanging. My plan is to use sashiko  on the sashing and in the quilting. You'll have to wait to see if that comes to fruition. I think it will as I am enjoying hand quilting the little mystery quilt I made. It is slow work but very relaxing.

 

I have also been working on my knitted jumper. I had started this but it became obvious that the sizing was wrong even though I had knitted a swatch to check the tension. Therefore I pulled it all out and restarted the knitting. I now have perfect tension. My problem now is that I have done quite a lot of knitting recently and my wrists have started to be quite painful. I have restricted my knitting to 10 rows a day but I may have to reduce that for a while as the rows are quite long. It's not a problem as this jumper will not be needed until the colder weather and so I have several months to complete it. I do love the colour, pattern and texture.

On Friday I decided I needed to do some more work on my dolls house. The basement has railings and stairs down from the street level. I want to get the basement area completely finished so I set about working on the railings. These are made of MDF so first they needed sanding. Then I used acrylic paint on them, black for the bulk of the railings and then some gold. I am pleased with the result. Now I need to get some flag stones for the footpath and make some decisions about the outside area, do I want some grass or paving? I like the idea of a rabbit hutch and of course there needs to be flowers.

On Friday I had my shingles and pneumonia vaccinations. The pneumonia one really stung and I have quite a bruised arm but at least you don't need a booster for this one. By the time I needed to leave to meet older daughter my arm was feeling less sore. Katy had bought tickets for the theatre and we were meeting earlier to do some window shopping. We arranged to meet under the clock at Waterloo station. A place where many meetings have taken place in some of the older films.

We did a lot of walking rather than taking buses. We set off from Waterloo towards Charing Cross, going past the south bank theatres and Festival Hall to cross the Thames by the Hungerford foot bridge. From Charing Cross we walked across Trafalgar square, passing in front of the National galley. There was an event in the square so the fountains were behind the event barriers and there were a lot of people and noise.  We continued on our walk to Piccadilly Circus. From here we walked along the road parallel to Regents Street as we were heading to Liberty but didn't want to get caught up with the crowds. The shop front is on Great Marlborough Street. The shop was built in the 1920's in a Tudor revival style and was constructed from the timbers of two ships; HMS Impregnable and HMS Hindustan. The building became Grade 2* listed in 1972. This means the building is of particularly importance, buildings of more than special interest. Find out more about Liberty HERE

We went upstairs and in between admiring fabulous dresses costing several thousand and happily stroking the Tana Lawn cotton in the fabric department ( this is fabulous fabric for English paper piecing) we leant on the balcony and I took this photo. This display ran from floor to ceiling. You can see all the heavy wood of the shop interior. 

By now it was time to head to the restaurant for dinner. It involved a little more walking but not too much. Once settled we enjoyed some drinks while we waited for our food. I can't remember what we were giggling about. We chatted about Katy's wedding plans, which is in August.

After dinner we walked to the Jermyn Street Theatre. This is very small studio theatre with only 70 seats but it was the perfect venue for Being Mr Wickham. Find out more about the theatre HERE. The play was written by Adrian Lukis who played Mr Wickham in the BBC adaptation of Pride and Prejudice. In the programme he writes that he didn't much like turning 60 and wondered what was left to come in life. As a result he started to wonder what Mr Wickham would be like at 60. Lukis also said he had always wanted to write something about Wickham, as he had really enjoyed playing him in the series. He wanted to consider what Wickham would say in his own defence, so he invented a life for him beyond the novel.

Taken from the front cover of 'Being Mr Wickham'

The play was a one man show and we thoroughly enjoyed it. When we left the theatre we retraced our steps back to Waterloo station where I went to get a tube (underground) home and Katy waited for her train.

Yesterday was a fun but tiring day as Katy, Olly and grandson came over. They are having a new kitchen so have no cooker at present but it should all be finished this week which would be good as it's not an easy situation with a two year old.  Having had a busy day John and I enjoyed watching television before bed. Even our two dogs were tired and that seems to have spilled over into today. They have spent most of the day asleep. Missy had already spent a couple of hours asleep along the back of the sofa. Her weight has really squidged the cushions so we will need to get a new one once Twiglet is older and no longer chewing everything. We had planned to get a new one just before we got Missy. Puppies is new furniture really don't mix.

I'm going to make some lunch and then I can get on with my Sashiko. I might take some time out to collect together the fabrics I need for the next round on the Red Manor House quilt, but that involves going into my storage system and I'm not sure I have the energy.

I'm linking this post with Kathy from Kathy's Quilts for her Slow Sunday Stitching link up. I'm hoping I will have some time to get my machine out this week so I'll let you know how I get on.

Take care

Lyndsey