November...ing

 Hello everyone, it has been a few weeks but I am recovering from the dreaded Covid.  Just before half term I strted to feel unwell and it quickly got worse, my husband and I have both been very poorly with it.  Two weeks mostly in bed and I have been back to work lasy week (bad idea) and I was wiped out when I git home.  Anyway trying to do bits here and there to not feel very useless! I have managed some sewing and there are a few sewing bits from weeks ago that I forgot to share too.  It really makes you think how you take your energy levels for granted and also how not  being unable to get up and do all the things you normally do is very depressing.  Well enough of that and here is my slow start to November so far.

 Making a couple of videos for Minerva, so I have had to do these in stages as I have been so tired and these were completed this last weekend and yesterday.  Just a bit at a time, which is unusual for me as I normally make things in one sitting.   So an apron, a dress and a top and these will all be on the site when all the others go live I believe.

Everything is a little odd as I have taken stills from the videos.

I do think this last one turned out really nice although it will have to wait for next summer now.

In other sewing I started a blouse before I got ill and I finished that last week, there were just the sleeve plackets and buttons to stitch on.

This as Art gallery Fabrics cotton poplin and this was from Minerva also I have put this in the #sewshirty21 challenge I don't know if any of you are doing that.  I didn't think I would be able to as the deadline arrived and I was ill but they extended it.  I always think i will join in with more instagram sewing challenges to be more a part of the the community bit then things happen or there is always some other pressing sewing to be done.

Selling a couple of bags on Etsy, that always cheers me up to think someone has wanted to buy something I have made, well, one make up bag and one handbag.   I only sell them occasionally but it is a nice little boost when I get a notification.  I did make a slightly larger one a while ago that I listed and I have also bought myself some little faux leather labels to go on any future bags I make so this was the first one with a label too.  Joe at Three Stories High gifted me some of the fabric used in this one and I always mix in other offcuts and recycled bits.

Watching well binge watching they call it! The Handmaids Tale season 3 and 4 while I was ill and unable to do anything else.  Now I did get bored with this a while ago as the tv show had left the books behind long ago but as I was too drained too do anything than watch bits of tv I thought I would give it another go.  Don't do it! It becomes increasingly dark and I did watch it to the end but was left feeling very unsettled and any sympathy I had for the main character was long gone.  Did anyone stick it out and watch the whole thing?  All I can say is it was a very bad choice for when you are already feeling down but I should have known that!

Appreciating the way the garden is just not giving in, the cosmos are just going crazy still and the dahlias it is really looking cheerful considering general neglect of late.  The weather has not been that bad though.  I do have a very sickly looking pear tree at the top, it has not faired well at all this year so maybe it will have to come out.  The rest though has been grand and pretty much taken care of its self after the initial growing and planting of seeds.

Reading or trying to, The Beloved Girls, not sure if this is for me but determined to press on as I have abandoned three books recently in disgust at how bad they were.  I seemed to have a good run over the summer and now I keep picking up poor choices.  I ordered this one form the library but already feel the writing is not to my taste, however I bet my mum would love it as it seems to be the kind of thing she likes.  My mum never reads anything I tell her too though, I gave her a book a while ago that I got from the charity shop and enjoyed.  She passed on it and took it too the charity shop herself, a few weeks later she was reading the same library book in her room and told me how good it was!  I said I gave you that a few weeks ago and she said 'oh did you I don't remember'.     I have also tried a few recently off the Libby library app but again it is hard to know if you like them without flicking through a few pages first, at least it is not wasted money this way.

Baking a lovely carrot and walnut cake yesterday from my Ainee Carlin book  The New Vegan (one of them I have about four) I have made this cake before but I like to try different peoples recipes to see how they turn out.  It was a good cake personally I think it could have done with just a touch more moisture to it, maybe just a little more rapeseed oil.   Still it has gone down well and we do need building up. 

Needing a really good sort through my sewing room.  It has just got out of hand and it started out so neat and tidy, I keep going in to do bits and just organising the very main work space but behind me there is a chest of drwera stuffed fill, piled high and a wardrobe with a piling system going on inside it.  I do like to keep all my offcuts for bag making and recycling but I am very disorganised at the momnet.  I think I will pick a section at a time to keep at it, I know this is  not very Marie Kondo she says you have to get it all out and tackle it head on.  Well I am not up to that right now so it will have to be small steps.

Planning making some Christmas cards before it suddenly arrives, I am going to get a few ideas together in a shoe box and bring some some supplies down to have beside my chair so I can pick things up and get on with them while watching the TV.  When we watch something in the evening I often get bored with what is on offer and would much rather be doing something else, however we don't always want to go and be alone do we? So this way I can be present but still busy, I know a few of you knit so solve it that way.  I do not have those advanced skills, I can knit but haven't done so for years and I was never great.  It also took me about a month to knit a jumper so if i didn't like it I was gutted. 

Well take care everyone, I hope you are having a good week.