So….that’s it then. Another week over. Another week that whizzed by and before I knew what was happening it was Saturday again.

My job has grown. Last week I ended up working 80% (although two days were pure pleasure in Barcelona) and this week it crept up to 90%.There is so much to do I could be at the office 24/7. Which isn’t a good thing really.

Today I woke up having slept badly (teenagers coming in at 3am and cooking sausage rolls at 4am, husband snoring for Switzerland) and I can honestly say that I felt about 90. Sore neck, headachy, no energy. I’m not sick, I think I’m just bone tired.

I’ve finally been able to get out into the garden this morning and do a bit of tidying up – gardening is always my thinking and putting the world to rights time. And then it came to me.

I don’t want to work 80 or 90%. Ideally I’d like to work 50% and still have time to sit and smell the flowers, sew and drink coffee with my friends. More than that and work starts to take over and although I’m actually loving my job, I realize that it’s also the sort of job (and I’m the sort of person) where it will grow and grow until I pull the plug. I’m starting to think that the plug pulling really needs to happen sooner rather than later.

My predecessor worked full time and I’m basically trying to do a full-time job and sort out a big mess in 6o% of the time. Even though I’m wonder woman, I’m beginning to think that this may just be a bit of a stretch. (I know….I know….duh!)

So next week I will be home on Wednesday and Friday. I will be here, blogging and sewing and doing nice things. I will not be being an accountant. I will stop this nonsense before it gets out of hand!

See you soon – tomorrow probably!

Helen

This weekend I finally made some knitting and sewing progress….

The sea glass quilt top is sown together. Most of these blocks were made for me by the Sew Euro-bee-an bee and then I topped up with some of my own.

It isn’t very big – a little under 5 feet by 6 feet. I’m thinking about maybe adding an extra row to make it a bit bigger. What do you think?

I got the first honeycomb sock finished too.

I used the V Junkie pattern  from Alice Yu’s book Socktopus and the yarn is Smooshy Dream in the cool fire colourway. It’s seriously girly! Despite having made a zillion pairs of socks I learned a new way of making the heel – I rather like this one!

Enjoy your Sunday!

Helen

As expected, Barcelona was wonderful. There’s just something about the city that I love – and the warm sunshine,blue skies and views of the Mediterranean didn’t disappoint – in fact I enjoyed them all the more because I had driven to the airport along snow-covered roads…

Unfortunately I didn’t have much time for sightseeing, but just soaking up all that Spanishness, eating paella and really good seafood and soaking up the sun did me good.

Don’t laugh, but the first thing I did after checking into the hotel was to stroll through a lovely residential area to hit the local quilt shop – Club de la Aguja.

Long and thin, with fabrics, some yarn and lots of scrapworking supplies I had to knock on the door and be buzzed entry. (Clearly I don’t look like an axe murderer).  There was a buzz of activity in the shop, mainly from a table-full of knitters. The fabrics were nice, but I didn’t see anything Spanish or ‘different’ from what you find elsewhere. There weren’t weren’t even any books in Spanish, which was a bit surprising. Almost everything was American and fairly pricey. I didn’t break my rules and buy any fabric – there wasn’t really anything jumping out at me and calling my name, which I guess is probably a good thing.

What I did find was this little gem – a Japanese book on free log cabins translated into French.

I’ve been leaning in that direction for a long time and was intrigued by some of the shapes, so it really had to come home with me. Most of the patterns included are for hand-sewing, but I think most of them would be machinable with care. Paying was fun – but my sign language skills and a lot of laughing got us though. Not one person in the shop spoke a single word of English – so I was glad in the end that I wasn’t asking for fabric to be cut or for anything too complicated. (Memo to self: must learn at least a few rudimentary Spanish works – being able to say Ola and nothing else really isn’t good enough once you’re away from the tourist sights!).

Don’t you think a log cabin variation would just be the most wonderful stash buster?

Anyway, now I’m home again, back to the snow and a weekend with no plans to speak off….Lovely!

Have a good one!

Helen

Today is a day off that wasn’t supposed to be. According to my diary I should be sitting in a conference room in Zürich discussing the (exciting) ins and outs of Swiss taxes with a cantonal tax auditor. All of which would have meant that I was working 100% this week instead of the 50-60% I’m supposed to do…..but then, oh joy, the tax auditor (who against all expectations was a delightful man) finished up early and so today I DON’T HAVE TO WORK!!!!

Not that I don’t like my job – I do, but you know how it is, you can have too much of a good thing.

So today I decided to finally get down to putting a quilt together from my Sew Euro-bee-an bee sea glass blocks.

Because the edging fabrics are all so similar, I pretty quickly realized that I needed to add some eye candy – something to give this baby a bit of pazazz, somewhere for the eye to rest.

This morning I made that pink block you can see in the middle. Next up will be a dark blue one if I have enough fabric. Just singles of some of the outlying colours that we used for the sea glass. I think it will work and make the whole thing just a tad more interesting.

I probably won’t get done today – there’s way too much ‘life’ waiting to be taken care of – but I’m really back to feeling the love for this project 😉

On the other snippets front, I’m celebrating the fact that the Siblings Together quilt did, after all, arrive safely – and without incurring any import duties. I had some nice emails with Delma at ST to confirm. Thanks for all the positive get through customs vibes that so many of you sent – they clearly worked like a dream!

Tomorrow I’m off to Barcelona on business (how grown up and cool is that!) – and I’ve already located what looks like a nice quilt shop only 20 minutes walk from my hotel – that’s going to be my reward for having to get up at 4.30 to take the plane.

Have a great week everyone!

Helen

Ladies, I need your advice….

Remember this quilt?

The Siblings Together one…

I sent it off in a box to England on February 15th, it was delivered to British customs on the 21st…..and it is still there, three weeks later. (Swiss Post very kindly track all parcels going abroad).

I marked on the box that it was a charity quilt and I gave the value as the fabric I used and marked it as a gift. All of which should mean that it should incur import duties and moreover, it shouldn’t sit in customs for 3 weeks.

What to do? Has anyone had this experience and more to the point WHAT DID YOU DO?

It feels like my baby is lost ;-(

Helen