Good in parts

I never did like the expression "a bit of a curate's egg - good in parts" but that's what this week has been so there we go.

The not-so-good parts in no particular order:

1. I shrank a cashmere jumper in a mixed wash.  It was from the charity shop, like all my other clothes, but it was cashmere for goodness sake!  It thought it was machine-washable.  It wasn't.
2. Mr Gonecycling's cycling shorts came out of the machine with fuzzy bits of wool stuck on them
3. Someone sold one of my little keyrings for less than half the price it should have been
4. Someone sold one of my bags on the last day of the exhibition.  A good thing, surely?  Not if it had already been sold on the first day of the exhibition, but just not collected.  Luckily we knew the lady who had bought it.  Unluckily I had to try and explain to her what had happened, even though I didn't really understand how it could have happened, red dots and all...
5. I used three sheets of Transfer Artists Paper to make Mr Gonecycling's birthday present.  First I forgot to flip the image before printing ("doh!") then I ironed it for too long onto canvas, which scorched and smelled like peanut butter.  Mr G hates peanut butter.  Third time lucky...
6. There is definitely an "atmosphere" within the embroidery group I exhibited with and I am seriously considering my options
7. I don't know what my options are
8. I need to get on with my own work and not worry about anyone else but I still haven't worked out what my own work "is".  Sigh
9. I'm growing out my hair.  It's very curly and it always seems a shame to cut off the curls.  But it's reached the stage where it's just sticking out over my ears and looks absolutely dreadful, but it's still too short for any hair accessories.  Apart from alice bands, which make me look about 12 years old, or a full scale head-scarf which makes me look twice my actual age, or a bandana which makes me look like Bruce Springsteen.  Double sigh.



The good parts

1.   The Whippet has a new luxury set of felted cashmere PJs:

2.   The exhibition was hugely popular, and I did very well.  I'm still a bit fazed by it all.  I met some lovely people who came to collect three (three!) pieces yesterday, one of which is going to their daughter in California.

3.  I'm saving money by not having to fork out for haircuts every six weeks

4.  The birthday present worked in the end, thanks to one of my students for her handout on how to bind edges!

It's hard to know what to make (a) when what you "do" is sewing and embroidery and the person you are making something for is male, and (b) when said male insists that he doesn't "need" anything.

But I thought that a book cover for little moleskine notebooks would be useful and inspiring:

And I even added some Shakespeare on the bookmark:

And finally,

5.  Birthdays mean cake and cake means chocolate.  Every year I ask "ridiculous and pointless" questions about the quantity of chocolate buttercream required.

Apparently this year I got it about right.

NB.  The cakes were a bit "under-tinned" and threatened to escape.  Luckily they rose like souffles and held themselves together, but it did result in a rather large construction overall.  No complaints, mind.