Stalled, drifting and floating

Gosh that sounds deep! It isn't...

Stalled at this:

Which is very dull. We are waiting for a bricklayer to come and build a wall. He's got until Tuesday at 8am when the gas people come and move the gas meter into the new meter box in the new non-existent wall. Dull but also making me strangely twitchy. Until the gas meter is moved and the wall is built, the floor can't be done, nor the walls lined...nothing can be done really, and I just want it all FINISHED!!! 

Drifting: because now Mrs B has my cupboards, all my stuff is packed into crates and tidy heaps and deposited all around the house. I've been trying to catch up with a few of those projects that you put off until you have a decent amount of time with no other pressures, but without making any mess or getting too much stuff out again. (But why is it when you do have the time, you don't feel like doing it?). 

Yesterday I made another sack dress this time from a Clothkits pattern that I picked up back in October at the K&S show. I also managed to get the last 2 metres of beautiful navy linen from the Merchant and Mills stand at the same time, but because I'm absolute pants at making clothes (despite being a wizz on the sewing machine!) I've tried it out first by using an old cotton sheet. I've used cotton thread throughout, and I will dye it. 

But yet again (must be due to body dysmorphia!) I've cut out a Medium and it is rather...."smock-like" as Mr G put it kindly. So back to the drawing board, and I will trace off a Small and start again...I'll have to use calico next time, as I have no more sheet, and I will dye that one too. So I will then have one capacious and one hopefully OK dress, dyed in some as-yet-to-be-decided colour, by which time I will be too bored of dressmaking to actually attempt it in a rather lovely navy linen!

Other jobs on my list include washing and then shortening the dining room curtains so that whippets and husbands don't tread dirt all over them, making a hot-water bottle cover from an old jumper, and then making four curtains for our bedroom: nothing to really stir up the creative juices there!

Floating: At the moment, my work is in the New Town Arts Collective exhibition at the Greenstede Gallery, Chequer Mead, East Grinstead. Here is all the work laid out on the floor waiting to be hung:

My work is at the front. I always worry that I'm bringing too much, so it was useful to see that it only takes up the same space as John's massive acrylic paintings! 

But there are no red dots yet (well, there may be a couple of private negotiations after the exhibition). Maybe there will be a late flurry? Live in hope...

Anyway, back to the floating. Back in the summer my sister asked what I would like for my birthday present. "A lie down in a darkened room?" was what I answered! So whaddya know, I received a voucher for a floatation session!! And with the floaty place being just down the way from the gallery in East Grinstead, I finally went along on Monday afternoon (ironically I've been too busy and stressed do go before now!). 

I'm not sure exactly what I expected, but I enjoyed it - I did relax and switch off, once I worked out that if I needed to move (for example to scratch my elbow) I needed to do so v e r y  s l o w l y as the slightest movement sets you drifting across the pool which feels very strange in the pitch dark. I fell asleep at one point (which I was sure I would do, as I've been a bit sleep deprived recently) and suddenly snapped awake so I had to waggle my legs because I couldn't feel them at all - so that set off more waves again. On Monday evening, I was incredibly sleepy by 8.30pm - not like me at all, so perhaps it did do me some good. So I want to go again now and find out! I can see it could get addictive...