Crafty Week

It's been quite an astounding week. Highs, lows, triumph, disaster, knitting, sewing...you name it, it's happened.

Office life was disrupted by the departure of Sam who has left to go back to Uni. We had a great send-off for him but it is going to take a while for a new equilibrium to form. Luckily his replacement, Jonesy, is shaping up well but still, it;s not the same. Luckily I had Dave's first strawberry to console me. It tasted delicious!

Nick, the brother strawberry plant, is yet to fruit. Bit of a slow starter.

Meanwhile my big project has had its contract signed so that piece of trauma it over. Just need the damn thing to be built now. It makes my other office success seem a bit less impressive.

Template is on my tutorials page here.

One bad thing about Sam leaving is that he was organising the cake world cup - started solely because he wanted others to bake cake for him to eat. It's the semi-finals and while the group stages were country based, based on the office sweep stake in which I got England, so I cruised in with a Victoria Sponge, the semi's are free-choice. So I have invested in this.

It's a giant cupcake! I've put the top on the bottom so you can see the shape, but you cook the two bits separately and then sandwich them together. Om nom nom nom.

My project coming together meant I could take Friday as a sneeky day off so I did a little shopping.

It was the box rather than the embroidery threads I bought. I didn't realise how many I had until I saw them all sorted like that. Wheeeeeee rainbow!

It was lucky I wasn't in a rush as the Jubilee Line was all messed up. It meant I ended up at Mile End station. I'd never realised before how much like a New York subway station it looks.

The underground does have such an amazing mixture of styles. On the same line way out west you go so far back in time that you end up with this...

...wooden escalators!

Coming back home was sad as they have been trimming all the trees nearby. Some of them were ENORMOUS!

I know this will be good for them int he long wrong and they'll grown back stronger, but it seems such a shame. Arriving back home I got on with my flower child top. Doing the front in one piece instead of 5 and seaming was so much more sensible.

The colour isn't showing properly - it's the deep purple by Secret Pal got me. Yummy.

While shopping I also got some new scissors since sharpening my old ones seemed to finish them off.

They are weird because they are spring loaded but it actually makes it much easier to cut. My first project with them is covering these nasty plastic tape measures.

I cut a circle big enough to wrap it in. Then marked a place where the opening would need to be to get the tape measure through. Then I made a buttonhole along that line and ran a line of stitches around the edge of the circle. I pulled the stitches tight and stitched a few stitches to secure it. Then I used my birthday glue gun to attach a button to either side.

Not the neatest glueing ever, but only my second time using it. Glue guns are awesome.

So quite a crafty weekend so far and still a day to go. Crafting is so therapeutic. So relaxing and reassuring. Makes it much easier to get through the funny little things life throws at you, like a sister who consistently makes your life a little harder. Half an hour sorting buttons and contemplating what to do with 8 rainbow polka-dot FQs and suddenly she fades into the background. Luckily Pooch is pretty good too. Even when being cutely grumpy.