February 2019 Projects

Babies!

The January List

• Ply black alpaca
• Germinate cotton
• Hexify 4 fat quarters

That black alpaca is just...not happening. It may happen faster when I finish unearthing my spinning wheel from the mountain of craft supplies that emerged from under my bed, which was a frankly incredible quantity of material. Then again, I had 4 feet of height by just under the square footage of a full bed to work with (that's somewhere around 100 cubic feet, for the curious and the can't-find-my-calculator-where-did-it-go among you).

The cotton, clearly, is going strong, though we are going to plant a few more seeds to fill in the gaps and give us just over 20 plants of each color we're growing this year.

And hexification continues apace! I have ambitions of having all the hexagons made by the end of this year (and if that seems like a long deadline, keep in mind that I started making them in March last year, and made it—just—to halfway through the cotton quilting fabrics by December). So far, so good, though I need to keep that project close to the front of the mental stove if I want to make it.

The February List

• Paint brown wall teal
• Paint bedroom ceiling
• Unstack cement block retaining wall
• Hexify 6 fat quarters
• Fit and construct cut and thrust helm
• Sew seashell skirt
• Quilt cut and thrust coat
• Paint living room end wall
• Collect and break up 5 pallets
• Start cotton for Mum
• Draw up to-scale floorplan and walls of Rose Cottage

Now that the secret's out, I can add projects for Rose Cottage—because of course that's this house's name; how could it not be?—to the list. Which addition ought to keep me honest about making progress on home improvement, and help stave off the sense that I'm accomplishing very little craftwise at times.

At the moment, I'm aiming for painting a few walls to make the space feel more like mine immediately, and starting to gather pallets for free lumber to transform into a built-in bookshelf and window seat in front of the truly vast front window.

I also need to get to work on constructing my own cut and thrust kit, as I was generously given a mask and back plate, and we have enough interested folks at local practice that I shouldn't monopolize the loaner gear for as long as I did our rattan kit.

And, along the lines of exercise, I went to a beginners' lesson in swing dance at the local university, and had a fabulous time—and I'm hoping to go often. It's the perfect excuse for me to make more of the full, swingy skirts I love, and to wear them often.

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