Monday 7 August 2017

Winter woollies on....

July and much of August so far has turned out wet and cool - with monsoonal showers and short periods of warm sunshine. As a result of the less bright days I've been drawn to knitting more than sewing and have  found any excuse to buy more sock wool, despite the size of the existing stash. So parcels of For the Love of Yarn hand-dyed sock yarn, Mothy and the Squid hand-dyed sock yarn, and a whole range of commercial sock yarn picked up from my first visit to Karelia House a wonderful wool yarn and fabric shop near Aberfeldy.

 

I've also been turning 25 old seamless mostly white tee-shirts into yarn to knit into bedside mats. Who knew old tee-shirts could be up cycled in such a creative way? Not convinced yet that I have found the right gauge of needle -- I think I need something slightly smaller, or possibly to use the yarn double. I dyed them all 'Bermuda Blue last month and pressed them before cutting into bias strips about an inch wide. Should be a fun project!









Tuesday 11 July 2017

Fresh beginnings

The 7th July has come and gone and I'm now officially retired. As one might have expected the weather has also changed from warm and dry to cool with a lot of rain. The gardening plan is rather on hold! None the less it is good not to have had the alarm clock on for the last few days and to feel able to do as I please. What I have 'pleased' to do is to start a bullet journal as a way of tracking plans for the month including all of those tasks which have been neglected due to work. So the clearing out of cupboards and bookcases is under way, the washing is up to date and the ironing close to being so. The windows have all been cleaned and the house is in a good state of tidiness. Not that retirement should be all housework -- that would be just changing one sort of work for another unpaid version. I plan to spend at least a part of each day on craft activities. And yesterday was wool winding. A strangely satisfying task with a pleasant whir of swift and wool winder. Especially pleasing as it was happening on a Monday!


Wednesday 5 July 2017

The last fling before the next thing....

So the 5th July.  I'm in an Aberdeen hotel the night before my last piece of paid work before I retire.  All the preparation is done, and the invoice three-quarters completed ready for the final additions on Friday.  The sending off the invoice and updating of this year's accounts will be the last proper work that I do, from lunchtime on the 7th I plan to be well and truly retired!

I've collected the final printed labels from the graphic designers/print shop and spent a pleasant evening a week ago packaging up and labelling all the socks I have already made.  I do hope that the 'Made in Stirling' shop will want to stock my products but if not I shall find a craft fair at which to sell them.

But socks will be mostly an evening occupation.  Through the summer I hope to get the garden sorted out -- pretty much rebuilt really, and also to go through the house thinning out 'stuff' and reorganising as I go.  I have no doubt that the paper bin will end up very filled and I shall also have a lot of shredding to do.  Some redecoration may be necessary thanks to the ministrations of Wee Hamish and Archie, and once the winter comes I shall be happy to get back to some quilting.

Before then of course, there are a few jollies to enjoy - a short trip to Wales to help with house-packing, a week-long trip to the Faroe Islands for a knitting and stitching holiday and a couple of visits to London to be wined and dined by friends.




Sunday 4 June 2017

And the days creep by....

So I am now down to only 21 working days before the big day, although in my head, having had THAT birthday I am thinking that I should be retired already.  It's odd, how the approaching cut-off time has me seriously procrastinating about doing pretty much anything that's not driven by a work related dead-line.  I find myself saying 'I'll do it when I retire' about everything from the garden to the ironing, from car servicing to the filing.  I've been making mental lists of all the things I need to sort out when I stop work and that is a very long list indeed.  I am still awaiting the final artwork from the designers for the new activity - actually selling the socks that I make (purely as an exercise in recouping the investment I have made in yarn over the years), something I am hoping will be done before the 7th July.  I am mentally compartmentalising the before (mostly work-related tasks, like prep, delivery, travel and finance admin) with after (house, craft, holidays, garden, friends) tasks and projects even though for the last 42 years these have been (mostly) comfortably intertwined.  I wonder whether I have been foolish in agreeing to do some small pieces of work for one of my clients over the next year and whether I should have made a clean break.  Time will tell.

In the meantime there are a couple of nice things to look forward to - a visit to Stobo Castle spa, a long weekend in Lisbon and a couple of good films.  And books, lots of books!  Some of the good stuff started on my birthday with a delightful visit to the Edinburgh Botanical Garden.  May is such a great month to have been born - I love rhododendrons and azaleas and the true blue Himalayan poppy.





Friday 19 May 2017

The 19th May and only 29 working days until I retire, not that I'm counting or anything!  The 7th July is my last official working day after 42 years! Admittedly I've allowed myself to be persuaded to do a tiny bit of work for the University of Stirling next year -it is only ten minutes up the road and it is a repeat of things I've already done. The weird thing is that when I tell them that I'm retiring people ask "To do what?". My plan is to live in my house, something I've done surprisingly little of over the last five years, catch up on housework, decorating, gardening and importantly get back into some creative endeavours like knitting socks! I'm also looking forward to spending a bit more time with the cats....