Stepping Stones

Oooh, look. Last time I blogged, it was Christmas. Now it's summer! All winter I barely wrote a word. My concentration was nil. I wasn't even reading much. Generally, if I'm not reading, I'm not writing either. The one activity seems to fire up the other somehow.

Harvey is still tootling along, albeit at a slower pace now he is approaching twelve. Thank you to everyone who has enquired about him during my absence from the blog.

February saw the purchase of my latest toy. It's an overlocker! (If you're reading this in America, you will probably know this better as a serger.) Four spools of thread, two needles, two loopers. Intimidating at first. Incredibly fast compared with the regular machines I've used before. Pretty soon I was rattling away on it, and now my ordinary sewing machine seems slow.

Since then I've done a lot of sewing with knit fabrics, including several of these T shirts, below, adapted from a free downloadable pattern by Maria Denmark. I can run one up for a pound or two if I get to the market early for the best remnants. We'll turn a blind eye to the cost of the overlocker, won't we?

Then I became a bag lady, and made four of these totes. Once I get onto a theme, I seem reluctant to let it go! The blue one is my new writing bag, in case I go to any groups or workshops, and I sewed the red one for my work colleague. I like the fact that I still get to see it every day, and make sure she is treating it right. No heavy vegetables or leaky drinks, please.

Finally in March I had a sudden urge to begin writing again. I always knew I would, but I refuse to feel guilty if my brain needs to take an extended break for a while. There is so much else to do in life. I was lucky to sell the first story I sent out in this new writing phase, otherwise I may have returned to my mission to overlock everything in the house.

I feel as if the months of frantic sewing were a stepping stone between one episode of writing and the next. There's a difference between how I felt about my writing in the autumn (slightly jaded) and how I feel now (full of ideas and just wanting to get on with it!) So it was time to revamp the blog, with thanks to Keith Havers for the inspiration for the little collage of some places where I've been published.

Even so, all my human endeavours seem very small, when you see what a tiny robin can make using pure instinct and natural resources. Amazing, isn't it?