but she's a girl...

A while ago, I bought a length of lovely charcoal herringbone wool tweed fabric from ClothSpot. At the time, I was vaguely thinking about making the longer version of the Arielle Skirt by Tilly and the Buttons, which I have already made successfully in denim. As I thought more about it, I reflected that I am not really a tweed skirt kinda gal, at least not in a sober colour like grey. I have long harboured an ambition to make something a bit unexpected like a biker jacket out of one of the very vibrant colours of Harris tweed, but this was not that occasion. Eventually I settled on making a proper tweed waistcoat.

Do you ever experience that thing where an inability to tackle something new and difficult means that you become able to tackle something else which was the previous thing you were unable to deal with? Perhaps that’s just me. I just can’t put my thoughts together about the recent General Election result in the UK yet, but this has somehow unblocked my previous inability to write about how I felt in the early months of this year when I feared that we might never hear birdsong again. So here goes…

I’ve been on a bit of a knitting rampage recently, which all started when I needed an emergency hat. A work project means that I’m working outside a lot more than I used to, which is great, but also means that I get rather cold. I’m standing more or less still outside for several hours a day, and the cold, wet snap we had here in November left me overly chilly at the end of the day. So during the week I bought a skein of West Yorkshire Spinners’ Croft Aran Tweed yarn, and over a weekend, knitted a free pattern: Jason’s cashmere hat by Melissa Thomson.

After I posted about using org-mode, Jack Baty wondered (somewhat tongue-in-cheek) how I managed with keeping only some of my tasks in org-mode. Actually, it wasn’t really a problem copying tasks across from OmniFocus to enter into my journal entry for the day. However, I inevitably started wondering whether I might be able to go the whole hog and use only org-mode for tasks. Would I lose track of things? Could I capture tasks efficiently when away from my computer before I forgot about them? Would the world explode into chaos? Well, if you don’t feel like reading further, the answers to those questions are No, Yes, and Quite Probably, But Not Because I’m Using org-mode.

While I was on holiday, I made another Closet Case Patterns Kalle shirt. It’s fair to say that this pattern is becoming what sewists refer to as a ‘TNT (tried ‘n’ true) pattern’. This shirt is now the fourth Kalle I have made. However, the various pattern variations (length, button placket or tunic, collar or collarless, and so on), combined with the way that garments made from the same pattern can look completely different in different fabric means that my obsession with this pattern is not immediately obvious to the casual observer.

When there’s a problem to be solved, I often try to improvise a solution. Generally, I think that’s a good thing: better to try to make something yourself with resources you already have than to go out and buy something new. However, sometimes it leads to wasting time setting something up and then living with a solution that comes with too many compromises. I’ve been trying to sort out a compact, ergonomic desk arrangement for my home office for quite some time. I started with an Ergotron WorkFit arm (5 years ago), which worked well for me for some time. It allowed me to sit or stand to work, changing quickly between them. It bounced a bit, as I mentioned in my article, but I more or less got used to that. However, over time, things changed. My ‘home office’ is a small room which has to serve many purposes. As my sewing hobby has grown, my desk has to share the space with sewing machines and a fold-up cutting table, and the Ergotron WorkFit jutted out enough to cause an awkward obstruction. More importantly, the arrangement meant that I couldn’t write (with a notebook and pen) comfortably at the desk, as the arm covered most of the desk surface, and using the metal base meant leaning uncomfortably over the keyboard support. Finally, a variety of other changes to my working evironment meant that I started to think about whether I could improvise something else myself.

Mr. Bsag and I have just got back from our holiday in Pembrokeshire. We’ve had a blissful time disconnecting from online stuff, walking (a lot), and feeling our shoulders drop and relax as we looked at the sea and watched the wildlife. Our idea of a perfect holiday is to be somewhere very quiet with easy access to the coast, with bonus marks for a wood burning stove for cosy evenings. The place we stay in western Pembrokeshire ticks all those boxes and — unusually for Wales — we even had great weather while we were away. I have had an incredibly busy year so far, so I felt ready for a break. I’m happy to be home (and very glad to be reunited with the cats) but I’m already missing the wildness. I’m trying to remember some of the beautiful things we saw in as much detail as I can. I want to be able to take those memories off my mental shelves to look at and console myself with when I inevitably start feeling hemmed in by all the concrete again.

I hope that I might have fixed the RSS feed here so that it once again shows full posts rather than just a summary. I did this using a combination of Jack Baty’s tips and Hugo’s own updated RSS template, with the .Summary entry changed to .Content. I found that I could stick with rssLimit: 15 in my config file, but I guess that might also change in upcoming versions of Hugo.

I’ve been back a week from a work trip, and — as I often do after a busy period — I’ve been taking stock of what I need to do next and refining my systems a bit. Cynics might argue that this is either procrastination or yak shaving (and they wouldn’t be entirely wrong), but when I have been at full stretch at work I do find it helpful to have a period of sorting out the mess that I had to let accumulate, to tie up loose ends and to plan the next bit of work.

I am spending more and more of my time in Emacs for all things, so I wanted to refine both my agenda and journalling setup.

Last weekend I finished drafting a pattern for a simple sleeveless top and then sewed up the pattern. It turned out pretty well in the end, but it wasn’t without a bit of drama.