Slow-bees Unite!*

Finally made it past the mid-point of Clue 2 in the MS3... and find I'm frogging less now. I've learned the symptom of fatigue: when I start to tink more than once in a given row, it's time to take a break. One of the things I've been doing -- besides knitting -- has been re-organizing my 'studio' space:

This is the central section of the room. To the left is the front of the house -- you can just see the long table that sits in front of the window -- lovely north light. Here I paint, ponder and puddle through my projects.

The body of the photo shows my cutting/ironing/planning table, with a portion of the design 'wall' behind it. I made the 'wall' out of 1/2 a slab of thick blue insulation, covered with Thermo-lan (c). (I may have muffed the spelling on that, but suffice it to say it's a form of batting to which fabric sticks beautifully, allowing me to mount pieces and stare at them thoughtfully while trying to figure out how to proceed.)

The lovely pine pedestal table in the middle of the room acts like an island to hold projects (the basket of mending on it is empty now, save for one cardi that needs to be blocked and assembled), or for lay-out...

In the foreground you can see a basket of yarn (on the floor to the left). This holds projects -- yarn and patterns -- waiting to be started. The jar on the right holds yarn for a bolero-in-progress; the white fluffy stuff next to it is raw wool I harvested from the fields in Scotland -- now washed and waiting for me to work with it (a first for me, so I'm procrastinating!)

Outside the photo frame is my sewing table, with machine, just returned from its annual check-up and humming away nicely. It's such a relief to be able to see the floor again!

When I'm not in the studio, I'm in the garden these days, lately enjoying these:

Aren't they beautiful? They're my hardy bush roses, named after various explorers of the Canadian north -- Alexander MacKenzie, John Cabot, Henry Hudson and the like. I can't tell which is which; I only know I love 'em!

*logo courtesy of Bonne Marie at ChicKnits