Taking a Break

gazania

I was given some excellent advice at the Thistle Quilters meeting yesterday (thanks, Angela!) and that was to take a break. It was true that I was rather cream crackered what with giving a evening talk, machine quilting a huge quilt, and another evening out (even though that was huge fun!), while still not completely recovered from all my dental goings on. I knew taking it easy was a good idea and although I briefly had a needle in my hand this morning, the afternoon was given over to frivolous activities such as a visit to Hobbycraft (don't even ask! I spend my entire teaching fee in one go!) and a lovely dog walk in the sun.

ranunculus

The sun did make appearances throughout the day and although the wind was quite fresh, it does so brighten up things, including my mood. The flowers look a lot better too with a bit of sunshine. The hanging baskets still go in at night but during the day they lighten up the walls of the cottage beautifully. I've also decided that next week I'm going to take all my paints, stamps, stencils and the like to my painting shed so that I can mess about with them whenever the inclination strikes. I just can't do it in my studio in the house,  as I'm one of the world's messiest workers and at the moment that huge quilt is in there,  and I would be mortified if I dropped any paint on it!

primrose

Just the thought of throwing some paints around on either paper or fabric is oh so attractive. Although that's a mixture of work and pleasure it always feels a lot more like fun than hard graft!