Getting things done

Progress on the house (and the summerhouse) slowed right down last year and this year we have had a very busy season, with workshops or other textile events almost every weekend since we came back from Japan in January. Yesterday was another fun World Textile Day at Bridge of Allan near Stirling, and today was one of those rare things -  a Sunday at home!  It was quite hot and sunny for Perthshire too.  Glyn got on with building the scaffolding for the chimney repairs/repointing, which is a rather urgent job.  We got the lime mortar colour matched last Autumn, so now we have the good weather, he is ready to go.  Don't worry, we are only a 1 1/2 storey cottage, so it isn't working high up.  Earlier, he had the Land Rover Discovery in bits and the bad news is that is has got a cracked cylinder head, so we might just sell it now as 'spares or repair'...

After a delicious meal last night at an Italian restaurant in Bridge of Allan, I did my own version of anti pasto tonight.  It was a bit more international, with a French walnut salami among the meats, Greek olives, Italian salami and ham, and Polish pickled salad, served with Italian white wine.

A white ago, our old plastic laundry basket cracked into several pieces.  This is one of the replacements.  I have nicknamed it 'Glyn's pants pod' - ! I crocheted it from T-shirt strip 'yarn' I bought at the Knitting and Stitching show at the end of April, using a 10mm and 12mm hook (Clover make these big sizes).

It was hard work and slow to crochet, but I'm pleased with the result.  I had to increase at eight points on every alternate round to make the base, and decreased a bit at the top, to help with the shape - hence the 'pod'.  The 'basket' is quite soft and floppy, but fine when filled with laundry.  

The top is slipstitched around twice.  This gives it a really good, solid edge.

For the other laundry basket, I got one of Bob's African baskets.  I thought I had a photo of these but I can't find one.  They are very flexible baskets made from woven grasses, with leather handles.  We got the 16in market basket because, full, it is about one load for our washing machine and is easy to carry, but he also sells a specific laundry basket.  It is so much nicer to have handmade baskets for laundry, rather than something mass produced.

The UK's tiny modern houses...

I thought all the international visitors to my blog (and maybe a few UK ones!) might like to read this BBC article, "Room to Swing a Cat? Hardly?" The link to CABE is also worth looking at - the BBC article is based on their research.

Visitors to the Landscape on Kimono exhibition often ask where I keep my collection. It is in stacked storage boxes in my 10ft 4in x 13ft 11in (3m x 4.25)living room. The kitchen diner is 19ft 11in x 8ft (4.8m x 2.4 m). Before converting the garage to make a new workroom last year, that was all the downstairs space apart from a tiny lobby - no hall, the stairs go up out of the living room, so the living room functions like a wider version of a hall in many houses. Even if I did not have bookcases all round the living room, it would still be very difficult to fit in a typical 3 piece suite and TV (I don't have either). The double doors that link the living room to the kitchen diner mean the ground floor is virtually open plan. The stairs turn through 180 degrees. There are 3 bedrooms - the largest is 10ft 4in x 10ft 4in, the smallest 10ft x 8ft. The middle bedroom used to be my workroom and the new workroom (the old garage) is approx. 8ft 2in x 16ft 4in. There is almost no built in storage space - nowhere at all to put an upright vacuum cleaner (the understairs cupboard that appeared on the sales plan turned out only to be worktop height rather than walk-in) and the airing cupboard is so badly designed that it is almost impossible to use effectively - one inaccessible high shelf.

I worked out the average size of a room in this house against the national average for new builds mentioned in the BBC article, and the average size of a room in my house is merely 2/3 approx. of the national average. Thank you very much Planning Department for passing this house design! Including the two outbuildings (shed & summerhouse), my two bedroom cottage had 68.9 square metres floor space. I moved the summerhouse but it never got rebuilt here and I had to sell it (neighbour thought he had bought the view over my garden as well as his own house, and I didn't want to fall out over it). Before the garage conversion, this house had only 60.77. No wonder my stuff doesn't fit. CABE have recommended that houses be sold on floor area, rather than number of bedrooms, as a size guide.

New houses being built a mile away are even smaller! Check these out - at Mytton Homes (£129.950- $207,920 US) the Laurel and (£134.950 - $215,920 US) the Beech.

One day, I want a two storey extension on the back...