Love Friday ... and working from home

It's fantastically fabulous Friday again! Hip-hip-hooray!

Today I'm working from home, which makes me Love Friday even more than usual.
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I'm lucky that my organisation has a very good flexible working program, which essentially means that when you need to work from home, you can.

And right now I have a speech to work on for one of my senior executives, so the peace and quiet at home is a wonderful thing. And the great big pile of cushions you see here? I'm resting on them with my laptop right now. Ahhhhh.....

I'm a child of the open-plan office, having worked in them for most of my professional life.

There were a couple of blissful, luxurious stints there where I was able to temporarily have an office, with a lovely door that I could close when necessary, but those were the exception rather than the rule.

So I can work open-plan pretty well, as I've had fifteen-odd years of practice. I tune out the white noise and focus on what I'm doing.

What I can't tune out though, is the interruptions. My day is full of interruptions from people stopping by to say hello, ask a question, find a fact, or just chat about life, the universe and everything. That's not conducive to speechwriting. To write effectively, I need a long stretch of time that I can settle into it.

But home, now THAT is conducive. All I have to do is write, play the occasional game of fetch with the Grimth and his battered old mouse toy (he loves to fetch), and answer emails and telephone calls. If I like, I can do the washing. But I don't have to.

And I often find that when I work from home I end up getting more done than I would in the office, because I don't lost time to interruptions and distractions. I generally log onto the computer much earlier, around 730am, and get a whack of stuff done even before breakfast. Which is exactly what I did today.

I'm feeling very virtuous now, so as it's morning tea time, I think I will take a break and sew a pencil case for the market tomorrow. I've earnt it.

A beauty of a bathroom bag

Oh, who was I trying to kid. Of COURSE I ended up sewing yesterday. It was inevitable, wasn't it? Of COURSE it was.

After the fence festival of ugliness was only very slightly improved by a very slightly less ugly wire trellis with a poor limp passionfruit trailing weakly off it in an effort to disguise the Ugly - and that took the better part of too many hours to count - I could hardly stay away from the sewing machine, could I?

It's how I decompress, after all.

And so I made this. It's a cute little bathroom bag made from vinyl-covered Kokka babushka fabric in an apple-y lime green. I especially like the little mushrooms (look closely, she instructed, look closely).

I've got the same fabric in sugar-pink, so Im going to make a few in the same material.

This one here is a prototype; I was going to put it on the stall for the Thornbury market, but it's a little bit wonky around the base seam, so I gave it to the Amateur Actress instead. She doesn't mind my dodgy offcästs, in fact she said quite happily "It's good living here!"

I'll know the tricks of the pattern better for the next one (I hadn't tried this one before).

But my goodness, the market is coming up in five days time and I've hardly any stock left after two markets already in two weekends. What on earth am I doing here on the computer, blogging?

Must sew!

Come to the Thornbury market

Right, people. Time for some shameless advertising.

See this picture at the very top of that right'hand column? The one titled "Come To The Market"? The one advertising the Thornbury craft market? That one right there? See it?

I want you to come to the market! Support your local community. Feed a local artist. Come and finger my wares. That is, I mean, you know, pick up my pretty little things and admire them. And then hopefully buy them too!

At this market I'm going to be all stocked up with soft toys - Hoots, and Ellyfumps, and Pussycats, and I'll have some new things as well. I think a fish. And perhaps a giraffe. Maybe a dinosaur as well - we'll see how much time I can snaffle for sewing between now and then. I'm really going to have to take in my machine for a service soon before it expires with a last exhausted gasp.

Or if you don't want one of my things - crazy, I know, but possible, in an alternate universe type of situation - maybe you'll like one of Curlypops' things. She does lovely bags and other goodies.

Or perhaps one of Tinnigirl's things? She does lovely tins with surprises inside - nice ones, not nasty. And gorgeous recycled album covers filled with papery goodness on the inside. Sometimes there's nothing nicer than a little surprise, is there?

So come to the market. Support your local community! Feed a local artist!