This week I'm...

What a weekend! Toile and Trouble came round for dinner on Friday night so I cooked up some Indian food - saag paneer, ginger & garlic potatoes, and spicy onions with poppadoms.  We had a fun night and I also got some very valuable help and advice with my dress toile (see yesterday's blog post for more on that).  I don't think I mentioned my crazy Saturday in my last post? I watched films all day (i.e. procrastinated over sewing but had a very good time whilst doing so) and by about 4pm decided I'd do some sewing.  As my downstairs neighbours were having a party I knew the noise of the machine wouldn't disturb them, and I doubt I'd have been able to sleep anyway, so I stayed up sewing till 2am and got my dress toile finished!  I didn't leave the house all day and I loved it! On Sunday I watched Vertigo for the first time (I loved it) then ironed my toile and cut out a practice run for my pencil skirt pattern before making a lovely spicy chickpea and spinach stew for dinner.  It felt like such a luxury not to go anywhere or have anything I needed to do, except what I wanted to do creatively! Does anyone else get those weekends where they know they just have to stay home and have some downtime?

Spicy chickpea & spinach stew

Making - I have archive-related stuff on Tuesday and Wednesday night after work, and a work leaving do on Thursday after work so I doubt I'll be making much! Though I am going to try and get a bit done on the toile for my self-drafted pencil skirt

Reading - I was so excited to receive Lindsay Anderson: Cinema Authorship in the post on Friday afternoon so I'll be reading that in my spare time this week as I haven't read any of the chapters in almost two years! The book was one of the outcomes of a three-year AHRC-funded project I worked on at Stirling University.  My job was to catalogue the film-related papers in the Lindsay Anderson Collection and carry out research.  It was such a proud moment to get this through and see all our work in this published form - though I'm still not sure my contribution merits a front-page credit!

Listening - I've been enjoying revisiting lots of Boards of Canada recently and last night spent some time listening to John Fahey for the first time in ages - bliss!
Watching - no time for TV this week probably - and seeing how much I watched over the weekend that's probably a good thing! 
Planning - too much! I have 3 versions of the self-drafted pencil skirt in my head, 2 Banksia's, and of course still the dress to make for the wedding mid-November.

I wish I'd taken part in the Banksia sew-along but getting on with the dress had to take priority when I've got a deadline of mid-November. I'm still planning to work on the Banksia's but the dress, and some pencil skirts for work, are more essential right now - if a dress for a wedding can be considered 'essential'.  Did anyone else take part in the Banksia sew-along? I'm so looking forward to seeing everyone's creations!