G's Projects

I like to take on projects. Within just a few days of arriving in Belfast I had been down to the greenhouse to get a bag of soil and off to the market to buy flowers. The front of the house is adorned with heather, pansies, primrose window box and two very large pink fall chrysanthemums. I’ve furnished the house with a variety of articles found in charity shops and second hand shops. We were in need of a couple tablecloths for the dining room table. I found a shop on Chapel Road and purchased 6 metres of material—enough for 2 tablecloths and some napkins. I thought I’d just hem them by hand and then thought that it would be a whole lot faster if I could borrow a sewing machine, so I went to the neighbour next door to see if Icould borrow one. The neighbour said that she had never used one before but that her sister had bought one from a boot sale last year and that she was sure that I could borrow it. The machine was a 1960s model Toyota sewing machine! We have always driven Toyota cars, but I had never heard of them making sewing machines. Except for the unpredictable tension, it works fairly well. The next day I walked back to the store (35 minutes one way from home) to buy some material to make napkins for a birthday present for a friend and a gift for our neighbour and her sister. I found some really beautiful designer material that was on a fantastic sale so I bought a few more yards. That project went so well that I decided that I should go back the next day (35 minutes each way) to buy the rest of the bolt. It was 50 pence cheaper a metre if I bought the whole thing. I thought that it would be around 8 metres. Actually, it was 17 metres, so I lugged my big parcel home and started making more tablecloths, wheat bags, aprons and napkins. I know it’s hard to comprehend, but I went back one more time to buy just 1 metre of material to make some more masculine looking wheat bags. Do you wonder what you are getting for Christmas?