Weekend wish list

My friend Maisy suggested this as a weekend blog idea, started by karuski from the Etsy European Street Team that the UKers have just been formally welcomed to.

I thought if I published my list, I might actually be shamed into achieving some of it.

So this weekend I would like to:

• Go to the gym - I've been prescribed a 12 week session by my diabetic nurse and am actually looking forward to it. I've been frustrated at not getting out walking as much as I want/should due to recent bad weather. I have an enrollment assessment this morning and will then set a schedule for going regularly.
• Do some very long overdue sewing - I bought some heavy upholstery fabric for a new curtain at my front door which is very draughty - ooh, let me see - only 18 months ago now when we had new flooring fitted. I wanted to get it up before Christmas, but it didn't happen (truth be told, I aimed to get it up before last Christmas), then again during the really cold snap - but I really must get it done soon. I'm fed up with looking at the one hanging that matched the carpet we had removed after a flood 6 years ago - the curtain still shows the tide mark from the flooding. I did the one for the back door last weekend, so must make the front door match. I also need to make the cover for the seat adjacent too - at the moment the fabric is pinned over the seat pad and has been that way since I bought the fabric. Bad, lazy Boo.
  
• Photograph some of the new pieces I've made - I have a box of finished pieces since before Christmas waiting to be photographed and put on sale and yesterday, due to finishing some antiqued copper commissions, I also finished a lot of copper pieces that were waiting to be oxidised, so now have a pile of new pieces needing my attention. I'm very excited with some of the new things, so I'm hoping that my enthusiasm for them will get me motivated. My lovely husband set up his portable DVD player in my work area, so that I can watch DVDs while I take the photos to make it more tolerable, bless him.

The DVD helped a great deal, I did fully photograph 4 pieces and worked on the
finished images ready to list. Unfortunately that was only about
a quarter of what actually needs doing.

• Make some more copper earrings - one of the pieces I finished yesterday was with an experimental surface finish and I'm over the moon with the results - which has given me a lot more ideas that I can't wait to try. I also finished another pair that I really like and want to make more of.

Some of the copper earrings I just made, I've struggled capturing the colour properly,

they have quite a bluish glossy gunmetal cast to them. But at least I got to photograph them!

• Tidy the garden - the recent standing snow and cold weather has trashed my garden, there are a lot of wet leaves and crushed plants that could do with my attention when it stops raining.
• To get set up for some copper etching - I have a head full of ideas for putting stylised images from my photography onto sheet copper for pendants etc. and I'm gathering together the ingredients and tools I need for this. I put it all away at Christmas, but want to get back on with that and see what I still need.
• Get out for a walk tomorrow - I want to try and get out with my husband, we went out last Saturday - just on foot from home - and it's much more fun walking with someone than on your own.

We did manage a good walk out on Sunday - it was raining by the time we set off and very grey and dark. We walked on a footpath / cycle route that was made from an old railway line and which runs parallel to the branch it split from, now used by a tourist steam railway. We've measured it on the map and think we did about 3 miles. Please click to see a larger view.

I'll report back on Monday just how much of this I achieved. Have a good weekend everyone.