lavender induced madness

This is a photo I took of my desk about an hour ago. I have gone all production line and been making lavender bags. You can see a bag of completed ones on the left there and a pile of half-made ones on the right. I'm pleased to announce that the pile on the right has now been magically transformed into the pile on the left and all lavender bags are complete.

Ugh... I was getting quite close to madness for a while there. I've been squeezing in the various (surprisingly numerous!) stages of lavender bag making between shifts at work for the last week or more, so it feels as though I've been at it forever. I hope this batch will keep me going for a good while now... although obviously I also hope I'll sell out of them immediately! I'm still quite enjoying the smell of lavender (thank heavens for small mercies) but the pleasure does come tinged with a niggling hint of insanity and the fear that I may wreck the joint with one sweep of my lavender-rage-powered arm. Do you know that someone tried to sell me a (very nice) lavender bag at that market on Saturday? She's lucky to have escaped with her life, I tell you! I'm happy to be moving onto something else now and I think I will pick something with a bit of an instant gratification factor. I have a loan of a badge machine at the moment (thanks, Claire!) and I think I can hear it calling my name... Exciting!

I'm quite impressed with my productivity so far as I had a few drinks last night and am feeling a bit ropey today. (Am I allowed to describe myself as productive when I'm still in pyjamas mid afternoon?) We went to see Charles Hayward last night, who is a bit of a musical hero of Graham's. Now, there's an efficient and productive man - he sings and works samples and plays drums (like I had never seen in my life) all at once. I was completely agog watching him, which was a nice feeling. At one point, one of his drumsticks snapped and he kept playing with the broken one until he had a spare nanosecond in which to grab a replacement stick. If I could multitask and move my hands faster than the speed of light like him, then just maybe I would get everything done that I want to! I do think he's a bit of an anomaly though. There was a definite touch of the superhuman about him.

One thing I learned when I was out last night is that some of the art school buildings are going to be getting demolished, including the Newbery Tower where I went to evening classes :( The worst thing about it is that all the weaving looms are kept at the top of the Newbery Tower and it is very likely that a lot of them will not survive the move. Some of them are over 100 years old and are very fragile. You can't really get replacement parts for them anymore and the art school just won't have the money necessary to pay for the repairs anyway. I still haven't got over my weaving hankerings, so this news made me feel particularly sad. Are we all destined never to be set loose on a weaving loom? I fear so...

Well, it may not quite be the same a 100-year-old weaving loom, but the badge machine should still be exciting, so I will go and get started. What are you all doing this week? Any top projects on the go? Please tell!