Bereft

I am lost.  The beautiful beast is making a worrying sound much like a coffee grinder, and telling me its not going to play because there's something wrong.  And the sewing machine Doctor is on holiday.

I suspect the problem is my lack of maintenance, and the fact that prior to my ownership it was stuck in a room unused for +5 years.

Hopefully its not terminal.

So last week I cut all the fabric for the Snowball quilt, and bought a skirt and blouse pattern (from Tilly).  Then the printer ran out of ink. It's really not going well is it....

At the weekend down at my folks I picked up the old sewing machine, and yesterday I printed out my patterns and started sewing together some of my snowball blocks.  I haven't got any pictures of that, instead you've got a very disappointing phone camera picture of the mess next to the polytunnel.

What should be there is windbreak netting, then a one year old hedge, then a strip of grass, then the tunnel... and tonight I decided to do something about it.  Little mower and hand shears came out and I carefully cut down the weeds/grass and tried to find the hedge plants.  Some I did, some I accidentally chopped, and some have disappeared without a trace.

The problem was that the hedge was planted at the beginning of last year (or maybe the end of 2011) and then it rained. Constantly for the next 12 months.  On heavy clay.  A number of the hedge plants got flooded out and never really took, or couldn't handle the neglect!  I have got a few mature plants in pots, so once I've cleared the area I'll put those in to replace the ones we lost.  Might mean we end up with a buddleja hedge though - least the bees will be happy!

I made some progress then I gave up because I was sneezing and couldn't breathe, and as usual my skin reacted to whatever I was cutting through and my arms went bright red, blotchy and itchy.