Three little blurbs from here

The next few images of Turkey are a bit murky. Murky Turkey. We are below ground in a huge cistern system built during the Eastern Roman Empire. This society was happy with water from a cistern, however, the Ottomans preferred their water to come from running sources. If you go through gardens of each era, you will notice that some water features are still and others are not. This is the reason.

This cistern was built on the original site of the Hagia Sofia. The columns were re-puposed from the Sofia as were other building materials, column capitals and two columns that had Medusa's head carved into them. 

The whole space is hugely tall and that is because it would have been filled with water, bottom to top. We would have never been able to walk through the space when it was operating.

Back home in the land of now, the studio is completely cleaned up. I can rush from here to there, there being where the tea or scotch is kept, depending on the reason for rushing.

This is my closet, the door finally able to be closed, the sheet hiding things taken off and the floor as clear as it ever gets. I organized the piles into 'freshly started', 'almost done-get on with it', and 'about to start if I finish up the second pile'.

I have finished my pin cushion for Karen's class. I turned it into a small wall hanging, with pockets. There is a slit pocked behind the polka dots that will house all the slips of paper with passwords and secret decoder rings.

 

When the owner of my favourite button collection returns to better health, I will trot over with cookies and we will rummage through her gad-zillion buttons looking for a couple of cuties to put among the daisys.

These back pocket will hold the ear phones for the computer (nasty, curly things) and several business cards I am trying not to throw out, I want them for Christmas shopping. A couple of nice pins and up she'll go, hiding several annoying things off my work space.

Last week's post about insulation mentioned some sewing I had done. This jumper is a very chocolate-y brown with black undertones flecked through. The princess seam is flattering to us big chested girls but it looks like hell on a hanger. This jumper will be delightful in cold months with a turtle neck and woolen stockings.

 I made the same pattern up with a skirt that used to belong to my sister. Again the hanger appeal is low, but it looks good on. This comes just below the waist band and will make a nice tunic top for cold days. If you can believe it, both fabrics come out of my stash from around 1982. I remember buying the brown wool as a graduation present to myself and my sister abandoning the pleated skirt at that time.

Again the light isn't doing this justice, it is a deep pink/purple. I need to brag, see how I lined up the plaid almost exactly across the horizontal line? It was pretty tricky to do considering I had a limited size of yardage to fool around with.

The camera is not loving the light today. This sweater started in August is done. I wanted a lose fitting vest knit on circular needles. I made it up as I went along. Of course that meant having to do the neck area twice to get it right. I figured out how to make a slit pocket on the front, with a little cuff of seed stitch.

I had a lovely single ply green ball of wool from someone else's stash and using much smaller needles made the inside of the pocket. A place for my keys if I dash out to the corner shop.

Rather handsome I think.

The giant hanky project is coming along, hopefully done by next week. In the meantime, the wind has not slowed down for almost a week now and it has found all the ways into the house. Therefore, it is time, not to find the leaky bits, but to make a fire and snuggle up with the book that is due for BookClub.