stubbornly acquiring skill

Several years ago now, we acquired fruit tree sleeves for the cherry on my allotment. (I am not particularly interested in cherries so am left to my own devices would leave them for the birds; Adam, however, is Keen.)

They mostly worked! In that we got a lot more fruit the year we used them than we have in any year we haven't, and-but-also the birds... pecked significant holes. in quite a few of them. in their eagerness to get to The Fruit.

So we hit the end of cherry season, and we sorted the stockings into "fine" and "need repairs", and after a while A sourced a net curtain to cut up and use for patches, and then... the "needs repairs" box... and the net curtain... both sat around... taking up space in the living room... for, er. Some. time.

BUT THIS EVENING (having this week done a bunch of other mending, including getting the sewing machine out to suspiciously make some fixes to my winter-weight gardening trousers) I have! achieved proof of concept! and patched up two and a half cherry stockings! ... of approximately 10, and at the point at which I emptied both the reel of thread and the bobbin I decided That Was Enough For One Day.

Hopefully things will go faster tomorrow, but -- I am fixing! the things! and making lots of mistakes with the sewing machine! but also learning how to use it in more detail! and honestly this is a pretty excellent project to practise on: it doesn't matter if it's especially neat or tidy, so if nothing else I am learning a lot about how to sew in an approximately straight line while minimally anxious about wasting time and resources...