Yes hurrah work has started on the studio. The name has morphed slowly from workshop through workio to woodio and is now studio. Michael our intrepid builder started at the beginning of last week. This does mean that the house is full of all sorts of stuff (old junk?) including the new toilet and sink for the cloakroom (which is next to the studio) which are sitting in the middle of the living room floor. Michael works on his own and has obviously got used to doing two or three man jobs without any help at all. Below are some (poor) images of him putting in a new load bearing ridge beam, to me it is a feat of engineering, IKB would have been proud.

So the first picture is from the putside showing the beam going in the hole he has made in the end wall of the studio. The second picture is the beam just poking in on the inside and the third picture is the block and pulley he set up to take the weight. So he rushed backwards and forwards pushing a bit from one end and then pulling from the other until he got it all the way through and resting on brick work at the other end. This was so he could cut off the supporting beams going across the roof at about 7 ft off the ground so I have more height to get a scaffold frame in. He has since screwed this beam into place and done a pile of electrics and insulation. Unfortunately it is very dark in there as he had to take the window out. This was because the very first job was to take up some of the concrete floor and it made SO MUCH DUST he had to take the window out for ventilation.

I stupidly ordered the wrong extractor fan so that had to go back but now the company are saying they only got the little controller (on/off switch to me) not the fan itself. Hopefully I can get them to realise that a parcel weighing over 9kg simply HAD to have the fan in as well. The wrong fan was ordered due to my email going wrong, poor excuse I know but for some reason btinternet decided to ditch half my emails without me realising and refused to acept many and would only download occassionally . I think I have it sorted but am not sure. It has to be BT because the google mail accounts I use for Heallreaf and Tapestance are working fine. Fortunately the new (smaller) fan has arrived and hence Michael is starting electrics. I will never understand electricity. My Dad always used to say ‘it’s volts that jolts and mills that kills’. I have no idea what it means and where do ohms and amps come in. Lets just say ‘it is like magic’ and leave it at that.

So weaving has taken a bit of a back seat what with getting the workshop ready to turn from a caterpillar into a butterfly. (Building the chrysalis takes a lot of time.) However the last few days have seen me crack on with the big tapestry. Unfortunately I have realised that the small image I have had next to me isn’t quite complete, there is the equivalent of 6-8 inches (15-20cm) missing from the top. This isn’t the end of the world, I have other images but it does mean that my 3/4 of the way mark which I have just reached isn’t 3/4 of the way. More like 2/3rds. Sigh. I still hope to get it finished by the end of the year.

Here is the latest image. The white in the middle is a bit burnt out as usual, my ipod takes good photos but not in the confines of the spare bedroom. There are bits that I look at and think ‘wow that’s amazing’ and there are bits that I am not so happy with. I have played loose with the cartoon, to be honest to have reproduced it faithfully (which would have been nice) would have meant weaving it 2 or 3 times bigger. I have woven just over a metre high so far and there is another half metre to go, plus the selvedge. Better get on then.