Saturday round-up

Saturday's rolled around again, and I've done my stint on the allotment.  The hollyhocks are well and truly blooming.  Not a single bee on them though, and I've seen a few tweets and postings on Facebook about how few bees people are seeing this year.  Is it simply the weather we've been having?  Or the effects of climate change and environmental pollution on our pollinators and insects in general?  

All I can do is avoid using chemicals on my plot and provide as much food for bees as possible, like this marjoram, now flowering profusely.  

The ragwort's flowered too, waiting for the caterpillars of the Cinnabar moth to turn up and munch on it.  

The tall, elegant verbena bonariensis (if that's how it's spelt) is lovely too.  Though it's a manic self-seeder, and I'm forever pulling out seedlings from places where it's not needed, like smack bang in the middle of a path. 

Back from the allotment, I needed to crack on with something crafty.  I decided to make another zokin as I'd got a small amount of this grey double gauze left and it seemed the ideal stitchy project to use it for.  The zokin's made of three layers - the double gauze and two layers of very soft pale grey cotton, upcycled from a charity shopped shirt.  It's something I can do for a few minutes here and there, picking up it and putting it down as the mood takes me.  

I've found the perfect needle to use for sashiko stitching, at least perfect for me.  It's a darner, and I only know that as I consulted the very useful John James needle guide that I printed off their website.  You can place your unidentified needle next to the images and work out exactly what you've got.  Taking the guesswork out of buying replacement needles if required.  

I've also changed the thread I'm using.  I rummaged around my craft supplies and unearthed this crochet cotton, and it's much easier to use than six strands of embroidery thread (floss).  You can use longer lengths of the crochet cotton as it tangles much less than a piece of embroidery thread of equal length.  

Something else that's underway - like I need to start another project!  I mean, this is getting silly, so many W.I.P.s.  Anyway, it's going to be a travel sewing kit, and the basis of it are pieces of cotton I painted yesterday with Inktense, then stenciled with acrylic paint.  

I truly hadn't intended to start this, but I'd seen a short video by GioGiocraft and really liked it, so wanted to make something similar-ish.  I expect I'll work on it a little more, then something new and different will catch my magpie gaze, and it'll be put aside, joining the other works-in-progress, until it's moment in the sun rolls around again.  Anyone got some good tips for focusing on just the one thing and sticking to it until it's completed?  Or does everyone have an absurd number of partly completed crafty makes on the go all the time?