August - making things 1 and 2

This is usually my most productive month of the year.

Typically, I will make things, do gardening, write, knit, sew, meet people, finish off projects, start new ones... whatever.

This month, my personal challenge is to make something every day.

It wouldn't be a proper project if it hadn't failed at the first hurdle. Yesterday was a hospital day, so I didn't make anything. Never mind. I did two things today instead.

I learned to crochet a circular mat:

It will even lie flat, with a bit of firm persuasion. Crochet is a new "skill" for me, although "skill" may not be the most appropriate word.

And I completed the kit I was given several years ago to build my own grand piano;

It's made out of nano-blocks, a kind of stupidly small and fiddly lego. And it's probably the closest I'll ever get to owning my own grand piano.

At school there was a concert grand Bosendorfer, a work of art in itself. It stood there, big, imposing, willing you to play it, and whatever you attempted to play, it would transform into something better than you ever imagined you could do just from its own perfection. One of my piano teachers had his own great Steinway grand, in the front room which had been especially organised just for the piano. There was almost no other furniture in the room, and the wall-coverings and flooring (polished floorboards) were chosen simply to provide the most perfect setting for the piano's magnificence.

If we moved to Shropshire, or Warwickshire, or somewhere unfashionable, I would be able to afford both the piano and the house to put it in. That's just SO not going to happen. I'll make do with a nano one for now.