Imperial Guard

Imperial is definitely my Word of the Week! Thursday morning, I had to teach some 5 year olds about "Instruction Texts" [how to fill a bath, how to make gingerbread etc] and these poor little things have to learn about "Imperative Verbs". They are actually supposed to KNOW the word 'imperative'! We are allowed to explain it as 'bossy words' - so I ended up making up a story about The Very Bossy Emperor [fortunately they knew an emperor was 'a sort of a King']

Yesterday and today I have been sewing again - making replacement bits for my friend's classroom calendar. The children attach the day/date/month/year with Velcro. Except she has had the calendar for a while, and the last 'year' is 2008. Also, somehow a '1' and 'February' have gone missing. So I embroidered some spare pieces and they are already to deliver to her at church tomorrow.

This is the second of these calendars for which I have provided replacements. I think they came from M&S - perhaps I should get them to put up a sign "If you lose a month, please ring this number..."

I did this on my wonderful embroidery machine.

It is a Janome Memorycraft 300E and I have had it for a few years now.It certainly earns its keep.

I noticed that the new John Lewis in Leicester have the next model up.I asked what the differences/ improvements were. The demonstrator said she didn't know - she was sorry but she didn't know anything about the machines! I am afraid the new JL haberdashery department is a real disappointment to me in this respect - I had hoped the staff would know something about sewing. I'm not the only person to have discovered this.

Button Boutique, on the other hand, not only know their stuff, but are generous enough to send you to the right place when they haven't got what you want. Yesterday's trip was to buy large press studs, for another bit of Bob's PA Kit. He has a large back projection screen, which he is lending to the church next week [Peter's funeral will be attended by lots of people, so we are having a live video link to the Church hall] However, the screen is on ugly metal legs, and Bob felt that what he needed was a black curtain to hang below the screen.

There is a row of studs there already, for you to pop a curtain in place, and you can buy this as an accessory. At a price. On the other hand, providing you can find the right size studs, and your wife just happens to have the appropriate black fabric lurking in The Great Stash, you could always have one made.

BB had no studs which fitted [yes, I took the folded screen into the shop to check] but directed me to the cobblers across the way, who did. So I handed over my £5.50 for the eleven studs. [Ten, plus a spare in case we go wrong!]

Today I measured and cut the fabric, sewed on the tape to strengthen the top edge, and started marking the positions for the studs. Except I measured in IMPERIAL units, and then converted to centimetres [and somehow made a calculation error]. Bob had suggested allowing a bit of 'give' between the poppers. He returned from doing something at church just as I discovered it wasn't right, and was panicking that I had cut the fabric too small. Fortunately I had been over-generous in my 'giving allowance' and it was all OK in the end. We will leave the actual hole-making, stud-fixing operation to Monday, when I am calmer and we can work on it together. I am so much happier with inches than with metric measurements.

"Somehow I feel this is my fault, for voting for us to enter the Common Market" said Bob. It is, of course - but I forgive him for this indiscretion in his unregenerate youth.

Imperial units are much more satisfying. To lose one pound in weight sounds better than to lose .454 kg!