Needles on the Move

Very often I wish I were more clever with things like websites and graphics and css and things that should be easier but seem to sneak up and make themselves go wrong just to be nasty.

And then I remember that I can do a mean Double Leg Stretch and well, you can’t be good at everything!

After much tweaking, and grumbling, and swearing, and desperate calls for help to people-who-know-more-than-me (that’s most people), I figure it out and launched the new website.

The amazing Ali did the photography for me, and Nathalie agreed to pose as a ‘client’. They turned out fab.

Come and see the rest here at Reach Pilates

Now that the madness of training is all over, I have been taking a bit of a rest period. Thinking back, I don’t think I ever switched off from Pilates from the minute I signed up for the course, I even had anatomy books with me on holiday in Turkey (my idea of fun!). Apologies to all those who were subjected to my raving on about musculature and repetitions…

The first thing I did was take off for a short holiday with Kai in Germany (well, ok, really the first thing I did was hit the pub…). We didn’t really do anything except sit on our butts and gossip and knit - it was the perfect break! I got through quite a bit of Christmas knitting and partook of the third installment of Learning Indian Cookery From Kai (yum).

Now that I’m back I’m getting stuck into business planning. The website is almost ready, I have a logo on the way and I’ve been sending out feelers to prospective employers. I’m hoping to have everything neatly in place so that I can completely relax for three weeks in Australia, then come back and get straight into working. Today I’ve been de-cluttering in a big way, prior to welcoming clients into our teeny home. This was the sum total of my entire fibre stash this morning:

It lived under my desk, on top of the kitchen cupboards, behind the sofa, and in practically every drawer in the flat. This is what it looks like now:

A pile of it is at Stash Yarns in a box marked ‘free to good home’ so if you’re swinging by there tomorrow (their last day) please grab whatever you like. I have a few things that will appear on my Rav de-stash page as well.

Next up will be the bookshelf where I keep all my equipment/bobbins/spare whorls/magazines/sewing kit… and I’m not showing you a photo of that one!

Ciao! x

Last week a parcel arrived - but I didn’t open it straight away because it had this written on it:

Yesterday, I passed my final exam at Body Control and this morning I tore off the packaging to reveal this (go look at Katy’s blog for a better picture - this doesn’t do it justice):

My friend (and now colleague!) Katy blogged about the picture here and I fell in love with it. Partly because of the imagery of launching oneself into the unknown - which this year’s training has been a little bit like - and partly because the thought of having a little part of Katy on my wall was very appealing. I am always much more likely to buy a piece of art or handcraft if I know a bit about the background of the artist. I asked if she would be willing to sell it, and it was my present to myself for finishing.

Today I’m relaxing a bit - adrenalin kept me awake last night - and tomorrow I will be handing in all my paperwork to join the Body Control Pilates Association, and then starting promoting myself ready to take on clients in the new year. My new website should be up and running in a week or so - I’ll let you know!

In the meantime, I’ve caught the skating bug badly, and this is what I look like a couple of times a week:

I asked for skates for (early) Christmas after my first trip to the rink, and have since been trying to live up to them and not fall on my butt (succeeding so far!).

There has also been knitting, but no photos of it yet - so more to come in the next post.

Ciao!