Wet in Wales

 We're just back from another caravan week, this time in mid-Wales near Llandovery.  We've been previously rained out of Wales on, I think, three different holidays over the years but obviously we are suckers for punishment. I had found Wales so pretty when I went to the quilting course at the Welsh Quilt Centre in Lampeter a year ago, so we decided to head back there with the caravan.  True to form, after a warm and sunny bank holiday weekend, it started raining on Tuesday off and on, and never stopped.  We gave up and came home a day early - and of course the sun came out on the drive home to taunt us.

We still had a nice holiday, with interesting excursions to the Roman Dolaucothi gold mine and to the amazing caves of the National Showcaves Centre for Wales (which amusingly also has about 150 lifesize dinosaurs scattered around the wooded hillside, many of them animatronic).  And I did fairly well for craft shops and visits as historically Wales was a centre for the wool industry.

We had a very interesting visit to the excellent National Wool Museum in Carmarthenshire, in the historic former Cambrian Mills buildings. It was once a large mill in Drefach Felindre, producing shirts and shawls, blankets, bedcovers and woollen socks. It is now a working museum with restored historic machinery which we were able to see running.  They process cleaned fleece through willowing and carding machines, then spin it on an enormously long spinning machine that spins dozens of bobbins at once. There are multiple power looms for various purposes, and a finishing shed where they can full blankets and shawls, and press woven goods with both hot and cold presses.  They send woven goods off to a mill in Scotland for the fringing to be done but have recently invested in a blanket stitch machine which they are learning to use so they can finish side edges themselves.  Due to their limited production, they didn't have any of their own blankets for sale but they did have a gorgeous blanket by Tweed Mill in North Wales that came home with me.  I also picked up a rigid heddle loom weaving book that I had been looking at on Amazon, all about pattern on these small looms - I can't do all of it on my open heddle loom but at least half of the patterns are applicable. 

This is my weaving book.  We also stopped into a local village fair and in the secondhand tent, I picked up some bargain ribbons and this English translation of a Japanese quilting book - love the Japanese cute aesthetic and there are some nice projects in this one.

We made a return visit (for me) to the Welsh Quilt Centre in Lampeter to see this year's exhibition 'As Time Goes By'.  Not quite as visually exciting as last year's circus themed display, but still some wonderful quilts on display with amazing traditional Welsh quilting motifs.

And of course it would have been rude not to pop into the wonderful Calico Kate fabric store right next door to peruse all the latest fabric lines.  But I only bought some off white solid fabric that I may use as the base for the embroidery in the BOM pack I bought a few weeks ago.

We spent one morning in Llandovery, the nearest town to our campsite, which had lots of nice shops and cafes including the lovely 'Bumblebees of Llandovery' which stocks natural fibre wool and haberdashery and lots of great stuff.  I picked up some colours of narrow ric-rac, some embroidered ribbon, some buttons, needle threaders and a keyring of wooden laser-engraved ruler tools.

Surprisingly, they also had a weaving shop called Wonky Weaver, which is only open two days a week and we were lucky enough to catch them open.  After a bit of confusion over what size of heddle I have (because mine is metric and they were working in imperial I think), I was able to buy two cones of unmercerised 100% cotton to use to weave more absorbent towels.  So I might have a go at weaving tea towels although DH protests that they will be too good to get dirty.

While I did take my embroidery and cross stitch projects with me, in general the light isn't good enough inside the van (particularly when it's overcast outside) so I was mainly knitting another outfit for my knitted doll: another t-shirt, a second pair of shoes, a hat, and the start of some dungarees.  I finished the pink dress just before we left, but it's come out a bit big so I need to sew some elastic into the waist.

That's the end of the caravan hols for this year due to DH's limited paid leave. We do like our little 'home away from home' although it is an expensive indulgence due to only using it a few weeks each year.  Much nicer than staying in a hotel though.

A clueless weaver

 Having painstakingly warped up for what weavers call a Log Cabin pattern (but it looks more like Rail Fence to me as a quilter), I am over halfway through weaving my new table runner.  My husband has been fascinated and has asked a couple of times 'but how does it work?' as the pattern develops seemingly by itself.  To which my answer is: "I have no idea!".  I'm just following the diagram for the warping colours and the two weft colours.  It's something to do with the ups and downs of the two colours interacting, but I have no clue, lol. The difference between a dabbler like me, and an actual weaver. Anyway, I'm very pleased with how it's looking.

Thankfully the weather has turned cooler this week, so I've been up in the attic a few times quilting on my Pink Doiley Quilt.  I decided to go with the same panto design 'Finer' that I used on the New Zealand quilt, as I couldn't find anything I liked better online.  The bowl-shaped Glide foot on my Handiquilter is skating beautifully over the applied doileys, and I've only had a couple of thread breakages as the power needle punches fairly easily through the crocheted doileys.

Down in the sewing room, I made another version of the Sunhat pattern and this time avoided any tucks or pleats.   The fit isn't bad, I wore it out yesterday and it stayed on my head in a light breeze.  I'm not going to win any fashion contests but the broad brim shades my face well.

I also couldn't resist cutting up more Japanese fabric to sew another Soft storage box.

Having completed the small projects and cleared the decks, I pulled out my Double Wedding Ring quilt which I haven't worked on since before going to Japan in April, and sewed another block.  I also pulled out all the previous blocks to see where I am at.  The one I am currently sewing is Block 13 out of 16.

My basket of pre-sewn arcs appeared to be getting rather low, so I did an audit.  I need 3 more blocks which will requires24 pieced arcs.  I only have 14 pieced arcs left, so I need to assemble another 10.  I have leftover cut wedges in various colours but probably not enough, so I may need to pull out my scraps and cut some more.  I think I have enough background and accent pieces already.

Another project I hadn't worked on for a few weeks is the 1:48 scale Betterley quilt shop kit.  This week I added the patterns and tomato pincushions to the stand I had already assembled, with only one pincushion pinging off into the void never to be seen again which is a better result than I feared.

I have also started the repetitive task of assembling over 100 tiny fabric bolts. After cutting out the fabric and bolt inners, each one requires winding the fabric around the inner then gluing the tiny flap down.  It's sort of meditative.

File Cabinet Mountain has now dwindled to more of a hillock.  It has become easier to discard things, especially quilt patterns that I know I will never make because they have hundreds of tiny pieces in them.  I think I had this delusion when I was younger that I could make anything if I tried hard enough.  In my declining years, I now realise that I really don't enjoy making repetitive blocks and that I am not a very accurate quilter - particularly with triangles.  So the huge folder of star quilt ripped out patterns and framed medallion quilts pretty much all went in the bin.  Life is too short :)

I've been enjoying a new video game the last few weeks, it's another souls-like called 'Lies of P' and feels very similar to the Dark Souls franchise only probably a bit easier (apart from some fiendishly long runs between bonfires which I had to break down into saved chunks to get through).

And suddenly it is getting dark by 8pm, where did the summer go?  Time flashes by when you are hunkering indoors to avoid the heat waves.  

The 2025 instalment of Why Can't Things Just Work?

 Caution - boring computer rant in first paragraph, skip as desired.

Yes, that perennial topic of Why Can't Things Just Work arose again this week, when my fairly new Dell PC decided that the latest Windows Update was too much trouble and that it would rather just suspend all operating system user access.  I could use third party apps like Chrome or Word alright, but no access to system settings, not able to print, not even able to access the update history to see what was going on.  I wasted several hours trying a variety of diagnostic tools from the simple (CCleaner, Scan disk, check disk etc) through to the Dell diagonistic Support Assist tools available through the Boot menu.  In the end, the Dell tool said I had no option but to remove and replace the entire OS with a fresh download.  It backed up a few basic User files like Documents and Pictures but deleted other huge folders of stuff.  Luckily I had done my own manual backup (Windows 11 has no actual backup tool, only a File History option which is not configurable and not much good) last weekend.  So I was able to restore the missing folders apart from one big one.  I've lost any work I did since the weekend, including 4 or 5 hours on a new photo book I was making, grrr.  I need to power up my old PC to retrieve an older copy of the missing folder.  Then there are all the user settings and preferences that have to be set up again, and then downloading all the third party apps from Discord to Norton security.  All in all, a colossal waste of time.  Maybe I should have just contacted Dell support to see if they could help, but I think they would have used all the same diagnostics anyway.  I've now put all my big folders into Documents, which makes it 209Gb which makes DH's eyes bug out, but I don't know what other option I have.  I was keeping for example my photo archives in separate folders so that my Pictures and Documents folders could just be active working stuff, but then the photo archives don't get backed up by File History nor rescued in a case like this one.  I suppose I could buy some more portable hard drives and offload the older photos onto those.  Readers - back up your files!  DS says when it comes to computers I am cursed (he is remembering the great hard drive death of 2023) but I don't think that's true. I hope not anyway.

In happier news, I've had some finishes this week.  I finished embellishing the 'Tiny Textile Tin of Happiness' that I started in the Quick workshop at Festival of Quilts.  I had fun adding some random embroidery and embellishments and it makes a very cute little hanging ornament.

I had a go at the Bramble Patch Sun Hat pattern that I bought at Festival.  I have an enormous head so even the larger pattern size didn't fit me when I cut and sewed a mockup in scrap fabric.  So I had to tinker with making the crown deeper and wider, and altering the brim to fit the new circumference.  Circles are tricky to match, so the resulting prototype in quilting cotton still has some tucks and pleats in it.  I'm going to use it for gardening in, as my old gardening hat is pretty worn out.  But it fits pretty well.  I will try again to make a nicer version that I could actually wear out to the shops.

 

I finished my Houndstooth woven handtowel and am now using it with pride. It turned out pretty well, I have gotten much better at keeping my edges even.  After wet finishing, I sewed hems at each end with my machine.  I'm currently warping up the loom to try a similar pattern which weaves up a bit like a rail fence quilt pattern, I'm going to make a table runner.

I've been having fun this week knitting up the Ida doll from the Hobbii yarns free pattern.  The doll itself is finished, I've knit the removable sock/shoes, and I am currently knitting a t-shirt.  I had trouble with the hairpiece not fitting very well, maybe because I knit in moss stitch instead of reverse stockinette, but it turned out alright in the end with a bit of bodging.

I copied a soft storage holder that I acquired somewhere, and used it to draft a pattern for a larger version that I sewed up in some of my Japanese shibori fabric. This is now on my nightstand to hold small stuff.  Love the colours.

In the wake of trying on my kimono last week, I spent some time sewing up some needed accessories: I lengthened all three kimono ties to fit my larger Western body shape, sewed two datejima sashes that help with holding everything in place underneath, and made a 'obi ita' or plastic stiffener belt that sits behind the obi to keep it neat.  The only thing I need now is to sew an appropriate handbag to use if I were to wear the kimono - don't think my daypack is going to add to the look.

Do you remember the handmade journal book that I made before I went to Japan?  Ever since I got back, I have been spending a few hours here and there printing out journal pages with photos, to paste into my handmade book to create a travel journal about my trip.  It took quite a while but it is now finished.  Of course, pasting in lots of extra bulk means that the book doesn't close flat any more. But it's a lovely record of the trip, enhanced by the cherry blossom theme of the journal pages from Vectoria Designs.  I added extra decoration with stickers from Japan and washi tapes.

I have been slowly tackling Filing Cabinet Mountain and have managed to discard a significant amount.  It's been a rather sad exercise in some ways: finding old collections of notes and photos for something I had planned to make one day, or patterns that I optimistically purchased, inspiration photos that never inspired an actual creation, plus a healthy amount of stuff I had just plain forgot about in the years when the filing cabinet was pretty inaccessible behind all the junk in the attic.  I've sifted out lots of  saleable patterns and books to give to charity, and I have a growing pile of stuff that is still of interest to me to make.

I went to a de-stash sale this week, where some quilters had hired tables to sell off unwanted fabric and notions.  I did acquire a few pieces of yardage for cheap quilt backs but most of the rest of it I managed to resist, including back issues of magazines that I would have snapped up in the past. I just couldn't face having to declutter yet more stuff. But I wasn't completely virtuous: I fell for a pack of patterns for a very cute embroidered quilt called 'Down in the Garden' by Leanne Beasley that was originally £105 and I got it for £20.    I have to finish the Gail Pan embroidered quilt before I could start this one so I am feeling a bit guilty.

I watched a Youtube video this week by an American organisational 'expert'.  She was calling out retired women who are 'wasting' their retirement by spending their time cleaning out the basement and decluttering old stuff from their past - instead of enjoying their retirement and doing what they really want.  Which sounds tragic - but somebody has to get rid of all the junk.  We will be moving somewhere easier to manage  in another 7-10 years and we can't take all this cr*p with us.  I am trying to keep a healthy balance between spending time on the decluttering and selling stuff, versus fun stuff like my hobbies.  Eventually most of the obvious clutter will be gone, and then it will be more of a maintenance issue to stay on top of.

Three train cases and some weaving

 Earlier in the week, I put in some real effort to sort out the chaos in my sewing room.   As well as disinterring several long term glory piles to put them away (or throw stuff out), I also made room in a cupboard to put away some of the boxes on the floor, and put my new Japan/Korea fabric onto the fabric shelves.  The result is a room  that, while still not really tidy, I can at least open the door most of the way and walk into and through it more easily.  It feels better anway.

I also finished up my three train cases  so that I could put away all the bits and materials for those.  I'm quite pleased with how they've turned out but still trying to come up with ideas for what to put in them. It's also surprisingly pleasing to have cut into the 'good' fabric mountain.

This first one uses two panels from a 1990s cushion panel set  that I inherited from an older sewing friend for the outer and inner lid.  The remaining pink fabrics are from the Little Sweetheart line by Edyta Sitar. The thread reel zip pull was from a novelty pack.

This one uses some fun 'quilt fair' fabric for the lid, and some of the Moda Flea Market range (buttons) for the sides. To go with the sewing theme, I added a mesh pocket inside the lid. On this case, I experimented with pre-folding the binding to finish the internal seam allowances and sewing all in one step (rather than sewing the single binding, then folding it over and re-sewing it) but that didn't work at all and looked awful. I left it on the lid but unpicked the base and re-did that. I got the heart charms in Korea.

This one below is using one of my older 'good' fabrics which is the toile fabric of the sides and base, which I probably bought in the 90s. The top is newer, again from the Moda Flea Market range.

I got my weaving sorted out and it is now underway.  I had to lift each of the 200 threads and move them along into a different slot in order to correct for the slots that I had accidentally double threaded, and for the broken warp thread.  Then rewind the warp to correct the tension on the back bar (I used a long arm frame technique and wound it all onto the front bar, applied the tensioning bars again, then rewound it onto the back bar).  This is a houndstooth pattern and will be a hand towel. This is the first time I have woven anything other than stripes on my little loom so I'm super pleased at how it is coming out, it's like magic watching the pattern unfold.

I've started a new knitting project which is the free pattern from Hobbii for the Ida Doll which came up on Facebook.   It's cute although I'm not keen on her hairstyle, I might see if I can improve on it. Photo from Hobbii website:

I finally had a go at dressing myself in my hand-sewn kimono because I had some friends coming over who wanted to see it.  It was even harder than I thought it would be.  You need to be an octopus to do it by yourself as you need to hold some things in place while you are wrapping and tying other things.  I couldn't tie the obi at all in the time I had, so it is just tied at the back in a reef knot for this picture.  But my friends were very impressed since they don't know how it should look, ha ha ha.  I've since watched a few videos and can now make a better stab at tying the obi.  I also need to sew a few more cords and sashes to help with the underpinnings that hold it all together.  I'm sure I could get better with practice, but realistically am I really going to wear a kimono here in the UK.  While not uncomfortable, it is time consuming to put on and a bit restrictive of movement, plus the long sleeves get in the way of anything I reach for (Japanese women get used to delicately holding the sleeve out of the way with one hand when they reach for a tea cup or whatever).  Still feels like a cool thing to have done, to have actually made a traditional Japanese kimono using traditional methods, I'm glad I tried it and learned more about the culture.

The day has finally arrived and I am tackling 'file cabinet mountain' although not very effectively.  DH helped me bring down all the files plus some piles of further pull-outs waiting to be filed, and it has virtually filled our living room. Probably 35 years of pulling things out of magazines for potential future use, although I have had a few clear-outs over the years.

The old rusty filing cabinet has now gone to the dump and I am supposed to be going through all the papers to drastically slim them down.  The problem is that I keep picking up a folder to go through it, but getting bogged down with 'oo, I could make that ' and 'ooo, pretty!' etc.  I am trying to keep in mind that if I haven't sewn that doll's outfit or crafted that dollshouse cabinet or sewn that quilt in 20 or 35 years then I am probably not going to.  But it is very hard, I want to keep it all, ha ha ha. And it feels so precious, so many tutorials that you would never find on the internet because they came from a magazine 25 years ago.  I even found a set of instructions from a dollshouse workshop week I attended in 1995 for various techniques from luggage making to artifical flower crafting that I still think I am going to get around to one day.  Deluded R Us.