What are these things called 'socks'?

I was chilly last night and went upstairs to put some socks on, then realised as I was doing it that I had literally not worn socks for several weeks. It's been way too hot for socks so it's been bare feet in the house and sandals outside.  But the weather has now broken and in true English fashion has turned cold and rainy.  It's good for the garden, and perhaps the poor lawn might resuscitate now. But they tell us the hot weather will be back in a few weeks so the lawn had better hurry up.

The big finish this week: at long last the ancient cross stitch UFO is done!  It's not framed yet, but I've ordered some artist's stretcher bars to make a frame to stretch it over.

To give you an idea of scale, it's 22 inches tall.  The price tag reads '2001' and I think I bought it on a trip to America plus all the threads to do it.  I started it, struggled with the counting and only got about halfway down the first dresser before it went into hibernation. It lived under the bed at our last house for 10 years but I never wanted to throw it out.  Then three years ago I discovered that the world of cross stitch had moved on and you could now do something called 'gridding' with coloured fish line, to divide the canvas into blocks of 10 squares.  This is a huge help when you are number-challenged like I am.  I'm much better at thinking in terms of "three squares past the gridline". I picked it back up and worked at it off and on, it came on a few holidays with us, and now it's finally finished! I feel a sense of achievement and I do really like it.

So that means I've been able to move on to the next cross stitch UFO which is a younger-but-still-middle-aged Christmas house that fits into a house shaped frame (had a few worried moments where I thought I had lost the frame over the years but I found it).  Some years ago I did the first 'room' which was the hallway.  So I've loaded the fabric onto the frame and it is now living in the living room so I can work on it while watching TV.  The house frame is bare wood, I don't think I will paint it such a strident red as in the picture.

I finished the other two book pincushions this week, these are such fun. I feel tempted to make more but you only need so many pincushions and they are a lot of handwork to make up.

Finishing the pincushions meant that I could choose another project from my queue, so I picked one of the fabric-foam picture kits I bought in Tokyo a few years ago.  I did an American kit about 20 years ago where you cut fabric and push it into slits cut into a foam base, which made a quilt scene.  But being Japanese, this kit is organised to the nth degree:  all the fabric is provided with individual pattern sheets for cutting out each colour piece; the pattern sheets are self adhesive so they don't slip off the fabric; the foam block is self adhesive; there are full colour photographic instructions (which is good, because they are in Japanese and mostly using Kanji which I haven't learned yet); etc etc.  It's a countryside scene with traditional Japanese houses and a sprig of oranges in the foreground so I think it is an autumnal scene. Although it isn't difficult, the fabrics are mostly kimono-type fabrics so a bit slippery and tending to fray, so it does require some patience and care for a neat result.  There's a pleasant mindlessness to it as the picture slowly builds up.

The last couple of days I've been working on the second bedroom for this floor of the Japanese dollshouse.  This room is a bit different as it has a planked floor instead of tatami mats.  So there are floorboards to lay that I am currently painting.  This room also features an 'irori' which is a traditional firepit.  The dollshouse version was just a wooden box sitting on top of the floor but I decided to sink it into the floor like the traditional versions we saw in historical houses in Japan.  So I've cut a hole in the floor which luckily is raised up so there is room underneath for the hearth box. I've cut the floorboards to go around the hole when I lay them.

And that's pretty much it this week.  I did do a bit of work on my big Bucks Point hexagonal lace mat while I watched Youtube videos about Tokyo Disneyland as research for our trip next year. I finished the first sleeve of the Purple Roses cardigan and have started the second sleeve, and I've added some more inches to the ten stitch triangle shawl final round.

Hope it's cooler where you are as well.