The 1:1 house requiring attention

Haven't done anything on the Japanese dollshouse this week but we have spent a fair amount of time on the 1:1 real house this weekend.  Ever since we touched up the ground floor window sill paint earlier in the summer, I've had on my To-Do list to check the other windowsills that we can reach with our ladder, which is basically up to the floor above the garden.  The windows on the two floors above that are just going to have to fend for themselves as we are not acrobats.  We are having a belated spell of sunny weather now so yesterday morning we got out the ladder and started inspecting window frames.  As well as finding several that had flaking paint and dodgy sealant, we found two that had rot on the bottom bar.  One had just a little bit of rot, about the length and depth of a sausage.  The rot on the other window was pretty extensive, to the depth of about 1 inch and eroding the whole of the right corner profile of the bottom of that frame.  So lots of sanding and scraping and a trip to the DIY store to get some wood hardener and outdoor epoxy filler, building up the excavated and hardened rotten areas with the filler, sanding down the filler, and then spot priming everything.  Today we have made the circuit with the ladder again, applying the first coat of gloss.  DH moves and holds the ladder, I go up with the paintbrush (I only dripped a little on his head, he didn't complain although he did object when I stood on his fingers a couple of times).  One more coat of gloss tomorrow before work and then next weekend we can re-seal all the gaps we can reach.

I've called time on the One Block Wonder beach panel quilt.  I experimented with making some hexagons out of the sky-cloud border fabric to help break up the edge where the panel hexagons meet the border.  They didn't look good right next to the panel hexagons because the fabric is noticeably different.  So I've floated several of them off about an inch from the main panel hexagons.  I don't love it but it looks subtly better than having just the hard edge.  Then I pieced a backing and cut binding strips and moved it all to a hanger in the quilt hibernation corner where tops stay for a few years until the next time I get my quilt frame set up.

I've done some work on the London hexagon quilt.  I sewed a few test blocks to see how big I need to cut the corner triangles that create the secondary star pattern.

Then I cut what I hope is 246 LH triangles and 246 RH triangles, and today I chain pieced about 115 triangles on to one corner of most of the 123 hexagons I need for the quilt.  Not very interesting sewing but has to be done.  The fun part will be arranging the layout once all the blocks are done.

I've done several stints on hand quilting the 25 block applique quilt and have slowly made my way along one edge heading towards the opposite corner, just stitching from about as far as I can comfortably reach with my arm towards the bottom edge.

 I've tried several different thimbles underneath, currently my best bet seems to be a ceramic thimble like Yoko Saito uses in this video although I am still getting used to it.  I'm trying to get my stitches a more consistent size but it's difficult. For one thing, even with reading glasses on and all the light I can shine on the quilt, I still can't see the white thread on the white background nearly as clearly as it shows up in this photograph.

I've had a bit of an annoying and exasperating discovery this week.  I finished at long last my Leaf Yoke Sweater which I started almost three years ago, and I was sitting in front of the computer next to a sunny window while I darned the ends in.  That's when I realised that there were stripes of a different coloured yarn here and there in the jumper!  Somehow I seemed to have mixed in a few balls of a different red, I'm not sure whether it is a different dye lot (which seems unlikely because I always try to buy all the same dye lot).  I think what may have happened is that perhaps I bought some more of the same yarn Drops Karisma for a different project because I found some leftover balls that are a normal wool and and another ball band that says superwash.  Obviously over the three years as I ran out of yarn in the not well-lit living room where I do most of my knitting, I was running upstairs and grabbing what I thought was more balls of sweater yarn but wasn't.  So from a distance it looks okay, but a bit closer in a good light and you can see the stripes.

I tried to photograph the stripes but the camera can't really pick up the colour difference, you can see it barely in this photo, it's much more obvious in real life. Grrrrr.

I can't do any kind of repair job as part of one fat stripe runs through the lace yoke.  I think I'm going to have to try to view it as a design feature and a learning point to more clearly label my yarn bags in future.  I still need to sew the buttons on. It fits pretty well, as usual the knitting loosened up considerably when wet blocked and I put in some fabric conditioner to tone down the scratch factor which has helped. I would have liked to have the lace block a bit flatter but it's difficult when it's all part of a garment so you can't pin it out easily like you can with a lace shawl.

I went along to my lace group yesterday and did some more work on my Bucks Point edging.  I think I am going to park Floral Bucks lace until I retire.  I'm just not able to progress with the limited amount of time I have been giving it.  I will have to think if I keep the two pillows and bobbins tied up that long, or (more likely) if I cut the lace off to put in my sample book then try again in a few years.