What is this thing called 'dollshousing' again？

A few days ago, for no discernible reason, I sort of felt like working on my Japanese dollshouse again.  I haven't touched it since Autumn 2019.  I was thinking about how I might do the garden wall, and I retrieved some insulation foam from the attic stash and started pottering, and just kind of kept going.  I am using photos that I took on our Japan holiday as reference, when we saw a lot of older homes that had plain stucco privacy walls topped with black tiles in varying degrees of elaboration.

I decided on a height and took measurements and cut the foam to size, and textured it by bashing it with a wire brush.  When I went to glue the foam in place, I ran into a problem.  It turns out that when you don't use your craft glue for over a year, the opened bottles dry out and the contents of the unopened bottles separate and turn to useless watering ooze.  I hot-glued the foam to the base and scraped out some white glue gunk to glue the joins, then went upstairs to order new bottles of Aileen's Tacky Glue.

Similarly, when I went to paint the wall to match the house, I found some of my paints had dried up.  In addition, I found that I had ruined the majority of my medium and small paintbrushes on the house build, and dulled the blades in every single Stanley and craft knife.  Upstairs to order more paintbrushes online, and then 30 minutes spent extracting and replacing all the old blades using new ones from my blade stash.  Perhaps I should have done a better job when I tidied up after the Japanese house build, but I think I was so fed up after the Roof of Doom that I couldn't wait to get out of the room.

After the first coat of paint, I filled the joins and applied two more coats, with some weathering introduced into the third coat of paint while still wet.  For the top of the wall, I couldn't think of of a feasible way to create decorative tiles (the roofing strips aren't the right orientation) but I found pictures online of walls with plainer tops.  So I had a root around in the workshop and found a strip of wooden moulding I rescued from a skip, which was just the right size.  I cut pieces to fit the top of the wall, sprayed them with grey primer, painted them black, then dry brushed them with satin grey to look more like tiling.

Then I turned my attention to the little roof over the gateway.  It wasn't too hard to build the wooden frame, but when I stained it with the same stain I had used on the roof, it turned out a lighter colour.  Belatedly I realised that the stain sediment has probably all settled in the year's hiatus and I should have given the can of stain a really brisk shake and stir.

Next it was time for tiling.  I had kept a lot of scraps and leftovers from the Roof of Doom, so I had the materials.  I just couldn't remember how I used to cut the tile strips.  Examining old photos of the build showed the frequent presence of sprue snips/wire cutters, so I guess it was that?  I know I used my little power sander for grinding strips to size and neatening cuts.  Considering it took months to build the roof, you would have thought I would remember, but I don't. I have cut tile strips to fit the front and back of the roof and the glue on those is currently drying under pressure.  It feels weird to be doing this again but I am enjoying it.

This week I also finished the pink capelet and blocked it.  It's probably a little large for me but still looks nice.  I just need to add some kind of closure.  The pattern calls for a metal fastener but I am thinking perhaps ribbon ties.

On Christmas Eve I started knitting a mini bunny girl using a purchased pattern by Julie Williams of Little Cotton Rabbits. I have previously knit one of her larger bunnies and they are so cute, so was quite taken with this mini version.

Still hand quilting, and stitching the bucks lace edging to its mat fabric.  Obviously this week we were also getting ready for Christmas, wrapping presents, getting the final shop in etc.  It all felt relatively calm this year since it was only going to be us plus DS's girlfriend.  She came Christmas morning and they spent an ecstatic day together - let's hope we all don't live to regret this.  She didn't want to stay for the Christmas meal as she's a novice driver and wanted to do the one-hour-plus drive still in the daylight.  So we had our tiny turkey dinner just the three of us, and it was very nice too.  Santa brought me a quilt pattern called 'Campania Reprised' by Hat Creek Quilts, and a ruffler foot for my Janome sewing machine, as well as a Japanese dictionary and a video game.  All chosen by me of course but isn't that the best way to get exactly what you would like? My friend Anita sent me a cute kit for a dollshouse bag and some mini Japanese swords for the Japanese dollshouse, and sweet cute cat fabric.

Campania Reprised

Did Santa bring you anything crafty?  I hope Christmas day was restful and that we all stay healthy in the aftermath.

On hols to the new year, hurrah!

 Yes, yesterday was my last day of work until the new year.  DH is also on leave now, so we are planning to taunt DS on Monday as he still has to work this coming week. The 'Stop the Presses' update on Christmas from just a few hours ago is the announcement that the permitted visiting period over Christmas has been slashed to just Christmas Day itself.  This means we won't be going to the in-laws, and DS is gutted because his girlfriend won't be able to come. Which is a shame, but it does seem the sensible course of action given the statistics.  The in-laws are getting the vaccine over the next few weeks so perhaps we will be able to go down there in the new year.

I made a few Christmas ornaments this week using this tutorial that I found last year.  These are surprisingly easy to make and quite effective.  I cut a four-inch square and sewed it to a 3 1/2 inch circle.  I cut out and pressed all the triangles then did the sewing during online work meetings (with the camera off obviously).

Multi coloured

red and green

The third one is made from Liberty Tana Lawn as an ornament for my sewing room, not as a Christmas ornament.

Last weekend we took the new car out for a drive, to a big charity shop about 25 minutes away.  I donated a large ceramic Christmas vignette with a light, and came away with a few more Christmas ornaments including this rather plain ceramic house with a light. The 'white' ceramic was all in an unattractive dirty grey tinge including the snow, and the existing paint applied in a slapdash manner.

DH asked 'why did you buy that?' but I thought it had good bones.  I tried out some acrylic craft paint on it (visible in the second picture above) and it seemed to be sticking fine, so I kept going. It was rather fun giving the house a new look.  I finished it off with a few misted coats of spray matte varnish.

gratuitous shot of Christmas decorations

I finished the body of the knitted capelet and have started on the collar which is knit separately.  The body seems to have come out a bit too big, I'll see what it looks like once the collar is joined on.  The yarn I am using is thicker than the recommended weight which is why I picked a smaller size, but perhaps not small enough.

I also finished the applique zip pouch  by sewing in the zipper, which is not entirely even but there you go, it's finished.

So this week I put up the remainder of the copious Christmas decorations, and we went for the final grocery shop before Christmas (barring some veg which I will pick up locally in the week).  Even though we left it until 8pm, the supermarket was fairly busy with people some of whom weren't even trying to social distance so it felt rather hazardous.  We wrapped the gifts for the in-laws as well today but now I suppose I had better try to get them into the post.

I've had a few online Christmas parties the past few weeks, both with work and with some online groups I attend.  But today was a different online experience for me: an online funeral, or to be accurate, a Celebration of Life.  My father's sister, whom I was not close to, passed earlier in the week.  The Celebration was hosted from the funeral home where a small socially distanced group had gathered, and then about 30 others joined virtually from around the country.  As one of the speakers said, many of those attending could not have done so if it had been a normal physical funeral.  The internet allows even the unwell and elderly to take part.  It was actually quite nicely done, with various anecdotes supplied by people who knew the deceased.  All positive of course, no warts-and-all depictions, funny how that is.  

I'm hoping to have a relaxing couple of weeks now with lots of crafting, and perhaps a bit of garden tidying if the weather cooperates.  Happy Christmas to all, and enjoy the holidays!

Adulting in my 50s

 I have spent an inordinate amount of time this week on our first ever purchase of a car. Yes, we have both made it into our 50s without ever owning a car.  DH has been lucky enough to have always had the use of a company car his entire working career, but that is being withdrawn this month and a car allowance substituted.  I had the use of family cars when I lived at home, and since then have either been peripatetic or resident in an urban area with good public transport.  In the UK, I have always commuted to work by train.  So we had the company car for personal needs like doing a big shop or visiting or holidays, and otherwise I did without.  So actually buying a car, and being responsible for it, is somewhat terrifying.  Particularly as DH, who is a good driver, will from time to time reverse into a bollard, or our gatepost.  Before it was just a phone call to the company who would get it fixed, and they also took care of all the servicing etc.  Now it will be me having to do all the arrangements.  The rest of you who have owned cars for decades are all shaking your heads right now and saying 'oh poor you' with mild sarcasm. But when it is all new to me, it's been a lot of work to research insurance and road tax and breakdown companies and then make all those purchases and download all the policy documents, choose the car, make the payment etc.  We've gone with a used 2019 Vauxhall Astra because that's what DH has been driving for several years now, so we're used to them and familiar with the nearest garage. We picked it up today and we're waiting for it to stop raining so we can take it out for an inaugural run.  DH is wading through the 300+ page manual and getting a bit mindboggled with all the information that in the past he has blithely disregarded because the company looked after all the maintenance.

Christmas has officially launched this week and DH has been trundling down all the suitcases and boxes of decorations from the attic.  We got the tree into the stand with some difficulty:  it had an enormous base, at least half again the diameter of the opening in our tree stand.  DH spent over an hour sawing slabs off it, with me helping with the hatchet to trim off corners and lumps, and we had to remove a small tree's worth of lower branches which I will use for decoration, before we could wrestle it into the stand.  The tree is not entirely vertical but I've turned it so it looks pretty good from the main viewing angle.  Yesterday we put the lights on and I added the garlands.  So it's ready to have ornaments added this weekend.  I've also been unpacking the boxes and slowly adding Christmas to other rooms:  the green garland up the stair banisters, and draped over the mantel in the dining room. lights in the front windows, the garland and lights for the living room mantel, the nativity scene and so forth. A few presents from friends have started to arrive in the post which is fun.  And I set up my homemade tree from last year that holds my sale-purchased Wedgwood ornament collection.

I've started the three-cornered stitch that secures the lace to the fabric on my Bucks Lace edging mat.  I started on a straight edge because that's the easiest part, it will be trickier when I have to start securing gathered lace.  It should really be on the straight of grain of the fabric but finished is better than perfect.  It's not as slow as I feared, I did about six inches in 90 minutes so the mat is do-able.

I hand-quilted the Japanese applique pouch and then discovered that the tailor's chalk pencil I had used to mark the quilting lines would neither brush out nor sponge off.  I ended up having to wash the pouch and physically scrub the lines with a nail brush, and they are still not completely gone.  Lesson learned for that pencil.  I've stitched the sides of the pouch but haven't stitched the boxed corners or the zip yet.

I also had a go at a little dolly dress christmas ornament, copying a purchased ornament I have, which was quite fiddly to make and has come out a bit long-waisted, but it's not bad. Bit of fun.

In the evenings I am still knitting on the capelet (now on the decrease section), hand quilting on the fourth block of the 25 block applique quilt and doing some occasional cross-stitch on the little house sampler.

Four more days of work next week and then I am on holiday until the new year, hurrah!!  Hope your Christmas plans, whatever they are, are falling into place and aren't going to be too impacted by the restrictions. Let's hope 2021 will be better.

It's an online Christmas

 I spent a surprisingly exhausting 2.5 hours online one evening this week, hunting down and ordering the various Christmas presents from us-to-others, and from otherswhocan'torderonlinethemselves-to-us.  A couple of things I have just sent directly to the recipients because it seemed a bit pointless to have it delivered to us, wrapped, and then I have to go back to the post office and pay to send it to them (and during the christmas mail rush which could cause delays).  Not very christmassy I guess for them, but hopefully they will understand that's it's a weird year.  Yesterday we strung the lights in front of the house and had them on for the first time last night, they look nice.  And we went to get our christmas tree.  Our go-to Christmas tree shop doesn't seem to get big trees in anymore, but for the sake of convenience we took the biggest one they had anyway which is only about 7 feet tall.  Like last year, I won't get all my ornaments onto it but I'm sure it will still look lovely.  We've got it stashed in the front porch (where it takes up most of the space because they couldn't net it, it was too big to go through their netting hoop) and will set it up this coming week.  My 'office xmas party' is an online zoom call this coming week, as is the christmas party for a little sewing group I belong to on Facebook.  I am getting to the point where I am starting to hate Zoom calls - I'm sure I'm not alone.  We use MS Teams for work meetings which is almost as bad.  A few people always dominate the conversation, so you can't talk naturally.  Sometimes I start to talk but Zoom always seems to prioritise certain other people's microphones (stronger signal maybe?) so noone hears my attempt and I get talked over.  My mike is working, don't get me wrong, but I need a clear gap in the conversation before I can make my input.  So I end up mostly listening and then I get bored and find it hard to pay attention.  I am also completely fed up with the endless cycle of 'you're on mute, no you have to bring your mike down it's above your head, ha ha I was on mute' ...repeat ad inifinitum.  Then there are a couple of people at work who have permanently dodgy  internet connections so whenever they say anything (and one of them is quite talkative), about every third word cuts out so it's really hard to understand them.  Mustn't complain, working from home was my goal for most of my working life and it used to be the unattainable holy grail (along with part time working).   ha ha be careful what you wish for!

I finished the vintage style dress I was sewing.  It's made from quilting cotton which isn't ideal dress material but I got it cheap online.  The pattern I had drafted from an existing dress worked out well apart from a bit of discrepancy in the shoulders/side seams between the front and back which I've now fixed.  The dress fits very similarly to the purchased dress which I'm pleased about. So if I ever get to a fabric store again and can get some nicer fabric, I know I've got a pattern that works.

I've finished basting the bucks point edging to the mat fabric, the lace strip was long enough which was a relief. So next I will start doing the three-cornered stitch that secures the lace permanently to the fabric.

I've been enjoying my little Japanese appliqued pouch project this week.  I used my Appliquik tools again for the applique.  I watched a few more Youtube videos on how to use them, and I got on a bit better this time.  Certainly for the really tiny pieces like the windows, they were a big help.  I constructed this scene in stages: firstly assembling the main house/tree block and appliquing that to the background fabric, then seaming the grey fabric on, then appliquing on the smaller details and currently I am adding the embroidered finishing touches.  Just need to add some french knot flowers to the flower tubs and to the wreath.  Cat included for scale.

I've also been knitting on my pink shoulder capelet.  There are about 300 stitches so each row takes a while, but now I'm starting to decrease to shape the capelet for the shoulder.

When I get tired of knitting 300-stitch rows, I switch to my 25-block applique quilt or do some cross-stitching on my little house sampler.  Little by little, they will get done eventually. I did take some time out last week to stitch a Christmas card but I forgot to take a picture before I sent it off!

And suddenly Christmas is on again

 The first I knew about it was when DS came downstairs, all excited that he would get to see his girlfriend at Christmas and to ask if she could come to stay. So we had that discussion and then awaited the announcement the following day.  It wasn't until almost 24 hours later that I suddenly had the 'oh sh*t' moment and realised that we were now duty-bound to invite the in-laws.  I had become so accustomed to the idea that we were going to have a cosy locked down Christmas to ourselves that it took me a while to change gears.  So we made that offer, the in-laws don't want to come up to us but we've agreed to go down to them for lunch during the permitted visiting period over Christmas.  And the girlfriend will be coming for a few days as well.

On the subject of Christmas, I received my first Christmas card yesterday in a strangely well padded envelope. It turned out to be a card from a woman whose name I didn't recognise (no surname given, no return address), and she had enclosed a Santa-embellished face mask and a cute little memo pad.  The card thanked me for 'all my hard work'. After puzzling over this for a minute or so, I realised that it must be from the woman of that first name who manages our whole virtual team, my boss's boss. I don't have anything to do with her, apart from listening while she waffles on for hour-long pointless meetings a few times a week and don't really rate her, and am unlikely to ever meet her physically in real life.  I'm sure she meant well but honestly I felt a little invaded to have my virtual work life suddenly arrive in my actual personal home. I don't think in the 'old' days that even though managers probably had access to your home address, that they would just casually send things to you at it, your personal information was there for emergency contact and sending official letters.  I suppose it's another aspect of life that has changed now that we are all working virtually and I'm showing my age by having any qualms about it.

I finished joining my Bucks lace edging back onto itself.  I didn't do a great job as the join is visible on the right side when you look for it, but it's unobtrusive and I've hidden it in a gathered part of the lace.

The join is where you can see the raised edge running along

one of the 'zigs'. 

After darning in the ends as unobtrusively as I could manage, I am now tacking the loop of lace onto the linen fabric I am using for my mat.  I've mounted the fabric into a frame to try to keep it flat while I add the lace, to avoid ending up with a concave mat that won't sit flat.  In this picture the lace is just pinned on, but I've started basting it with a small running stitch to the fabric.  After it's all basted, I will stitch it on permanently with either a small buttonhole stitch by hand, or a 'three-cornered' stitch.  I am once again using Jean Withers book 'Mounting and Using Lace' as my guide.

I've been doing a little quilting most evenings on my 25 block applique quilt, it's going faster than I thought and I'm on the third block now.  I have switched to a smaller round hoop as I found the big square hoop I started with was too cumbersome when I am having to turn the work so often.  When I get tired of quilting, I switch to knitting on the pink shoulder shawl which is growing steadily now.

I've also cut out pieces for another dress, using a pattern I traced off a purchased vintage-inspired dress that I like.  I'm using quilting cotton again because it's cheap and readily available online. I'm rather pleased with how the collar has turned out, I learned how to finish the raw edge with bias tape from watching a Youtube video.  Hopefully it will fit, although I find it difficult to trace a flat pattern from a 3D object so I'm not entirely confident about the sleeves and armholes.

I ventured to Wilko for a few bits and bobs, it was still open despite the lockdown. While I was there, I picked up a cheap packet of fake holly leaves and berries.  A bit of crafting turned them into a Christmas brooch, and I even found an old packet of glitter glue for a bit of bling.

Have your Christmas plans been changed by the announcement? Or are you in agreement with my in-laws, who think it will all change again and we'll be locked down anyhow?

Sending away my guilt

 Taking advantage of a £1 max fees on ebay offer, I listed a few items a while ago including a big length of wool crepe fabric that I bought (extravagantly as it was very expensive) at least 20 years ago from Liberty's of London.  I was going to sew a suit for work using a pattern from Prima magazine. The fabric and accompanying (also high quality and expensive) lining fabric and interfacing has been on my 'to do' and guilt lists ever since, never getting done.  As I got older, the vibrant colour no longer suited me, but the fabric had cost so much money that I couldn't just give it away.  Two houses later, it was still kicking around my sewing room and making me feel bad whenever I came across it.  And now I have sold it, and posted it out of my life.  Off the guilt list!  Hurrah!  Now for the other 2,999 similar items....   Seriously though, I am going to have to spend at least two years of my retirement divesting the house of the decades of accumulated acquisitions before we can downsize.  At the moment, I am going through a stack of letters six inches high from the 1980s, from my attic museum archive.  Letters I wrote (my parents saved a lot and gave them back to me later), letters I received, old birthday cards, postcards from friends.  Why did I keep all this stuff?

The big news this week is that I finally finished quilting the diagonal lines on the 25 block applique quilt and the quilt frame is out of the living room - hurrah! 

It looks better than I feared it would.  While the spacing of the lines does vary, it isn't as obvious on the bed. What was quite obvious was a half a dozen places where I had stitched a wobbly line by accident. So I marked all those and put the quilt back on the frame, and pulled out the section of wobbly stitching and replaced it with straighter stitching.  There is one huge mistake where three lines go into a leaf, and only two lines carry on (with wider spacing) but there wasn't any good way to fix that so I've just left it.  Nobody's perfect.  So now I have switched to a hand frame for the next couple of years while I stitch around the individual applique motifs.  I can only stitch in one direction so the hand frame lets me keep turning the quilt as I go around the motifs.

I've started knitting a shawl out of pink cotton aran yarn, more of a shoulder warmer really.  One of these ones where you cast on over 300 stitches then decrease upwards.  As usual I had a lot of trouble getting the first couple of rows correct to set up the pattern, not being able to count accurately, but I am away now.

I've decided to make one final project out of the Japanese book before I dismantle the fabric collection I pulled from stash.  It's another zip pouch with cute applique houses.  I've traced the patterns onto the Appliquik interfacing and will be attempting to use my Appliquik tools although the pieces are quite small.

The clock in my sewing room bit the dust a while ago after I accidentally dropped it (well, juggled it frantically and then dashed it on the ground by accident) trying to reach it down to change the battery. I ordered a new one on Amazon and it has finally turned up.  Nice to know what the time is again down there and a very handsome picture.

Another mild day and the sun is out, so I'm off for my daily lockdown exercise walk.  It's so mild that our magnolia tree is budding early, hope that isn't going to be a problem later if it turns colder.  We gave the garden a good tidy up yesterday, uncovering the plants from the layer of pear tree leaves covering them (which had to be done by hand so as not to damage the plants with a rake) and hacking back a lot of dead growth.  Our fuschias are still blooming away, the pergola roses are just finishing after one final brilliant display, the lipstick salvia is still cheerfully blooming, and the autum flowering sedum are a rosy glow in the undergrowth. I'm going to try leaving my Chinese Elm bonsai out this winter, although I've placed it in a protected spot along with other pot plants. It only barely survived indoors last winter so I reckon it has a better chance out there. How's your garden doing (if you have one)?

New flooring at last

 Look at our new floor!

So much nicer than the flood stained concrete and old 1960s tile, and nicer even than the  previous battered black & white square effect flooring it has replaced.  Although the pattern was a last minute choice, it actually looks quite well with the skirting and doors.  A very nice man came on Wednesday and just got on with it all by himself, it took him six hours to do all the nooks and crannies of the corridor, utility room,  downstairs loo and all the doorways and corners.  So in terms of being in lockdown it worked quite well, I only brought him a few hot drinks and didn't have to interact with him otherwise.  And the replacement pattern was a bit cheaper than what we originally chose, so a win all round.  Today we put back the white goods and the furniture etc., although it did seem a shame to clutter up the pristine new expanses.  Let's hope it never floods again while we live here because I don't want to do all that again.

I've had a bit of a sewing burst this week.  I was looking through my tub of fabric I pulled a while ago to go with the Japanese book that I made the little appliqued sewing pouch out of.  I found the bit of panel that was left, and decided to throw on a few borders to make a tablecloth out of it.  This is a pic of just the top, I will put a backing and binding on it eventually.

Then I turned back to my production run of quilted notepad covers for Christmas gifts.  I cut out five of them, including one to cover the notepad I keep by my sewing machine.  I did each step five times: cutting out, quilting, sewing the pockets, sewing on the binding then hand stitched the bindings down over a couple of nights watching TV.  They've turned out fine and a couple are quite cute. The one on the right is mine, hopefully the recipients will like the others.

I had another look through the Japanese book because I really like the fabric colours I had pulled from stash, and decided to make this little embroidered zip pouch.  The instructions are in Japanese and I can't read kanji, so I just made it up from the pictures. The pattern sheet was in centimetres so I cut to the nearest easy imperial measurement for the piecing. I am not great at embroidery so that's a bit clumsy but I still think it looks cute.

I finished my vanilla socks and blocked them.  I've worn them as bedsocks once already and they are quite comfy. Pretty colours.

I've called time on my Bucks Lace edging, if it's not long enough then I'm just going to make the fabric centre a bit smaller.  So I brought the starting end around to meet the working end where I am with the bobbins, and did my best to pin the starting lace back onto the pricking.  I particularly tried hard not to twist the lace accidentally as I don't want a moebius strip.  Then I worked the final bit of lace down to join up with the starting lace.  So far I have only sewn in the newest lace to the oldest lace, and haven't cut any bobbins off yet.  Once it is fully joined, I need to go back and knot all the pairs with reef knots to secure, then cut the bobbins off leaving ends which I will need to darn into the lace.  If I do a decent job, the join will be unobtrusive. I find joining really difficult and time consuming.

It's mid-November and continues to be so mild (14 degrees C many days) that our pergola rose is having a last burst of flowers. 

But it's chilly enough at night that I've got two handmade quilts back on the bed, and I'm enjoying wearing handknit hats and handwear when I go out for my daily walk. I actually quite like this time of year.

Tokyo news

 I was very sad to read in the latest issue of Quiltmania magazine that not only is the Tokyo International Quilt Festival cancelled for 2021, but that they don't intend to hold it again in future.  That was going to be my next trip to Japan and I had already started general planning for a January visit once it was possible to go again.  I hope it isn't true, and looking online there are still tour companies saying they will be attending the festival in 2022.  But Quiltmania has had close links with the Japanese quilting scene for a long time so they are more likely to have inside knowledge. I've been wanting to go to the festival for years, and was really looking forward to all the shopping opportunities and the marvelous exhibitions. I wonder if the organisers are yet another economic victim of the pandemic?  

Not that we are going anywhere at the minute, with another lockdown in place.  Although you wouldn't know it looking outside, still plenty of shoppers and cars, not like the first lockdown.  We've just been to the DIY shop ourselves for some PTFE tape, to fix a leaking outside tap (thank you University of Youtube).  And surprisingly our replacement basement floor is still being fitted this coming week.  The floor we ordered wasn't available any longer, and when the shop phoned they said that supply and delivery issues have been really difficult for them.  Both they and us were anxious not to miss the fitting date as they are fully booked until the new year, so they texted several pictures of possible substitutes and we managed to find one that can be supplied for next week and will look okay. They said they've looked into the government regulations and feel they can still carry out fitting while complying.  So tomorrow we need to empty the basement including disconnecting the washer and dryer, and give it all a good clean.

I finished the Disappearing 4-patch lap quilt top I blogged last week, and have hung it with the growing collection of tops awaiting quilting.  I probably have enough tops now that I would have planned to set up my quilting frame in the new year - but with DS using the dining room as his workplace, that isn't an option for now.

I still had plenty of Aldi fat quarters so I turned to a pattern for a hexagon tabletopper from a book I own called Best of Fons & Porter: Tabletop Quilts.  This uses the technique of cutting one large hexagon (5 1/2 inches) and one smaller hexagon (3 1/2 inches), and sandwiching them RST with a small hexagon of wadding.  Then you fold in the edges of the larger hexagon to make a binding to finish the edge. There are Youtube videos for the technique.  It's both easy and fiddly, as you have to be quite precise to avoid the hexagon going wonky.  I found the best thing to do was to cut a 3 1/2 card hexagon and use it as a pressing template, only inserting the wadding and top fabric at the end before sewing.  It's a great time to try out all the decorative stitches on your machine when you stitch down the binding.  When all the hexagon units are finished, you butt them together and join with a narrow zizzag stitch: first into rows, then puzzle fitting the rows together.  If you have any wonky hexagons, this is when you are going to have trouble.  I had a couple but I found I could tuck the excess as an underlap and just keep zigzagging along the seam to maintain a flat construction.

A blurry photo (sorry) showing the different stages of construction

arranging the colours on the design wall

What the back looks like after joining

Missouri Star Quilts has patterns for quilt tops made using this technique but I don't think they would feel very comfortable, with all the stiffness and ridges of the binding.  It is a nice technique for making a coaster, on the other hand, and great for fussy cutting.

My next sewing project is going to be making some more notepad covers as Christmas gifts. I've picked out some matching pairs of various fabrics and plan to make between 3 and 5 covers, I'll see how I go.

I finished my second Vanilla Sock but still need to weave the ends in, and then wash and block the pair.

The PVA glue fix on the hall floor tiles seems to have worked great, and things aren't shifting underfoot any longer.

It's getting dark from 4pm now, so I think I will need to shift my after-work daily walk into a lunchtime walk or I'm only going to see the sun out of a window.  I could walk on the treadmill and I probably will shift to doing that once the weather turns really foul, but I much prefer to walk outdoors.  The other advantage of going out is that it's impossible to quit early, you have to keep going until you get home again.  Unlike the treadmill where the boredom overwhelms me after about 20 minutes, even watching Youtube videos while I walk.  What are you doing to exercise during lockdown?