Here comes the rain again

 I feel like I probably talk about the weather far too much for what is meant to be a hobbies blog, ha ha. But I am delighted to report that the heat wave broke with a big thunderstorm Wednesday night and it's been raining off and on ever since.  So much cooler, it's heavenly. The sun worshippers are probably sad, but I am delighted and am actually getting some sleep now.

I painted another rock this week, from the 'shops' chapter of the book.  I'm wishing I had collected some bigger rocks, these are just too small to put much detail in. And painting a legible sign took several goes. But it's not bad.

I've made some progress on the afternoon tea dress, putting together the bodice and deciding on embellishments.  I managed to get my overlocker to do a rolled hem on georgette, which is a difficult fabric that frays a lot.  The rolled hem is reasonably neat, not perfect, but fine unless someone was really studying my chest which I hope they won't be!  Then I gathered the hemmed georgette into ruching and a frill for the top.  Once the lining is attached the top raw edges will be hidden inside.

I've pushed on with my denim yarn t-shirt knit. I finished the main body which ends in raglan decreases.  The cap sleeves are quite small so I knit them two-at-a-time to help with getting the decreases to match.

And now I am knitting the separate cable neckline which will get attached on top of the sleeves-plus-body construction before a final rib neckline is picked up.  The cable is a bit tedious to knit, it's an 8 stitch cable which in this aran yarn is a bit difficult to achieve with my preferred no-cable-needle method because the chunky needles don't want to squeeze into the stitches. I suppose I should try using a thinner 'helper' needle when I re-order the stitches, before knitting them on the main needles. Anyway, I have to repeat the same 10 rows over and over until I get enough length to go around my neckline.

(is it just me or is the new Blogger interface making my pictures look really big compared to old Blogger...?)

I have a new gadget for my cross-stitch Little Houses cross stitch project, which Facebook pimped to me but I actually bought from Amazon.  I was struggling with the pre-cut Cottage Gardens Threads because I usually wind onto little bobbins for storage but that meant I had to unwind the topmost precut every time I wanted to pull out a thread.  This holds the pre-cut bundles neatly over a hook, with the threads pulled down between foam fingers which hold them securely.  A symbol card slides into the centre slot so you can label what the threads are, and it comes with some spare cards.  The little foam well by each thread is where you could park a threaded needle for each colour.  I'm using the opposite side to hold leftover spare threads in each colour.  It's all a bit plasticky but works really well, so much easier.  And since this will be a longer term project for me (I am a very slow cross-stitcher) it keeps everything safe until I'm finally done with the stitching.

I have a huge project coming up this week.  This is the 'nest' which I spend a lot of time in, my office corner of the study, command central for both my personal and work computer stations.  The work station in the foreground is a recent addition since quarantine of course.  I am an extremely organised person but I tend to be organised in a very messy way incorporating lots of categorised piles of things.  So it's not pretty.

Well, my son who lives with us is having to study for, and write, his final professional accountancy exams from home, also due to the quarantine.  For assurance purposes, he has to write the exam while being recorded by two live cameras. And he has to write them in a completely empty environment, no non-exam-related paperwork allowed, which has to be demonstrated on camera to be empty prior to starting the exam.  The only feasible place for him to write three four-hour exams under such conditions is my desk.  So this coming week I have to completely and totally remove everything you see in the above picture apart from the personal PC equipment.  The workstation has to move to the dining room, and every single bit of paper has to be removed (while trying to maintain category/pile integrity).  I'm probably going to put it in the hallway, in groups along the wall.  It's going to take ages. And then it will all have to be reinstalled afterwards. What a mother will do for her son...  But hopefully he is going to do well despite the challenges of having to do everything from home, and this will be the final hurdle to what could be a really great career for him.  We're really proud of him and he has been trying to work hard despite the heatwave and having to do college lectures online instead of in person, with only virtual contact with his teachers and classmates.    It's a situation many have faced over the last several months, we are living in strange times.