Changing seasons

 Although still February, spring is definitely feeling like it's just around the corner.  The weather has been warmer with daytime temps up to c 11 degrees C and some lovely sunshine. The magnolia tree has fat buds on it, the garden sports a lovely carpet of snowdrops and one early daffodil, a few crocus have appeared, the irises are pushing up new sword-shaped leaves and the hazel tree is covered in catkins.

Meanwhile in the dollshouse room it is still Christmas.  I've added the remaining wall cladding and some edge trim to the Christmas porch vignette, glued the steps into place and added the remaining trellis on either side of the steps.

I finished the first house of the CrossStitcher SAL.  I like it but I'm a bit disappointed that the colours are so different from the magazine photo even though I am using the specified canvas and threads. I guess they photoshopped theirs to make the image pop more. I like the printed colours which seem warmer.

I've moved on to the second little house which has relatively similar colours but features a typical Harrogate House.

In the sewing room this week, I made up a padded laptop sleeve to give my laptop some added protection while it is riding on the plane in my daypack to Japan.  I will confess that the reason for the pink bar at the bottom is because initially I cut my panels too short so I had to extend them. :)  There is a concealed velcro tab inside to hold the laptop in place. The reverse side is the same fabric print but in a beige colourway.

I also completed another bag test for a simple book bag but I can't show that yet as it is still embargoed.  I was working on that during a charity fundraiser zoom call with Chooky in Australia - Friday evening for me but very early Saturday morning for them.  I sewed the final seams upstairs on my industrial the next day, when the bulky layers were becoming too much for my domestic Janome.

When I was having my big charity fabric clear out, I remembered that I had several 'Little Quilts' Sunbonnet Sue panels.  Early in my quilting career /early 1990s, I thought the Little Quilts designs were so cute, and I made a few small wallhangings out of their book. I'm a bit surprised to find the company is still going.  Anyway, I had a full panel of Sunbonnet Sue, and had inherited three more from my friend who passed plus some partial panels.  So I held onto those after the clear out and have cut them up to see if I can make a charity quilt out of them.  Each panel features a main wallhanging, a small doll quilt, and some freestanding figures.  I have four main wallhangings, five doll quilts and six sets of figures. So I'm thinking something like this.  

I cleared out a few more big collections of paperwork from the attic. I had two big sacks of jobhunting stuff: notes from jobhunting courses, interview techniques and my prepared responses, a huge binder of all the cover letters I wrote for applications, their replies, my notes from any subsequent interview; numerous versions of my CV etc etc.  All of it gone now because I don't need to do that any more!  Thank all the gods, because it was horrible.  While I am not ruling out ever working again if I get bored with retired life, I have digital versions of my CV and that's not likely in the near future.  Two more big sacks held the remnants of my corporate career: all my payslips, all my salary review letters, all my performance reviews over the years (many of these covered in handwritten angst as I agonised over perceived slights, lack of parity with colleagues, comparison with the cost of living etc.), my various promotions, examples of the corporation communications and publications I used to work on.  It's a strange feeling because I can remember it all being vitally important and yet now it isn't at all.  So that was a lot of shredding to do for all the personal information.  Our little home shredder can only be run for two minutes continuously so big shredding jobs have to be broken up over several days.

The benefit of the clearout was to empty a second cupboard in the attic which I can now expand my quilt collection into.  I refolded all the quilts on the guest bed because DS is coming home to visit soon, and they are now all stowed away back in the attic. But they definitely benefited from having their rest for several weeks, virtually all the creases had dropped out.  I fold quilts on the bias for storage after reading that tip somewhere, it is much better for preventing permanent creasing.

I've managed to give myself mild RSI in my right hand from too much videogaming, so I had better give it a rest today.  My first Dark Souls game was when my son introduced me to DS3, which is notoriously difficult.  It was a huge struggle for me and eventually I had to give up about 2/3rds of the way through when I couldn't progress any further.  Since then I have played several other Souls and Souls-like games and I would like to think my skills have improved. So a few weeks ago I started watching DS3 walkthrough videos to see if I would be able to pick up my DS3 game again and progress it.  I came to the conclusion that I would have to start over because I've just forgotten too much of the game.  So that has turned into a massive time suck even though I have been trying to limit myself to less than two hours a day. I am doing a lot better, very satisfying to triumph easily through areas that I can remember giving me a lot of trouble the first playthrough.  But my right hand takes the brunt of the controls and I have definitely overtaxed it.