Losing at shingle chicken

 I did some more work on my dollshouse porch this week.  After installing the lights, it was time to glue and screw the roof into place on top of the porch posts which was a bit like wrestling an octopus - I had glued pins made from toothpicks into both ends of the posts so they had to fit into holes in the porch and into the ceiling under the roof, while the roof had to fit into the corner of the structure and be approximately level, meanwhile with my fourth and fifth arms I had to get the drill in place to finish screwing in the screws to reinforce the wood glue.  I got DH to help so he forced the roof into the corner while I screwed. Surprisingly it all came out ok, then I clamped it up to dry overnight.

As part of my Christmas present of porch bits, my friend Anita had very kindly included a roll of 'real asphalt shingles' which according to the box should have covered the area of the porch roof.  I measured placement lines 1/2" apart according to the instructions, and started glueing.  It was very kind of Anita to give them to me, but I have to say they were rather frustrating to use as the shingles were all different widths. So it was impossible to get them neatly lined up with the next row covering the previous row's seam between shingles.  And the more rows I applied, the smaller the roll was getting.  I held my nerve and kept glueing, but did eventually lose at shingle chicken 1.5 rows before the finish.

So before glueing down the final strip, I scanned the final partial strip of shingles with my ancient desktop scanner to create a .jpg, which I then imported into my Brother ScanNCut software to create a cutting file so I could cut the extra 1.5 rows out of black card on the machine.  I glued that in place and then touched up the new shingles with paints to blend them in a bit better.

Then I gave the whole roof a 'frost' effect with drybrushing, because this is going to be a winter scene.  I'm fairly pleased with it. I'm thinking there might be snow eventually as well but we'll see.

I tackled an alteration project this week that has been sitting around for a while.  Back in the end of summer sales I bought two double cotton gauze skirts from Matalan with the idea of combining them into a dress. I had bought a casual dress pattern by Waves & Wild called 'Kinjarling' after seeing another lady wearing various versions of it at the bag retreat back in October.  I wanted the bodice for my project so I sewed a toile in old sheeting but found I needed to size up to get a better fit.  Then I cut up one skirt and sewed it into yardage so I could cut out a bodice and sew it.  I took the waistband off the other skirt and sewed it to the bodice, then I opened up the skirt side seams and sewed in pockets using the Kinjarling pocket pattern.  The end result isn't bad: a comfortable loose-fitting plain dress which I will try out as a travel dress because hopefully the double gauze isn't going show the wrinkles too badly. If it works out, I might sew a full version of the pattern in a different fabric.

Another sewing project this week was to make an additional cover for my Christmas present Kindle.  The Amazon cover that I had bought for it is slim and sturdy, but quite scratchy and hard-edged so uncomfortable to hold.  I looked at various other covers on Amazon and tried one, but they were all so bulky and heavy that you are losing the whole benefit of the slim e-reader. Similarly the various Youtube tutorials all produce fairly bulky covers or were sleeves that you had to remove the kindle from in order to use it.  I tried making a Mk-I version that slipped over the corners of my existing cover and was held on with elastic down the spine, but even that small amount of bulk prevented the magnet closure from working and the edges of the cover were flipping upwards.  For my MK-II version, I just went with a slipcover on top of the scratchy cover, and to hold it shut (because the magnet closure still wasn't happy) I added some elastic.  The elastic has the added benefit of fitting over the hand to make it easier to hold.  I'll see how it goes.  At least it looks better and is more comfortable.

I had some happy mail this week.  I've ended up on the mailing list for the Oh Sew Sweet Shop somehow, I think because I bought some ByAnnie stuff from them at FOQ. And last week they emailed me with a new Northcott fabric line called 'Tea for Two' which features a digitally printed photographic large panel of a china cupboard full of vintage china which I just loved.  I love pretty vintage china and have several pieces of my own. So I had to have it, and along with that I bought some of the coordinate fabrics so I can throw a few borders around the panel and make it into a wall hanging.

One of the coordinate fabrics is another photo-realistic digital print, this time of white lace against a light grey background.  When I received it, I realised that it might actually work as a background for the borders of my Australian BOM quilt.  I took it downstairs and tried it out with the embroidered panels, and I think it might work.  Although there isn't much pure white in the quilt, there is some, and there are also some soft greys.  As far as I could tell with a flat lay, the white lace fabric is popping out the white and bright colours in the quilt panels making it all look lighter and fresher - whereas the sepia tones of the kit fabric or my replacement were bringing out the yellow/browns.  So I've ordered a couple more metres of the white lace fabric to see if it will work better once I get the scalloped border made.

Despite the above stash acquisition, this week I have been working at decluttering the sewing room.  I went through every single fabric shelf and collection (apart from the ones I had already sorted out) and pulled out all the ugly fabrics, all the panels, all the ancient fabrics that I had bought 20 -30 years ago and never used (some of these were secured with pins that were so rusty I had to use pliers to pull them out!), the hideous backing fabric purchased only because it was cheap, the inherited fabrics from other people's stash, the leftovers from long ago quilts...  I went through all of it and made a lot of decisions and the upshot was two big sacks of fabric and panels which are being collected by Project Linus tonight to be made into charity quilts for children in hospital.  

It feels really good and there is so much more room in my storage area now.  I don't know why I was keeping half of it, out of sight out of mind mostly.  A lot of the panels came from a friend who passed about 10 years ago and they weren't my taste, and some of the ancient stuff I can remember buying on my first trip to Paducah c. 1992!  Part of the problem was that early in my quilting career I had a penchant for big print fabrics or theme print fabrics - which are really difficult to use because if you cut them into pieces then you end up with radically different coloured pieces. And there are only so many bag linings, and quilt backs and feature fabric tote bags you can make. I also used to get a lot of cheap fabrics on sale at the Fabric Guild when it was a physical store in Leicester back in the day, buying based on the price tag rather than the aesthetic.  I think (I hope anyway) that nowadays I am a lot more discerning and while I still buy things not knowing exactly what I will make out of them, I at least have a general idea.

For example, today I went to the Textile East Fair in St. Ives (Cambridgeshire) with some friends, and while it wasn't a huge show, I did get this layer cake of attractive Japanese-style fabrics because I had literally just seen a project I liked in Quilter's Companion magazine the night before that uses either these same or very similar fabrics. So now I have another project to add to the queue.

This week I did some more work on the second Bruges Lace flower which is pretty similar to the first one, and going along fine.

And I have upped my game on the gifts I will take to Japan with some taller cellophane bags that come with these attractive bows to secure them. I've also added in a little Union Jack memo pad behind the three tea bags.  I've shown this to one of the Japanese ladies I chat with online and she was quite taken with it, so I think we are almost there.  She suggested that I add a printed note with my name 'a gift from ...' inside so I might do that.

I'm still unpicking the quilting lines on my son's quilt that is falling apart - it is an incredibly tedious job and I could probably have made him two new quilts by now, but I make myself do 20-30 minutes every night. One day it will be ready for new quilting.

I may have chosen my knitting project for Japan. As MeMeM suggested in her comment last post (I can't reply to them as they are set to 'no reply' in Blogger), I've found a lacy cowl pattern called the Giselle Lace Cowl by Julie Harris Designs. It looks quite fancy but according the the instructions is actually straightforward.   I have some hand dyed merino/silk yarn from the Wool Barn that I bought at some long ago fair in a duck egg blue which I think would look nice. Although it says the merino element is superwash so I don't know if that is going to inhibit the lace from blocking well - anyone know?