Hiding in plain view

 I was idly thinking the other night of when the dining room was taken up with my machine quilting frame, and all the quilts that I had quilted. Then I started wondering where all those quilts were, and with a jolt suddenly realised that a bunch of them were still waiting to be finished with binding.  Of course, they are hanging in plain view in my sewing room but had just become part of the wallpaper - and what with all the travelling and car shenanigans, I had forgotten all about them.  So I investigated and found that I had six quilts waiting to be finished with binding (and four others waiting for sit-down quilting).  One quilt even already had the binding machined on, and just needs the other edge hand-sewn to finish.  One quilt was washed and trimmed ready for application, another two were washed.  So I chucked the final two into the washing machine, one at a time, for a rinse and spin; then hung them out in our intermittent sunshine to dry.  I machined the binding onto the trimmed quilt and have started the hand-sewing, and trimmed up another one.  Unlike some quilters, I don't mind binding, but it will be a lot of handsewing to get round six bedsize quilts.  I have tried completely sewing binding on by machine in the past but I'm never happy with the result I achieve, it's never as neat for me.

Before I re-discovered the quilts, I was finishing off the Edyta Sitar Houses Quilt.  I'm fairly pleased with how it's turned out.  I've photographed it on a double-size bed but it's been sewn to fit my own queen-size mattress - I just couldn't be bothered to tidy my room up for a photo.  I used some yellow floral backing fabric as the 'wallpaper', but I used the reverse side so that the background would be fainter than the quilt blocks and not compete with them.  So how many times did I forget that was my decision, and sew with the right side of the fabric showing?  Many many times.  Once it's quilted (one day) I may cut a scalloped edge along the two plain sides.

I also pulled out one of the little kits I bought in Tokyo - this one for a little 3D Sunbonnet Sue.  She is intended to be a sort of bell-shape that fits around a cord and ring that could hold house keys.  I think I will turn it into a needlebook instead, so I need to add some felt inside the two halves.

In knitting, I finished the Lace Cowl that I took to Japan as one of my travel projects.The pattern is Giselle Lace Cowl by Julie Harris Designs, and the yarn is a lovely hand-dyed wool-silk mix.  I've never tried to block a cowl before and wasn't sure how to go about it.  In the end, I blocked it flat in a volcano-shape, holding the sides out with two blocking wires and pinning out the bottom edge. I didn't want to stretch the ribbing.  It seems to have worked ok.

The weather has continued to be showery and warm, with the result that everything in the garden has been growing like topsy (including the weeds) and it was turning into a jungle.  We went out today and spent almost three hours doing a major hack-back of the hazel tree, the bamboo clump (which is worryingly starting to press on the sides of its bamboo-proof pen), climbing roses, ivy, our gigantic Black Elder, a bit of the Photinia and Magnolia and a few other big shrubs. It's not really the right time of year for pruning but it was all getting to be too much, with trees growing into each other and starving the shrubs underneath of light. And the hazel tree was growing over onto next door's roof and gutter.  DH had to make three trips to the dump but was very pleased at how much more the new estate car can hold compared to our old hatchback. Things feel more under control now but there are still so many weeds.  The older I get, the more sympathy I have with people who turn their gardens into a low-maintenance zone.

The car has a tow hitch now, a high-tech detachable swan neck which was required because the new car has rear parking sensors. The poor installer had to take the whole rear of the car off to fit a new crash beam with the mounting points, and then feed wiring through the interior - all in our very cramped driveway until enough shoppers drove away that he could set up on the roadside instead.  It should all be ready to go now, but we're going to take it out to the storage yard soon to connect to the caravan and check it all works ok.  Probably take the van out for a little test tow as well to get used to how it handles on the new car.

I've been looking into New Zealand as a travel destination, which is surprisingly complicated.  It's not a a budget destination at all, and group tours are astonishingly expensive.  The usual recommendation is to hire a car/motorhome/campervan but as I don't drive, that's out for me.  There are only limited train routes.  There are bus companies but there are a lot of negative reviews for them on TripAdvisor as apparently they have been hit by the global staff shortages and are cancelling lots of buses at short notice leading to stranded passengers. At the same time, there are a huge number of places to see, it sounds wonderful but how do you choose? As a destination, it's a relatively active one - even if you aren't planning to hike or undertake adrenalin activities (no thank you), you need to be fairly mobile.  So it's one to do sooner rather than later in my retirement. The other issue is getting to NZ - there is no way I am up for a 24 hour flight so I would have to break my journey somewhere.  I could stop in Tokyo again, which would certainly be easy and familiar, but I was just there.  Decisions, decisions.