Autumn colour

 Although not currently studying Japanese any longer, I am still in touch with some of my Japanese online language partners - and a few of them have been sending through photos of beautiful autumn colour from Japan: reds and oranges of maples and gingko trees.  We don't get that kind of colour much here in the East Midlands - most of our trees just turn yellow, the leaves die and fall off brown on the ground. Much less interesting.  But it is definitely feeling autumnal and even wintry outside now.  We still haven't had a good hard frost - which I am waiting for so that our garden dies back and we can retrieve our drip hoses (currently hidden under the undergrowth). We also want to take down a conifer which in the nine years since we transplanted it, has increased in height probably 5-6 times and is blocking the sun for most of the back border now. I thought it was a juniper but now I'm wondering if it is an infamous Leylandii.

I found these fashion items in our local Shoezone - now keeping my feet warm 

in our draughty house

The colder days make it much more attractive to stay indoors doing crafts.  I finished the Urudale Farm handwarmers from Shetland - I actually visited the farm and saw some of their sheep and bought the wool directly from the farmer.  I've added fingers to make them warmer - the pattern is for a fingerless mitt. Looking at this closeup, I can see that I missed a few stitches of contrast at the top of one finger, will have to fix that.

I used the boxmaking techniques I learned at the weekend retreat a few weeks ago, to glue/sew some drawer organisers. This worked really well, and has organised the mess on one side of my dressing table.

The flat pieces, before the vertical corners are stitched by hand.

I sewed a couple more blocks for the Vintage embroidered blocks quilt.  The Sunburst instructions advised the poor technique of sewing the paper foundation arcs together, then turning under the inner and outer seam allowances and appliquing the circle to the 9-patch and background - instead of piecing in shaped corners.  This obviously resulted in huge lumps of bulk at every junction of points being folded in on itself, and it's virtually impossible to get a smooth-looking curve. I first tried a machine blanket stitch which just looked terrible, particularly on the outside of the arcs.  I unpicked the outside and redid it by hand which is an improvement but still looks poor close up.

I've been plugging away on embroidering the huge central panel, and I'm almost there - just doing the wheels and undercarriage of the wagon now.

I've also sewn a small test bag this week but I can't publish photos of that yet as it's still under embargo.

Various cartoonlike Japanese accessories are slowly taking shape, from the myriad bits and bobs that came with the Chinese kit for a Japanese house. Whoever comes up with these kits and instructions is so clever, fashioning illusions out of bits of wire, fabric and paper. I hope it is some kind of specialised engineering profession or modelmaking speciality.

I went down to London last week to visit some friends, and passed by the brilliant Hatchards Book Tree in St Pancras station.  Very Harry Potter-esque. The faux book spines are all handpainted apparently, and there were Edwardian seating alcoves around the base which were all occupied.

I had some time to wait on my return and enjoyed visiting the station shops, which have changed somewhat from when I used to commute into St Pancras 10 years ago.  There's even a Harry Potter shop now in King's Cross next to the Platform 9 3/4 photo opp.  I bought a travel journal in a stationery shop to take on my New Zealand trip.  I've spent some time lately researching Hong Kong and trying to work out what I might feel like doing in my three days there on the way to NZ.  It's difficult because there is so much you could see, and I don't know how jetlagged I will be - plus I've read warnings that the high levels of air pollution can make you feel bad the first couple of days. There are fabric and haberdashery markets which could be dangerous - the New Zealand tour I'm taking only allows one suitcase on the bus. I suppose I could try posting things home. Or find somewhere in Auckland to stash a second suitcase while I'm on tour.  Any Hong Kong tips (or NZ) gratefully received.