Happy Christmas

 The Christmas decorations are all up, it took me a few days.  The tree is overstuffed as usual even though I gave away a lot of less desirable ornaments the last few years.  We bought the biggest tree  that our local garden centre had, it's a nice one this year and so far hanging on to its needles.  The last few years we have donated to a local hospice who collect and recycle the trees in the new year, so we will do that again.  A lot of the ornaments I've kept were handmade by me, or by friends, so it's nice to see them all on display again. Also the christmas quilts and wallhangings, table mats etc.

I am making slow progress on my Christmas cross stitch sampler, stitching on it most days.  I'm not a fast stitcher so I am not going to finish by New Years probably.  But it feels festive to have something seasonal to stitch.

Also slow is progress on the Gail Pan embroidered blocks quilt.  Between having to recalculate measurements for each puzzle block (all different), then piece the block, then hand sew the EPP hexies on each block, it takes a lot of time and brain power.  I'm currently starting block 5 of 6, so it's getting there. I haven't done all the hexies yet.  Still thinking I might sash the blocks rather than have it all run together in a big mishmash.

I took the unicorn quilt over to my son's house and gifted it to his partner - she was thrilled with it.  She doesn't sew, so views the creation of quilts as partly magic, I think, lol.  She was already cuddling up in it when we left. They are both very quilt-worthy recipients.

With the unicorn quilt off the frame, I loaded up a test piece to try out the Baptist Fan pattern with my new circle quilting rulers that I got for my birthday a while back.  The rulers work really well for the arcs, but the troublesome bit is where you have to re-sew on a previously stitched line to move into the correct position to start the next arc.  I am finding that hard to do neatly although I got better over two rows of practice.  Two of the videos I learned from have you start from the bottom left corner, so that's what I did.  I've now loaded an actual quilt for the first attempt which is the Checkered Dresden Plate from several months ago, and have only just realised that normally on a frame, you start quilting from the top of the quilt - not the bottom.  So now I have to either re-learn how to do the pattern upside down, working from the top.  Or, I could baste the entire quilt (with the machine) so that I can safely wind it onto the frame rollers,  down to the bottom edge.  I might have a dummy go without turning the machine on, to see how awkward it feels trying the pattern upside down.

This is a test piece I have used in the past, so there are other quilting lines already underneath the fan practice.

Circle rulers of 4", 6", 8", 10" and 12"

I have braved the cold basement to set up a new warp on my loom, to weave some sock yarn cloth that I may sew into a pouch or bag.  I used up two skeins of sock yarn (from my large stash) for the warp but ran out before I could completely fill the loom.  The weft is a variegated sock yarn, with plaid stripes from a grey sock yarn.  I may try slightly felting it once it's off the loom although the sock yarn may not have enough wool content for it to felt.  DH says it looks like heather colours.  It feels good to be using the sock yarn for something, I went a bit mad with buying skeins back in my 'socks and shawl knitting' craze and now I have more socks and shawls than anyone needs but still loads of skeins to use up.

Despite the above statement, I have also been working on the new pair of Christmas socks with the wool I bought in Salzburg.   I'm using the usual vanilla sock pattern that I have committed to memory, but I am experimenting with reducing the needle size to tighten the ankle of the sock.  I have larger calves so when I typically knit a sock cuff in a tube, if it fits the calf then it's baggy at the ankle. I'll return to a normal needle size when I start the heel flap and hope that it will fit better.

In papercrafts, as well as making a few more inserts for journals, I printed off and made this mini Christmas journal from a Youtube video.  Quite cute and turned out fairly well, it has now joined the Christmas decorations. Fun to do something so cute and small, and with everything included that you need.

On small dollshouse kits completion, this week I painted up about a dozen small plaster cast minis from World of Miniatures - things like crates, barrels, buckets, tubs etc. in various scales.  I put some of the smaller ones in the kitchen and outbuilding of my Japanese house.  I had a ton of World of Miniature kits because at one show they had a going out of business sale and I picked up a bunch of bargains.  I also made a freestanding advertising board display from them, and am currently trying to make a 1:24th chair.  I stained the chair pieces before gluing, and so far the stain has successfully repelled both wood glue and tacky glue and the chair just falls apart when I pick it up.  The chair may be going in the bin soon.

DS will be coming home for Christmas soon - currently he has a cold and we have politely declined to import his germs so we are just waiting for him to get better.  I suppose the day is coming when he will want to celebrate christmas at his own house but for now we still get to enjoy a family christmas together.  I think if we were on our own for Christmas, just the two of us, we would be tempted to go away but the issue is that, in the UK, you have to book Christmas hotels or trips a year in advance.  And DS probably wouldn't decide until a month in advance, lol. There's no rush.

Wishing you all a merry christmas, and best wishes for a happy new year.  Hope Santa brings you lots of crafty goodies.

Salzburg Austria christmas markets

 Just got back yesterday from my short break to Salzburg in Austria, to see the Christmas markets.  I travelled on Monday and came back yesterday, so had three full days which felt like plenty of time.  The historic city is very walkable and quite pretty in its own right.  A lot of the old town was decorated for Christmas, with lights, wonderful shop displays, trees and greenery, as well as the markets themselves. I was really lucky with the weather: dry every day and two days were brilliantly sunny.  It was cold but not too bad, 2-12C.  The main market by the cathedral was the biggest, not crowded at all earlier in the week but getting very busy by Thursday night.  I also went to the smaller markets in Alter Markt, Mirabelplatz and at the Sternbrau brewery.  And I made the trip out to the Schloss Hellbrunn for their charming christmas market which was quite magical once dark had fallen. On Thursday I took the train to the nearby town of Oberndorf to see the Silent Night chapel (on the site of the church where the carol was performed for the first time) and the local christmas market there.  I also crossed the river to walk into the German town of Laufen for a look around.  So lots of walking and it felt very festive.

Sternbrau brewery market

Historic town from above

Wonderful miniatures at a shop called Candela

Main market

Mirabelplatz market

Silent Night chapel

Market at Schloss Hellbrunn

I didn't buy much.There was a great shop in the New Residence called the Salzburger Heimatwerk which supplies high end traditional costume and the materials to make them, plus other artisan and handcrafted items.  I got some lovely embroidered ribbons, a couple of cross stitch patterns, and a pretty towel with an aida band for stitching.

I hadn't taken any knitting and was really missing it, so I picked up a ball of Christmas sock wool and some needles in a shop and started a sock to keep my hands busy in the evenings.  I did see three fabric shops and a knitting shop but didn't go in any of them because I really don't need any more stuff.   But to see so many stores in a relatively small city shows that handicrafts are popular.  

I got a few christmas ornaments, and some choccies for DH, and the obligatory gluhwein souvenir mug.  It was really fun wandering the medieval streets and exploring the various alleys and arcades, I took loads of photos.  It's such a photogenic city.  I went to the noon organ concert at the cathedral which was very good as well.  I rode the funicular up to explore the somewhat grim fortress; and had fun visiting the toy museum (mainly for kids but some exhibits of dolls and roomboxes).  So a good trip but I was very tired by the time I got home Friday afternoon.

So not much crafting this week apart from I have put together two blocks now for the Gail Pan embroidery BOM, although I still need to sew the EPP hexies onto the second block.  I am struggling with all the arithmetic so there is a certain amount of backwards stitching and re-cutting going on for the modified layout, but I got there in the end.  Luckily I have lots of Tilda fabric pieces.

Now that I'm home, we've started to put up Christmas decorations.  We got the lights onto the tree this morning, did a few windows, and put the garland and lights running up the stairs.  I've also brought up my dollshouse christmas scenes to display them for the season.   And now I'm home, I can get back to work on my Christmas cross stitch sampler.

Christmas is coming

Christmas is everywhere now.  From watching Christmas films on TV, to the christmas lights being turned on in town along with the town tree, the mall is busy with shoppers and the Santa Grotto is up, to accompanying DH to his modelling club christmas do at a pub.  Our lights are on outside the house, and today we went to buy our tree and found a christmas fair in progress along with a live reindeer and reindeer baby.  We'll get the tree into its stand tomorrow so it doesn't die, but then I am off on Monday to Salzburg so the decorations will have to wait until I get back on Friday.  We took our son out to dinner tonight and the restaurant was all decorated and there were already some Christmas parties in progress on some tables.  I've sent a few cards, done the family christmas shopping (luckily only small) and ordered presents for others to give to me (books, a paper guillotine and an eyelet setting tool).  So things are in progress.  

I prioritised finishing the unicorn quilt this week, so it is all quilted, trimmed, washed, and bound.  My son has seen it and feels confident that his girlfriend is going to love it. I used the rainbow fabric for the binding which I think lifts the dark border.

With the unicorn quilt off the worktable, I have moved on to continue piecing the blocks for the Gail Pan embroidery BOM.  Block one was a bit of an adventure, trying to get the recalculated blocks to work out. Then I appliqued the two hexie blocks.  It looks good, very busy.  I've cut pieces for the second block but haven't assembled it yet.

I've started my Christmas cross stitch sampler which is from CrossStitcher magazine.  There has already been a bit of unpicking but it's starting to take shape.  I have a ticket to the online Jingle Ball stitching event this weekend, so I've been getting some stitching done while listening to some of their sessions.  I didn't sign up for any classes but am enjoying the chat rooms with other stitchers, and some of the live sessions with designers. DS decided to come and visit us this weekend, which is lovely, but has meant that I'm not going to get as much time in the event as originally planned since the event is on American time (so UK afternoon and evenings).

Small dollshouse kits this week was a mixed bag of book kits, most of them ancient.  Some large Mini Mundas book covers that I inherited from a friend who had already cut the wooden inners and done a starting paint job, some other orangey covers that may have been Mini Mundas as well, an Art of Mini freebie kit for a cookbook, and a couple of printed covers that I inserted some pages into.

I had to move all the weaving stuff down into the dollshouse room so that DS could have his room back for the night. So I haven't felt like warping up for another project yet because I knew I had to move it all.

I'm visiting Salzburg to see what the christmas market is like, but it's not going to be snowy - the weather looks similar to the UK: up to 11C, some rain and overcast days.  But hopefully it will still be fun.  I was briefly in Salzburg back in 1982 as a backpacker so it will be nice to go back and see it  properly. That's my last trip for this year.

How is it almost December?

 It has thankfully warmed up this week, both inside and out.  The engineer came Monday and got all the radiators working - hurrah!  Basically all the upstairs rads were full of air, and the boiler didn't have enough umph to push the hot water up through the system which is why nothing was coming out when I bled them.  He got the boiler pressure up to where it should be and got all the air out of the system.  Ironically,the temperature outside has gone up to 10-13C so we haven't needed the heat as much this week.

I can't believe it is already December on Monday. I've actually had my first Christmas get-together already with some friends I won't see again until the new year - so I've had my first gluten-free mince pies and have exchanged my gifts of the little card wallets I sewed.  We also went to two church christmas fairs today. I had low expectations but actually got a few things.  Some homemade jam and chutney, plus a couple of cute sewing reel xmas ornaments, a coaster that says 'Tea makes everything better', and a handmade point turner from a woodworker.  Tomorrow, if it stops raining, we will put up the outdoor christmas lights on our porch, and I will get out my Christmas sampler quilt which always goes on my bed for December.  I've also got a Christmas cross stitch chart that I'm going to start.

I finished fixing the digital tea panel wallhanging and took it off the frame.  It looks better now in terms of quilting.  After taking this pic, I ran it through a rinse cycle in the washing machine to get rid of the lines from unpicking the incorrect piano key quilting.  It has now joined the three other quilts waiting for binding in my sewing room.

I realised that the reason I didn't like the coordinating outer border for the unicorn panel quilt  was because it was fighting for attention with the unicorn itself.  So I put the rainbow colours away and just pulled a boring blue spot from my stash to use instead.  It's a bit darker than I would like, but I didn't have anything lighter, and it still coordinates.  And it was easy.  Now the unicorn has centre stage.  Hopefully the recipient will like it.

So I got the borders on, chose a backing, and took it upstairs to load it onto the quilting frame.  I have chosen a fairly open, pretty pantograph called Spring Vine from Urban Elementz.  It looks nice with the unicorn, and I am over halfway done with the quilting now.

I finished house six of the Buildings of Britain cross stitch SAL.  But it was only when I was adding the outer border for this page of the stitched book I am making, that I realised my house is a row or two, too high on the fabric.  I don't know what happened, I would have matched the centre of the chart to the centre of the fabric when I started.  So I am going to have to move the border down a row which will put the house slightly out of sync with the other houses.  At least in a book, with one house per page, it won't be obvious.

Another mishap this week was with the Dirty Lace shawl that I am knitting from my sock yarn stash.  I got all the way through the third chart (26 rows of 141 stitches, with four lace rows) then realised the current lacey holes were not lined up with the holes in the pink border - and they are supposed to.  After a few attempts at counting, it turns out I only had 138 stitches instead of 141, despite the lace repeats having apparently worked out.  Also the stitches weren't correctly aligned with the bias shape of the shawl.  So I had to pull out 26 rows, do some creative bodging to increase stitches at one side and decrease them on the other side, then knit the chart again, I'm almost finished the second go through.

This week I trimmed up all 36 embroideries from the Gail Pan Bloom and Sew BOM.  This turned up a few more number-related  boo boos.  I had traced two of the embroideries in the wrong orientation in their respective rectangles, then I managed to trim another embroidery too small.  So I've had to piece extra onto a couple of blocks, good thing I'm not a perfectionist.  Then I went through and sewed solid framing pieces around 12 of the embroideries, because the designer's version is quite busy and I felt like the embroideries looked a bit lost.  Of course, adding in additional fabric around each embroidery has meant that I've had to entirely recalculate the cutting measurements for the  first block (and all the others eventually) and my blocks will be a bit bigger than the original.  Recalculating while trying to factor in seam allowances was a challenge for me, got there in the end.  This is an in-progress photo of block one of six, but I still have some applique to do on this one (there are hexies to go on the solid blue block).  I am mainly using my collection of Tilda fabrics that I amassed during a year's membership of the Tilda club.

In junk journalling this week, I finished a cute little mini journal that I made out of an empty box of tea.  I was putting the box in the recycling and was thinking how pretty the colours were.  And I had recently seen a video where they made a little book from empty packaging.  So over several days, I turned the box into a journal with two sets of pages and decorated it with a lot of tea-related images from my stash.  Fun, and less overwhelming to do a small project with a theme.

Today I glued together a collage of scraps to create what is called a 'master board', which I then cut up into various tags and cards which I decorated with stamping and a few bits of glued on ephemera.  Strangely satisfying, a bit like crazy quilting. I will probably make more.

I didn't get much done on the small dollshouse kits this week, because the ancient fluorescent light fixture in that room went on the blink, literally.  I ordered a new starter component from a company promising delivery in 2-3 days.  When I chased on the 4th day, they hadn't even shipped it yet!  In response they sent it by fast delivery, and when it arrived, it didn't even work.  Luckily it was a set of two, and the second one did work.  Won't be ordering from them again.  Before the light gave out, I did finish a Model Village miniatures kit for a filled sewing basket.

Have you started any Christmas preparations yet?

Cold snap

 It's been really cold this week (for the Midlands anyway), down to minus 3C one night, and a heavy frost yesterday.  I've been doing my daily walk all bundled up against the 1C and 2C daytime temperatures.  Sadly it hasn't been a lot warmer in parts of our indoors as one-third of our radiators went cold mid-week, and no amount of bleeding or valve checking produced any improvement.  Until suddenly today, two of the bedrooms came back online today which is a relief.  The heating engineer is coming on Monday and hopefully will sort out whatever the blockage is.

The coordinating fabrics I ordered for the unicorn quilt showed up so I have made a start.  I looked online for simple quilts others have made with a rectangular panel, and found one with a simple frame border to model mine upon.  I'm not sure what I'm doing yet with the outer border, I want something quick and easy. I pulled stash fabrics that match the mane and tail and cut out rectangles, but I'm not happy with the current look.  DH has suggested I try to mimic the rainbow order of colours, so I might try that tomorrow.

I pulled the digital teapot panel off the quilting frame and hung it up in the hall to have a proper look at it.  I immediately hated the mismatch in the piano keys so I have unpicked most of those in the bottom half.  There was obviously not enough quilting in the lower part of the quilt either - you can see how it is puffing and wrinkling.  So I re-loaded it onto the frame and have added some more quilting in the lower part, and I am re-doing the piano keys. I purposefully did not want to have to custom quilt around every single plate and pot, which is why I did the keys at 2 inches wide to set an open texture for the panel. I want to get this project done so I can clear the frame ready to load the unicorn quilt once it's done.

I finished weaving the checked handtowel, washed and tumbledryed it to shrink it, and hemmed the ends.  It's a better density and feel than the christmas towels, but I still prefer the first towel I made in the thicker yarn.  It's a very cheerful pattern though.

Mini dollshouse kits: This week I put together a World of Miniatures kit for a tapestry frame, and a Cynthia Howe kit for an antique thread stand.  The tapestry frame came out ok, it's a little wonky as it's a difficult shape to clamp while gluing.  The thread reels and pincushion on the thread stand were really difficult - the pincushion because it has to glue flat onto the top of the stand yet the fabric is gathered to the underneath of the pincushion (and it's tiny, the base is a circle that has been holepunched out of cardstock with a normal hole puncher).  The thread reels because they are made out of two incredibly tiny disks and a middle post that had to be glued together, then I had to wind thread onto each one.  The disks were inadequately laser cut from splintery plywood and did not want to pop out cleanly.  My fingers felt like sausages and it was hard not to get glue all over things. But at least I managed to find the spools both times I dropped one on the floor.  DH says it looks fine.

After having already tried tea-dyeing and onion skin dyeing of papers for journal making, this week I tried avocado dyeing - once DH had managed to eat up 4 avocadoes so I could have their skins and their pits.  Avocados produce an unexpected pink dye, a bit like diluted red wine.  I probably didn't have enough avocadoes as my pink is more of a blush, whereas in the video it was definitely more of a red wine colour. I wanted to include a picture contrasting the brown paper of tea-dyeing, the yellow-orange paper of onion skin dyeing, with the pink of avocado dye.  But as it turned out, I have used up all my initial batch of teadyed paper.  So today I tea-dyed another batch, since we always have loads of used teabags. This is a picture of the avocado batch though.

I've been focusing on the next Houses of Britain cross-stitch house and have unexpectedly zipped through about 3/4s of it already, I think because there are longer colour runs in this one so it's easier.  I've also knit a couple of the sections of the Dirty Lace pattern shawl - I bought the pattern in New Zealand and it's a way to use up some of my sock yarn stash. Nice to be knitting again, I find it much more relaxing than doing embroidery or cross stitch.

Time to hibernate

 It's turning into that miserable period in between autumn and winter now, when everything outside is damp, there's chilly fog in the morning. when you go outside the cold penetrates right through your warm clothing even though it is still 10C or so, and the chilly draughts are starting to lick around our ankles inside our old house. And of course Storm Claudia has just swept through, causing havoc in other places but thankfully not much locally. It just makes me want to hibernate.  I want to snack more, I am more lethargic, and increasingly unmotivated to venture into either the chilly basement (sewing room and dollshouse room) or the chilly attic (scrapbooking station and long arm frame).  I am spending more time reading, drinking more warming cups of tea, and feeling half asleep a lot of the time (despite the caffeine).

So it's been a bit of a pottering week in terms of crafts.  I did a bit more on quilting the digital teapot panel on the frame, and I've started a side project making a small journal out of an old box of tea.  I've woven about half the checked christmas teatowel.  I've realised that if I am actually going to make the unicorn panel into a quilt for my son's girlfriend for Christmas, then I only have about six weeks left to get on with it.  So I've ordered a bit of coordinating fabric to go with the panel, and found a pretty simple pattern for a quick quilt online.  

I did finally finish stitching house number five (of 14) from the CrossStitcher Houses of Britain monthly project.  These take me so long even though they are quite small, there are a lot of small colour runs so lots of changing thread, and then hours of backstitching to bring all the details to life.  I am glumly contemplating the prospect of stitching nine more house charts, even though they will look so nice when they are done. I will be taking a break during December because I will be stitching a little Christmas sampler instead.  I don't think I want to give up, I would still like to stitch them.

I also made a push and finally finished the multi-coloured Bruges lace trim that I started about two years ago.  The quality is pretty mixed, because over such an extended period of time with lots of periods where I wasn't working on it, I kept forgetting how to do things.  So there are some real bodgy bits in it, but the overall impression is good.  Now I need to figure out what to do with it.  I don't think I will make anything more from the book, even though there are other attractive colourful trims.  It's just too much starting and stopping with the various colour elements that have to connect to each other, too many sewings etc.  If I continue making bobbin lace, I think I will return to making Bucks or even Torchon, where you can just start and keep going.  It's nice to have the lace pillow and tool bag etc. out of the study at long last.

On the little miniature kits, I made up two ancient kits from the old club days, for dolly beds made from toothpicks and tongue depressors. They came out fairly well considering the materials. I decorated them with some cutouts from my clipart files, and added some 'quilts' from some fabric in my stash.

Also, I pulled out an old Phoenix metal miniature kit for a dollshouse's dollshouse.  We used to think these metal kits were amazing, back in the day before 3D printing came along.  Now it looks a bit clunky, I think I got it in a sale a long time ago.  I handed it over to DH as painting metal miniatures is his area of expertise.  He cleaned up the molding a bit, primed it, and painted a colourful base layer over everything which was very nice of him.  So all that I had to do was finesse the details a little bit, which was much easier as his painting delineated all the elements.  I need to glue the porch on and probably spray the house with some sealer then it's done.

We re-hung the mended gate, it looks great but now the gateposts more obviously need a coat of paint as well - perhaps we will get another sunny day when I can tackle that. I decluttered some of my chintz china to the charity shop - I had picked odd pieces up here and there at antique shows and bricabrac shops.  It used to be very collectible but I looked up all the current prices and none of it is worth much now.  The whole research exercise was highly dangerous as I kept seeing other chintz pieces which I absolutely loved but I stayed strong and didn't buy any more. I am hanging on to some of my favourite pieces although we rarely use them.  The next thing to declutter will be a small stack of quilting patterns left over from decluttering the file cabinet, I need to photograph them and get them listed for sale.