French polish fail

 I attached the refinished table top to my antique sewing table.

Unfortunately, it became clear that my  attempt to finish the top with French Polish was a complete fail.  Not only is it patchy and streaky, with visible brush lines, but it hasn't dried properly.  Just handling the top while I screwed it on was leaving big fingerprints in the toffee-like finish.  I looked it up online and apparently this is likely due both to the brushed on coats being too thick, and the French polish I used being too old.  Apparently old French polish may never dry, ever.  A week later and mine is better than it was but still imprinting with finger prints.  So the duff polish has all got to come off again from the top.  I've ordered a different French polish product called Finney's Finpol Easy Polish which is supposed to be a lot more foolproof.  Also a polish mop which is a special brush that isn't supposed to leave brush marks.  Sigh.

On the happier side, I finished quilting my Australian BOM vintage needlework quilt and I'm pretty pleased with it.  These are pictures straight off the frame, so it hasn't been trimmed up yet or bound, and there are still a few more embellishments to stitch on to it.  I learned a lot doing this quilt, about using rulers and pantos, and stitching around applique, and got much braver about trying freehand filler designs. 

Once the frame was empty, I loaded on the Tilda Pinwheel small quilt and easily quilted it with a pantograph, much more straightforward!

Another finish this week was my Iceland Lettlopi hat.  A rinse in lukewarm water has fluffed up the yarn nicely, it should be fairly warm.

I have been trying to shingle my dollshouse roof and ran into trouble, and had to re-do parts of it a few times until my son helped me with the math.    I still need to finish the ridgelines.

I made myself a gluten free afternoon tea as a special treat, just using GF products purchased from the supermarket aisle.  It was quite fun and I enjoyed it, but it did still upset my stomach - probably from xanthum gum which I am also sensitive to, which is used by a lot of commercial GF food manufacturers as a thickener.  Still felt like a treat at the time though. Fun to break out the good china, and my handmade patchwork tea cosy.  And the quilted  autumn placemats that I made up from a panel I bought in the Cinque Terres on my Italy trip.

Finishing up a few things

 I finished up a few things this week that I started on the retreat.

I had cut out and started stitching this cute teapot pincushion kit that I think I bought in New Zealand. So this week I turned through the various pieces, stuffed them, assembled lids etc. to finish it off.  So cute!  And quite relaxing to make something small just for fun.

Another kit I had started was this mini clasp purse that I bought at Crib Quilts in Tokyo.  A bit fiddly to sew it into the clasp when it is so small, but again very cute.  I think it's intended as a necklace accessory.

I seamed a backing for the Vintage Linens quilt, cut some binding, and added the whole thing to the 'to be quilted' queue upstairs in the long arm room.

I finally made up my Welsh quilted cushion into a cushion with piping and a zip (thank you Youtube).  I'm pleased it's finished but I'm not entirely pleased with it.  I drew my pencil lines for the quilting design too dark so the resulting necessary scrubbing to get rid of them left the fabric looking a bit scruffy and the sateen has lost most of its shine. Also the 2 oz polyester wadding that I used (recommended by the teacher) doesn't give it much loft so the quilting looks a bit flat to me. I think wool wadding would have been better but I didn't have enough.  And despite having drawn a square design, somehow the cushion looks a little oblong to me - perhaps the cotton sateen shrunk more in one direction?  Regardless, it's finished and it's a nice souvenir of a long weekend in Wales.

I gathered my courage this week and refinished the top of the antique sewing table.  When I originally bought the table,  the top was ruined by a big white streak running through the finish, and the finish itself was virtually coming off by itself.  So I scraped off the old finish on the top surface a while ago but put it to one side while I refitted the interior of the table.  Following some videos on Youtube, I filled in some fissures and cracks with melted coloured wax filler and then started painting coats of French Polish (shellac), sanding in between.  Ideally you apply French Polish with a special cloth pad called a rubber, but that looked hard and a lot riskier with the irregular shape, so I went with brushed coats.  The resulting finish isn't as smooth because it's harder to avoid brush marks, drips etc.  I did 9 brushed coats over two days, rubbing back in between each coat, which hopefully will be enough protection.  I will rub down the final coat and then wax both sides of the top before adding it back onto the table.

I've started knitting my Icelandic Lettlopi hat this week.  It's reminded me how much I don't really like this yarn, it's scratchy and has wiry hairs in it.  I used it a few years ago to knit up slippers that I subsequently felted down to fit.  Glad I didn't buy a sweater's worth!  The pattern calls for a 100st cast on with 4.5mm needles, continuing in 2x2 rib on 3.5 needles for 10 rows.  That was enormous on my head even though I went down a half size due to being a loose knitter.  I tried again with 80 stitches which was a bit tight, so started a third time with 86 stitches which seems about right.  Also 10 rows seemed really mean, I like my ears to be warm.  So I knit enough rows to cover my ears with a turned up rib before increasing to 90 stitches to start the pattern.  Nice to be knitting again, I haven't had a knitting project for a while.

We went out and did a bunch of gardening jobs today.  I bought us a cheap pressure washer recently.  We've never had one before.  So we fired that up today and it was so helpful.  Cleaned out the fountain before we wrapped that up for winter protection, cleaned down a lot of the big pots, and then we cleaned off our brick-laid patios - getting all the muck and moss out from between the bricks and cleaning off a lot of algae and dirt build up.  We'd kind of forgotten that the patio was meant to be brick-coloured, it's been dirt-coloured for a few years now. And the inclined side alley was getting a bit treacherous with algae and moss, so that's all cleaned off now.  There was a learning curve - like not spraying towards the house because I inadvertently managed to blanket the back wall with mud spray and had to hose that off.  We became pretty mud-sprayed ourselves.  We also pulled out the leaf blower and tidied up the first wave of leaf fall from our trees out the front, there will be many more.Tiring but good to get some jobs done.  Are you getting ready for winter?

On retreat

 I'm just back from a two-night weekend sewing retreat at a hotel.  It's so nice to just sew and make things all weekend with no other responsibilities.  Obviously I could do sewing all day at home, but I don't - I either get bored and go do something else, or I get interrupted or distracted or feel obligated to go do something useful like making dinner or laundry.  I didn't even do that much socialising because there was a big noisy class in the same room all running big embroidery machines so it was too noisy for chitchat with neighbours a lot of the time.  It was still nice to be surrounded by all the creativity and kit and people enjoying making things.

I spent a lot of the first day sewing down the rest of the crochet mats and doileys  on my Vintage Linens quilt.  I must have had half a dozen women come up and exclaim over the idea because they also have a collection of mum's/grannie's/auntie's old embroideries and linens and didn't know what to do with them.  It was a job getting the old linens attached fairly flat, a lot of them are a bit loosey-goosey with age but I managed with a few judicious tucks here and there.  I'm planning to quilt this with an allover design to hold everything down evenly.

Then I pulled out my prepared pieces for the Double Wedding Ring quilt and pieced together eight arcs, then puzzled through the not very clear directions on how to join it all together into a block.    I got there in the end, although it still seems like witchcraft to be sewing two completely opposing curves and end up with something that is sort of flat. This block is my total nemesis as I am not a very accurate sewer and generally find repetitive piecing pretty tedious, but it's been on my bucket list for about 30 years. Having produced my 'proof of concept' block, I started churning out pieced arcs - I need 120 more each composed of six pieces.  By the next day I had produced almost 100 but I've run out of some colours so I need to cut some more 'teeth'.  I'm chain-piecing them in sets of six arcs at a time.  I need to starch, press them flat, then cut them all into the final arc shape using the template.

Then I cut out a Fat Cat Dresden Plate quilt, using the Fat Cat Zimmermann ruler that makes a plate with only 12 wedges in it, and using up a Tilda Chic Escape layer cake and some Tilda FQs from my stash.  After that it was a lot of playing - I cut out and partially sewed a little kit for a teapot-shaped pincushion that I bought in New Zealand I think. And I pieced together and started embellishing a kit for a tiny hanging snap-clasp purse that I bought in Tokyo at Crib Quilts - the kit comes with the sweetest little buttons for decoration.

I won a raffle prize - someone had handpieced a little christmas themed bag which holds a large handmade christmas bauble, all beautifully made.

Earlier in the week, I finished my renovation of the sewing table apart from I still need to refinish the tabletop and screw the hinges back on.  But the padded lids for the tray are all done and covered underneath with matching paper.  I'm really pleased with it.  DH asked what I was going to use it for and I realised that I don't want to use it or put anything into it that could scratch or mark the paper!  So I don't know.  After all the work I've put into it, it seems too good to actually use :)  I just want it to stay pristine forever.

Lots of gluing

 Having finished cutting out (hopefully) all the pieces for my Double Wedding Ring, I turned my attention to my sewing table renovation project.  You may remember that it came like this:

Then I stripped it back to this:

An audit of the pieces that came with it revealed that I was missing about 8 small partitions, and a corner lid.  I found some scrap wood that was the same thickness as the existing partitions, and cut out 6 new pieces.  I decided that it would be more useful to have a longer, non-partitioned tray for tools so I am omitting two partitions.  The audit was also the time to reverse engineer how the top tray had been constructed and papered.  It was clear that most of the pieces were slightly different sizes even when they were the same type - I think everything had been hand-cut to go in a specific place.  I have of course lost the original order due to the poor state it arrived in followed by my stripping of the old paper.  I decided not to worry about it and just play it by eye as I went.

So this week I started carefully cutting my lovely Italian paper and covering all the main partitions.

The next big job was to cover the interior of the hanging workbasket which is in a trilobed shape with a flat front and back, so that was tricky and required lots of pattern making with scrap paper.  It was also a chance to get to know how the new Italian paper was going to behave: very well actually. It's strong enough that it doesn't tear easily even when wet with glue.  I'm using cartonnage techniques and the same PVA glue that I use for making boxes.  I don't seem to have taken any photos of the table at this point.  I also covered the base of the top tray.

Once all that was dry, I could start gluing in the partitions, starting with the outer walls and using the inner frame walls to judge where the partitions should be glued.

Then it was time for the corner partitions, then the inner beveled frame, and then finally the internal corners.  It's turned out pretty well, I quite pleased with it so far.

Next I need to install the lid supports - there are covered sections in all four corners, centre front and back, and of course the workbasket cover in the middle.  I need to cut out a replacement lid for the missing one, and the existing lids may need tweaking if my newly created compartments aren't quite the same size as the old ones.  All the lids need recovering: the lids are padded fabric on top and papered underneath.

So all of this gluing and cutting has been taking up most of my sewing room surfaces, but I did shove things to one side to finish off the Hatched and Patched Pincushion pattern that I bought in New Zealand and worked on at the last retreat back in January.  I've stuffed it with crushed walnut shells, it's quite large so it's like a fabric hockey puck.

I've been trying to put in some time on the longarm project every day, quilting the Australian BOM.  I'm on the last lap now, adding quilting to each individual block, which requires a lot of concentration so is quite tiring.  Plus the anxiety of not wanting to ruin it at this stage.

The border is a pantograph in the background, and ruler quilting in the scallops

A different narrow panto of rosebuds in the wider sashing segments

On individual blocks, I am stitching carefully around all 

the elements and then adding quilting to the background as it needs it.

In the evenings, I am finally working the final house in my Little Houses cross stitch sampler.  This has spent so much time parked at the sidelines while I work on other things, it will be good to finish it.

While I was looking for some autumnal quilts to hang up downstairs, I came across this old cushion cover that I made for my son about 15 years ago.  I used templates from a book of applique quilt designs and styled them to look like our two cats that we owned at the time.  Sadly both cats died from various health issues within a few years so this cushion turned into a sad reminder that had to be hidden away.  Now I'm wondering if DS might like it for his new house, if enough time has passed for it to just be a cute cat cushion.  I'll take it over there and see what he says.

Repetitive crafting

 I've spent some time most days this week cutting out quilt pieces for my Double Wedding Ring project.    I needed 128 corners, 80 melons, and now I'm cutting 768 'teeth' for the arcs.  It is quite tedious.  Also I ran out of background fabric that I bought in Wales, so my quilt will be 16 rings instead of 20, which is probably a good thing because it's going to be a lot of sewing.  I'm trying to split up the 768 teeth evenly across the colour families, so I've been pulling my stash of 30s repros and cutting 4-5 teeth from each print.  Mostly by cutting a 3x10" strip, then stacking those in six layers to subcut into teeth.  Lots of unfolding and refolding.

At least while I am cutting up fabric, I am putting my time to good use by re-listening to Youtube videos teaching Japanese from the Genki textbooks.  Because I'm going to Japan and also Korea next year as it turns out.  It came about rather suddenly, I came across one cultural tour that I liked the look of in Japan and put my name down for it, then I came across a second workshop course to sew a yukata in Tokyo.  The time period between the two tours spans Golden Week which is a long holiday period in Japan when it can be difficult to travel, so I am avoiding Golden Week by flying to South Korea where I am taking a third tour as well as doing a few days of independent travel.  So I've been trying to re-learn some Japanese as well as spending a lot of time researching and making travel bookings.  I'll be away for about 8 weeks again, DH is stoic and encouraged me to book up the tours.  I think we are both conscious of the physical wrecks that his elderly parents have become so I want to do it while I still can. And DH knows he can survive perfectly well on his own because he's already done it twice. In fact, it has encouraged him to learn to cook which he never wanted to do when he was younger, so that's good.

I finished another stitching project this week which is a gift so I can't discuss details.  And I've been putting in some time most days on the longarm frame where I am still quilting the Australian BOM quilt.  I've done all the borders and sashing now so am just starting to tackle the actual blocks which is the hardest part because it's a blank canvas.  I will stitch around the applique elements but then I need to come up with stuff to fill in the block backgrounds and I'm not much good at freehand quilting.  I'm loving using rulers though.  My Handiquilter Simply Sixteen is behaving very well, I'm very happy with my secondhand purchase and I feel like I am getting more confident with the machine.

Still downsizing - I've sold quite a few of my vintage needlework magazines this past week and have been to the post office three or four times with boxes.  Still quite a few to get rid of though.  I also sold and posted a set of quilt templates with accompanying patterns that I bought in 2012 and had never used.  It feels good to be getting stuff out of the house, it will be wonderful when all the big collections are gone but there is still a lot of work to do.

So I knit three and a half thumbs

 I finished my Latvian mittens this week and immediately found that the thumbs were two different sizes, with one being smaller in circumference than the other.  So I pulled out the smaller one, picked up stitches again, and started reknitting the thumb.  After knitting for a while, I eventually realised that the new thumb still didn't match the bigger thumb.  As I mentioned before, I am not very good at counting nor at arithmetic.  So it took me some time and pencil/paper figuring to work out that the bigger thumb wasn't right either and had too many stitches because I hadn't decreased correctly.  However, I liked how it felt, so I ripped out the second thumb again to start over a third time, purposefully decreasing incorrectly to match the big thumb.  Eventually I ended up with two matching mittens which are now blocking on the glove blockers I bought in Shetland last year. The mitten on the right is facing thumb upwards in the photo, thumbs should be invisibly pattern matched but mine isn't quite. I like how bright and colourful this traditional pattern is.  But if I knit any more Latvian mittens, I will try to find patterns that do NOT have four colours in a row because that was really slow and difficult for me to knit.

I forgot to blog last week that I also finished re-knitting my pink hat in New Zealand wool, the one that came out way too small.  I added another full repeat of the flower motif, and also stretched out the crown decreases by knitting a plain row between each decrease row.  It covers my ears now but is still fairly snug, hopefully it will loosen up with wear.

I've been working more this week on renovating the antique sewing table.  I replaced the missing veneer around the lower edge of the table - my patches are slightly thicker so not invisible but it still looks better with the gaps filled.  I did a dry fit of my partition pieces in the top tray, and it looks like I am missing one lid, and about eight partitions.  I've cut a couple of replacement partitions but I think I will leave one side open to create a longer tray, for tools and scissors, instead of partitioning it all up. I strengthened the hanging basket with some glued on cloth, as it was weakened by some splits in the wood.  So really the next big job is to start recovering all the partition pieces with the new paper, which rather intimidates me so I've been putting it off.

The McKinley dollshouse is slowly coming on, I've been working on the tower finishes this week.

When I got back from my last trip, DH presented me with the finished sumo diorama that he has made for me.  Earlier this year I had found some sumo figures as 3D files online, and had them professionally 3D printed.  DH has painted them all for me and even modelled a partial fighting ring for them to stand in.  He's done such a great job, they look so realistic considering they are only about an inch high.

We've started emptying the caravan out for the winter.  We are fair weather campers and the weather is getting too cold and wet for us now.  So we've brought a few loads back from the storage yard, and given the van a good wash and a winter exterior treatment. We had three nice weeks away in it this year which works out to a fair bit per night when you tot up all the annual expenses, but it is really nice to have your own 'home away from home' in the countryside instead of being stuck in a hotel room. We've explored several parts of the country that we probably wouldn't have visited otherwise, and done more walking than I ever do at home.  

and this week I'm pretending to be a furniture restorer

 Do you remember this little needlework table I picked up for a bargain price a few years ago? I was sitting on it for a while because I was warned the green Victorian paper inside could contain arsenic.  I eventually found a domestic arsenic test but had to wait until the external temperatures reached over 20C to conduct the test.  I did the test at the beginning of the summer and the results suggested there were traces of arsenic.

The inside was pretty knocked about, with a lot of loose pieces and flaking paper.

Anyway, I realised my window for scraping off poisonous paper outside in the garden while the weather wasn't too bad, was shrinking.  So this week I hauled it out and commenced the clean up.  A lot of the paper came off easily but after that I had to spray it with water to soften the (probably wheat) paste it had been applied with.  A lot of the partitions were loose so I just took everything out.  Eventually it looked liked this.  Hopefully I didn't onboard much arsenic during the process, I wore gloves.  I feel fine :)

There wasn't any feasible way to label things as I took them out, so it's going to be a bit of a puzzle to reassemble.  I've bought some lovely Italian replacement paper to recover the pieces - wish me luck.

Meanwhile I've taken the rest of the stand apart and given it a good clean in preparation for re-waxing.  There are some missing bits of veneer around the edge of the top, not sure if I will attempt to repair those or not.

I ended up stripping the top of the table because it had some really bad marks on it (one of the reasons it was a bargain I think).  I've not re-finished anything before  other than with wax, so let's hope I don't ruin it.

I dug out my collection of vintage linens and had a go at laying out the pink lace quilt design inspired by the art hanging I saw at Festival of Quilts.  They are all different shapes so it was hard to come up with a balanced design using the linens that are white in colour and in better shape. I started out trying to be symetrical but that didn't work.

Eventually I ignored symetry and just focused on filling in spaces evenly, which is more like how the artist did hers.  The final design is more like this although I don't think this was the final layout.

I pinned everything roughly in place and now it's in the sewing room waiting for the tedious part of stitching down all the linens so they don't shift, and don't wrinkle up horribly if I ever wash the quilt.  My linens collection is another thing that I want to downsize so it feels good to use up so many of the smaller pieces.

I finished knitting my own Scullery Cat this week, after giving away the first one to DS for his new house.  It is a bit bittersweet to have a knitted cat when we just lost our real one, but it's comforting to see it sitting there.

I have also finally knit the main body of the second Latvian mitten and have now started on the thumbs.

This week I sewed on the binding to my Giggleswick Mill quilt.  I don't think I blogged it, but when I washed the quilt, some of the fabrics ran and there are some bad stains.  Luckily they aren't too big, and they kind of blend in with the busy quilt top for the most part.  I've bought some Dylon colour run remover which I will test on some scrap fabric first but I suspect the stains will not shift as they are fairly deep.  Annoying after all the work I put into that quilt.

I've done a bit more on my Mckinley Dollshouse after not working on it for a few weeks due to travel and stuff.  It's slowly coming along.