Procrastination

 It's 10 months since I got back from my last trip to Japan, and only this week did I finally install the things I had bought for my Japanese ryokan house.  Talk about procrastination. Most of the time this house stays closed, I forget how incredibly detailed it is inside. And so authentic - I saw countless old properties in Japan with similar architectural elements and room furnishings.  It's nice to see the house open again.

I had a little house shrine to put in one bedroom, and some food dishes, a few ornaments and I had a postcard that I trimmed to become a wall mural for the guest bedroom.  While I was at it, I finally made the two futon with their duvet covers wrapped in protective sheets - just like the ones I slept under in Japan.  There are still loads of items I would like to make for this house - but, procrastination :)

I've spent a bit of time this week working on the Japanese appliqued basket kit.  I finished all the applique for the outer basket, lined it and turned it through.  And I made the inner basket, then spent quite a while quilting it all.

Now that the quilting is finished, I am sewing the side seams to make the basket shapes.

I also made a start on the vintage linens quilt, although I have downgraded plans from a bed quilt, to a large wallhanging - given the stack of bed quilts I still have.  I ironed on woven interfacing to give the vintage embroideries some body and protection, and started cutting out motifs I like.  These are just pinned on the design wall, I need to rearrange the crinoline ladies.  I'm just making things up as I go along.

I came across a little magazine kit for a cross stitched thread holder in a charity shop, and stitched that.  Nice to do something quick.

I wet finished and trimmed the three houndstooth mats that I wove on my little loom.  I am keeping one and will offer the other two to DS's partner to see if she wants them for their house.

I have loaded the Double Wedding Ring onto my longarm frame, and I was  basting long lines across it in preparation for rolling to the bottom to start Baptist Fan quilting.  About a foot from the end of the top, my machine suddenly started making an ominous thunking noise with every stitch.  I've been back and forth to the dealer about it, I had to take some specific close up photos and a video for them to determine that the timing seems to have gone out.  I'm assuming the needle hit one of the thick seam junctions in the DWR, made worse with starch, and it was too much and forced the timing out.  So now I am waiting for a quote to have an engineer come and fix the timing.  And it leaves me wondering if I am going to be able to quilt the DWR on the frame - it's full of bulky seam junctions and I can't afford to keep having the engineer come. I don't want to have to hand quilt it, I don't feel this quilt is worth that amount of effort because of all the wonkiness.

I did de-stash seven quilts this past week: two went to Project Linus, and the other five I sold for not very much on ebay- although I got more for a couple of them than I expected. They were all quilts that I had made up from vintage unfinished tops I bought in America on past holidays.  I enjoyed them for many years but they weren't really my taste any more.  I couldn't donate them because of the vintage fabrics, so I'm glad they've been bought by people who wanted them and hopefully will give them good homes.

Not that I need a new hobby, but I am becoming increasingly tempted by 3D printing, now that there are plug and play machines and I'm seeing an increasing number of attractive STL files for dollhouse miniatures popping up online.  I just don't know if I would use it enough, or if it would just be another expensive gadget sitting around the house waiting for the odd time when it is needed.  Do any of you have a 3D printer?

A woman's prerogative

 This week I had more energy and have got more done.  One thing I did was change my mind about my decorating choices for the McKinley Dollshouse that I built a couple of years ago.  For the exterior roof colour, I had followed the very 1980s box picture (and my younger self's dream) of leaving the cedar shingles natural.  It turned out great, just like the box, but I eventually decided that the natural colour is very toy-like and unrealistic, and didn't reflect my older tastes.   I decided to re-paint the shingles, so I looked up online images of what real cedar shingles look like once they have weathered: they go a lovely silvered grey but when you looked closely, you could see there were a lot of other colours underneath the weathering.  Sadly, the best time to colour a roof is when you are building the dollshouse, not when it is already finished and there are 50 fixed on bits that are now in the way.

So the first big job was to mask all the parts of the house that weren't going to be painted.  This took about 2.5 hours to get into all the spaces around the asymetrical roof line with masking tape, washi tape, plastic bags, bin bags etc..  I was also worried about paint creeping through gaps in the roof, into the room decor, so I filled up rooms at risk with tissue paper to hopefully minimise any seepage.

Next, I sprayed several thin coats of Halford's grey auto primer from various angles, trying to get into all the nooks and crannies of the shingles, and crossing my fingers that I wasn't getting spray onto anything that it shouldn't.

The next, and very tedious step which took several hours, was to paint individual shingles in three colours: black, dark grey, and some touches of cedar red.  At this point the house looked like a crude haunted house and I was seriously questioning my choices.

But it all started to come together with the first heavy drybrushing of medium grey.  In this in-progress photo, you can see the difference the drybrushing is making on the lower half of the roof.

The first drybrush completed.

The final painting step was a second drybrush to hit the high points of shingles and their edges, in a light grey. You can see on the roof in the background that I have completed this step on the bottom half of the roof, and fully completed it on the roof in the foreground.  So the original three colours are still faintly visible as mottling, but the roof 'reads' as a light grey weathered roof now.

I'm actually really pleased with how this has turned out, it has completely transformed the house, and the colour looks just like the internet photos of real weathered cedar shingles.  The final 'holding my breath' moment was to strip off the masking tape and plastic and check for accidental overpainting.  But it really wasn't too bad at all.  Nothing had dripped through to the interior of the house, there were only a few small splashes of grey onto the house paint, and a bit of grey spray on the lower parts of some of the decorative trim.  All stuff that I could touch up.  The only real damage is that the washi tape I used on the papered chimney, despite being lower tack than masking tape, has still pulled off a bit of the 'brick' paper.  So I need to repair that.  But otherwise the house looks much more grown up, and the grey roof makes the painted exterior to look more painted lady and less playhouse (imho).  So, it was worth all the work I think.

I finished weaving the three mats from Little Looms magazine in a modified houndstooth pattern.  These are about 8 inches square, in 100% cotton.  The pattern says they are mug rugs but they seem a bit big for that.  I will probably just use them as mats.

I knit DH a pair of simple fingerless gloves to match his neon hat.  They are drying in the picture.  They've come out a bit loose but are still functional and he likes them.

A bit of stash acquisition this week when I saw this James C Brett Emotion DK (acrylic) in the Serenity colourway on Facebook.  I checked on Ravelry and saw some nice jumpers knitted in it, so I ordered a sweater's worth for future knitting.

I finished appliqueing the little houses for the Japanese house basket, and have given them a gentle soak to remove the glue.

I made another project using my handwoven cloth.  I saw this little storage basket in a foreign video (I think Spanish?) and thought it was cute.  The handwoven cloth once again behaved fairly well.  The basket is stiffened with Bosal foam.  The designer said it could be a tea caddy, with little packets of tea in each of the pockets.  I might use it as a table gift for the next cross stitch retreat I am attending in the summer.  I've still got a little bit of fabric left, to make something out of.

I struck it lucky at a charity shop, which had a bunch of new crafting books for just £1 each.  I came home with two Tilda books, a Lynette Anderson and a knitting book, I look forward to reading them.  Also had some pompom trim for £1 a packet, so I had that as well.

It's definitely feeling like early Spring now, we had a lovely crop of snowdrops which are just going over, our purple crocuses (crocii?) are opening up on sunny days, and the few daffodils which haven't been eaten are making bright cheerful spots in the garden.  There are even a few primroses that have escaped the ravages of the slug population, adding some colour.  My elderly tulip bulbs that I keep replanting instead of buying new ones, have all thrown up lots of leaves so hopefully will still get some flowers this year. And the magnolia tree has big fat buds on all its branches.  Still lots of rain though.

February 'meh'

 Feeling at a bit of a loose end this week.  I have kept going with various hobbies but not feeling the joy this week for some reason.  Partly lack of energy and partly a bit 'been there, done that, have too many now'.

I did finish the baptist fan quilting on the Fat Cat Dresden Plate quilt.  This is a relatively modern style quilt for me, but I like the colours.

I hadn't trimmed down my backing and wadding so had relatively wide margins on the quilt frame to either side of the actual quilt.  So I pulled out some fabric pieces and quilted up a few rectangles that could be used for future small projects.

The top for the Gail Pan embroidered blocks wallhanging is now completed.  I auditioned various possible border fabrics from my stash and ended up using a reproduction fabric which works well enough I think.  It was a lot of work, with all the embroidery and having to recalculate the block measurements, but I'm pleased with it, and pleased to use up some of my Tilda fabric stash. So that's gone into the quilting queue upstairs.

Once the Gail Pan top was off my sewing table, I made another small project from my handwoven fabric.  It is still feeling very risky to cut into the weaving but once again it behaved fine. This time I made a storage basket.

I finished knitting DH's day-glo hat - I'm certainly not going to lose him when we are out anywhere.  He is very pleased with it, this photo taken when it is still a bit damp from blocking but he wanted to try it on.

The papercrafting/journal group I'm in on Facebook had another free organiser printable, this time decorated with sunflowers.

I'm not getting very far with the dollshouse carpet that I started, it is really fiddly and slow to see any progress, so I'm starting to feel like I might either throw it or perhaps put it away for another time when I have more patience.  I'm cross-stitching the other border on my handtowel, and have partly woven the next mat on my loom.

I've contacted Project Linus to donate two of my quilts from 'quilt mountain' and pulled out some others unsuitable for donating, to sell on ebay.  So I need to photograph those and work up some listings. 

Porto pics, and some WIPs

 I've been through my Porto pics now, unfortunately all the outdoor ones are pretty uniformly grey and wet, lol. After weeding out duplicates and duds, there are still 647 photos.  So here are just a few.

The riverside district, looking towards the doubledecker bridge

View over the river Douro, from the bridge

Inside one of the Taylor's port warehouses

The knitting shop

DH's yarn in his favourite colour

Inside the Livraria Lello, which bills itself as the 

most beautiful bookstore in the world

The Grande Museu Das Casinhas De Bonecas dollshouse museum foyer, 

looking towards the exhibit hall

One of the houses on exhibit, in Brazilian style

The absolutely stunning Arabian ballroom, inside the

Palácio da Bolsa

These are the Christmas socks now finished, knitted in yarn I bought in Salzburg and finished off on the trip to Porto. They are vanilla socks but the primary challenge with self striping yarn is ending up with two socks that match - and I feel I did fairly well on this pair.

I've added a green border and have started on the final outer border for my Gail Pan embroidered blocks quilt - this pic is taken under artificial light so the colours look a bit off.

I've started a kit for a little appliqued basket that I bought at Mother's Dream quilt shop in Tokyo  (Reiko Kato).  It is a lot tinier than I expected, the basket itself will only be 5.5" long so the applique is quite fiddly.

I finished sewing the binding on the final quilt which was the pink doiley quilt.  It's a bit narrow on my bed. The scallops look nice apart from the 'valley' between them hasn't come out as neatly as it would have done with bias binding.  I've slept under it for a few nights now, it has a nice weight to it due to the doileys.

I've been toiling away on the second baptist fan quilting job which is the Fat Cat Dresden Quilt, I'm getting near the end of it now.

Before we went to Porto, I made my first project with the woven plaid cloth that I created on my little loom.  It's just a simple tray, but it was still a bit heartstopping to cut into the weaving.  It did not instantly fall apart and in fact behaved fairly well, with only a couple of the grey strands wanting to pop free.

I finished the cross stitch towel border on one end of the towel I bought in Prague, and have started on the opposite end now.

When I was at the retreat, several of my tablemates had a tool box converted from a small jewellery case available on Amazon, so I ordered one as well.  You can remove internal sections to your preference - I just ripped out the lefthand ring storage section, and moved the right hand partitions, then blinged it up a bit with scrapbook paper.

I've started a new weaving project using some cotton yarn from my old machine knitting stash - this will be three small mats in a houndstooth pattern.

I refolded all the quilts that had been relaxing on the guest bed, planning to put them back into their storage cupboards.  As you can see, the pile is higher than the door knobs. I realised as I refolded them all, that there are a few that I don't really want that could be donated or gifted.  There are also several decent vintage or antique quilts, which could be sold.  And there are several frankenstein rescues that I don't need to keep either, although I'm not sure what to do with them.  They were unloved vintage tops, many with severe problems, that I rescued from thrift stores on trips to America in the late 90s/early 00s.  I dealt with their issues as much as I could, sometimes resetting the blocks or adding modern borders, then turned them into quilts that I machine quilted (not very well) on my old domestic machine frame set up.  So they aren't suitable for donation to charities or charity shops as they would probably fall apart if machine washed (and I remember at least one of them, the dyes were running when it got wet). I don't really think they are suitable for sale either as the original workmanship wasn't great and my dodgy machine quilting has not helped, lol. Anyway, by removing all of the above, it reduced the stack to a much more manageable dimension.  I need to stop defaulting to making Queen-size bed quilts and try to re-train into making wallhangings.  Or maybe even minis.