I have sheep on my head

Yes, I finished the Baa-ble hat and it fits really well. It's so cute. It's turned a bit cold again so I wore it to the supermarket today, very warm and snug.

I stumbled across free instructions on Ravelry for matching mittens, using the chart from the purchased hat pattern. I wasn't sure I would have enough yarn so I knit the two cuffs at the same time and finished with literally a couple of feet of yarn left over. I'm pretty sure I've got enough of the other colours.

I've decided to start attending a monthly group at a quilting shop and went to my first session today. You can work on whatever you want, so I took along the borders for my Let it Snow quilt. I went with the solid blue in the end because the batik I bought last weekend was too directional. I am a bit disappointed at having to use plain fabric but I couldn't justify buying a third lot of fabric and the colour is fine. So I sewed 18 snowball blocks today and pieced them into four panels.  I then started to piece 3.5" squares of plaid fabric into panels to bookend the snowballs and once again proved I can't count. I thought I had cut plenty of squares to piece four plaid panels and have squares left over. Not only had I not cut enough squares, but I belatedly realised I actually need eight panels, not four. So I've only cut about 40 squares when I actually should have cut 96 squares.  Good thing I don't work in a bank.

On my day off I put what is probably the ninth coat of paint on a pair of brackets that I'm going to mount on my bedroom wall in mock support of the ceiling beam. I picked these up on a bric-a-brac table at a fete and they are meant to hold up a curtain pelmet. They were originally painted gold but I wiped them down with sugar soap wipes and started painting them. After a couple of coats not only was the gold still showing through but the paint started to turn green. Three more coats and I gave up on my lime green brackets and gave them a good spray with sealer. That turned them a very attractive mixture of brown sealer and green paint that almost looked like I had done a verdigris effect on purpose. Thankfully the sealer has mostly stopped the reaction with the gold paint, and four more coats of paint finally turned them white. I am choosing to ignore the hints of lime green inside some of the deeper crevices...

I moved the brackets out of the way and started repair work on my 1/12th scale French Loire chateau gatehouse which had lost its railings and the tip of the turret in the house move, plus some of the 'stone' coating had chipped off.  Luckily I still had plenty of the stone coating so I mixed more up and patched the breaks, and reglued the railing. I've driven in a couple of nails to try to give the railing a bit more stability.

My new job is going fine and Friday I was told that I've passed the first qualification stage successfully so that was a nice way to end the week.  It's a bit scary because being qualified means that a portion of my work won't be checked any more as I am deemed competent to do it on my own.  Of course I promptly hit two cases that had things I had never seen before so I ended up sending one of them for check anyway like a chicken - cluck cluck cluck.  Perhaps I need to ease into standing on my own  :)

Bleah, stupid head cold

I was actually better for most of the week and then suddenly last night my sinuses went into overdrive and I've been sneezing and blowing my nose all day. Bleah.

However I have discovered my hitherto unknown superpower which is manipulating the weather: Thursday I broke down and wrapped up our poor bay tree in fleece to belatedly protect it from the sub-zero frosts at night, and Friday afternoon the temperature promptly shot up 10 degrees.  It's suppose to be warm all week so I guess I am taking the fleece off again tomorrow.

I've been knitting on the Baa-ble Hat this week which I think will be quite a warm hat, in aran 100% wool.  It's very cute and DH has even hinted that he would like it - but it's mine.

Like many other knitters on Ravelry, I found it was coming up quite big even though I had dropped to a 4mm needle from the recommended 4.5mm.  I pulled it out and started again with a 3mm needle which is sizing up quite well and also giving a denser hopefully warmer fabric.

This week I took the bobbin lace dollshouse towel edging that I made a few months ago, and stitched it onto a towel I made from a piece of cotton hankie which had a printed design on it. I hand rolled a tiny hem on the edges, which went fairly well on the sides but was much harder going across the end which wasn't woven on grain. I was pleased with the end result though, and this went off to an online swap partner.

In return I received this generous assortment of neatly made bathroom goodies, which I can find good homes for in various of my dollshouses.

I also finished renovating my 1:24 scale thatched cottage which has four rooms - two downstairs and two upstairs. There is room for more accessories but everything is repaired and cleaned and I added a few new pieces of furniture. (I know the doll looks a little unrealistic but it's hard to get good dolls in this scale). I built this cottage from scratch to my own design about 20 years ago and also built most of the furniture either from kits or from scratch.

To add a homely touch, this week I put together a kit from the now defunct Model Village Miniatures for a tiny knitting bag, and added it to the living room.

Meanwhile, with great difficulty, I finished the little dollshouse mat in bobbin lace that I was making. I found this very difficult to do, not because the lace stitches are difficult because they aren't, but because it's so tiny. The pins are so close that they get in the way of seeing the pattern. The thread was so fine that I snapped three threads and had to work in replacements, and I had an extremely difficult time finishing it off at the end when you have to join the start to the beginning. So it's a bit of a mess but it's still usable.  I've ordered some different thread which I hope will be slightly sturdier and I'm going to try again: hopefully my second attempt will go a bit better now that I know more what I am doing.

I haven't done any quilting this week because I didn't have any fabric I was happy with to use as the background for the snowball blocks in the border of my Let it Snow quilt. Why is it that no matter how big your stash is, you still find you need a different colour?  So DH kindly drove me to Tudor Rose Patchwork near Bedford, and to Poppy Patch in Great Doddington, to look for fabric. Neither had quite what I wanted but I bought a solid blue at Poppy Patch and a batik at Tudor Rose and will try them out on the design wall.  There was only 1.2m left of the batik so I will have to do math (ick) to work out if that would be enough for all the blocks I need.

The other thing I've spent some time on this week is not a crafty thing as such. I've started to seriously look at booking a holiday to Japan later in the year. Originally I was planning to hit the Yokohama Quilt Show in November but then that was cancelled. So now it will just be a more typical tour around the main destinations that everyone goes to, but hopefully hitting lots of craft shops along the way. I've always wanted to go to Japan and we aren't getting any younger  :) DH is less convinced but willing to come along.  It does seem to be an extremely expensive place to visit, the two quotes I've had from travel agents so far for my desired itinerary are rather shocking - I may resort to booking it myself to save money.  If you've been to Japan, I'd love to hear your tips and recommendations!  Especially for crafty destinations in Tokyo and Kyoto.

Baby it's cold out there

Yes, after the warmest December on record, we are finally having some winter.  Here in Northamptonshire it is down around freezing, and the puddles had thin skins of ice when I walked to the station this morning.  Our old house is generally not too cold down to about 5 degrees C outside, but now there are icy drafts snaking around my ankles and I am typing this wrapped up in a quilt and a knitted shawl. I'm also sleeping under three of my handmade quilts at night to stay warm. Luckily my feet are fairly warm in  my latest pair of Arne and Carlos felted slippers.

These are knit in Lett Lopi again, and the duplicate stitch embroidery is in a triple strand of Jamieson's 2 ply jumper weight.  There is a chart in their book but I adapted it to just do the rose motif, plus I went a bit wrong so have ended up with an individual design.

I missed posting on this blog last week as my return to the office exposed me to the lurgy making the rounds, so I wasn't feeling great plus I was quite tired after we packed DS up and took him back to uni.  After we got him unpacked into his room, he took us to the History of Science museum which was surprisingly interesting, full of antique scientific instruments some of which were objects of beauty in their own right.  Then we took him for lunch at his latest fast food find, a Mexican burrito place which was fairly good, before bidding him farewell for another term. On the way home we made our customary stop at the big antiques centre in Brackley, where DH picked up a book and I found a nice table centre and a framed Victorian engraving.

Just in time for the cold snap I finished my attempt at a warm windproof hat in Jaeger Natural Fleece.

It is surprisingly hard to take a picture of the

back of one's own head

As well as a deep, ear-covering ribbed band, I knitted the body of the hat by stranding two ends of wool, alternating two stitches in each (I tried one stitch but it made the fabric too stiff). The idea was to make the hat windproof by plugging up all the holes with the strands. It was partially successful: the hat is quite warm but still lets some wind in.

We took the Christmas tree down last weekend, so last Thursday I made myself finish the second Torchon Lace Christmas star and stiffened it.  It went on the tree for a brief moment so I could take this photo, before the tree went off for recycling.

I've 'cast on' (sounds better than 'set up') for a little dollshouse mat in fine bobbin lace. I've already broken one of the thin threads by tugging too hard and had to replace it. The mat is about the size of a postage stamp so I am having to use a clip-on magnifier to see what I'm doing.

Commuter knitting continues to be the Basket Check sock.  Sofa knitting, now that I've finished the third pair of slippers, is now another hat.  I know I said in the last post that I wanted to knit more from my stash, but then I promptly fell off the wagon and ordered more yarn to knit a Baa-ble Hat.  This was the free pattern from this year's Shetland Wool Week and is adorable. One Raveler described embarking on this project as "drinking the Koolaid" due to there being over 3,000 projects for it on Ravelry. In fact every UK site I tried for buying the wool (Jamieson Shetland Heather) was sold out of some or all of the colourways for it.  In the end I was able to get the colours from one site then substitute a black and a white yarn from Blacker Yarns for the sheep.  So I've cast on for that and am currently knitting the ribbed band.

Dollshousing in the cold basement room is not an attractive pasttime but I did do some work this Thursday on renovating my 1/24th scale thatched cottage.  It needed a good clean, some broken items repaired, and I've re-arranged the rooms somewhat to improve the appearance. I put together a simple little wooden cabinet kit after staining it, which made me realise how out of practice I am at building things.

I've  put together the central panel of my Let it Snow quilt now and am quite pleased with the cheerful colours (although less pleased with my not entirely accurate seam allowances). I'm currently deciding what to do about the snowball border because I am going off piste from the pattern yet not entirely happy with how the quilter whose scrappy version I am using as inspiration decided to tackle hers.

I hope you are staying warm and enjoying wrapping up in your handmade knits and quilts.

Last day of holiday

...then back to work tomorrow.  Today I got up at 7:30am on the theory that it will make getting up at 6:25am less horrible tomorrow but I don't think that a week of lie-ins will be overcome that easily.

Through dedication and perseverance, we have managed to eat up all the holiday food and sweets.We got through most of the turkey before its expiry date, and cracked open the gift Prosecco for New Year's Eve in front of the telly. We've watched the entire Hobbit trilogy which was one of my Christmas presents - I liked it a lot better watching it for the second time and consecutively, than I did seeing it in the cinema.

Yesterday DH dropped me at the new year's sale at the Colemans Craft Warehouse in Rushden. It was a decent sale, 30% off most things and quite a few bits marked down to 50% off. Also there was a pop-up sale next door of MDF blanks - I think it was these people - at very reasonable prices. I haven't really done anything with MDF blanks before but they were so cheap that I bought a caddy for my cutting rulers on my cutting station; a tray to corral my scissors, rotary cutter etc; a pencil holder; a couple of blank plaque shapes and two caskets which may be gifts.  A bit of painting with acrylic paint ensued, decorating with Mod Podge and papers, and the old hot glue gun came out, and I'm quite pleased with the results. It was fun to try something new.

Pen holder decorated with some gift wrap from Venice

Desk caddy decorated with gift wrap on outside, and 

the inner tray lined with some card printed in button motifs

Ruler caddy with fabric applied using Mod Podge, then

various charms, buttons, ribbons and thread spools from my stash

applied with hot glue or Quick Grab.

Yesterday afternoon I went to the first meeting for 2016 of the gardening club, where there was an astonishingly poor speaker. He attempted to present to a crowd of over 80 people using A4 laminated pictures which he held up or tried to pass around, and kept waving at A4 laminated papers he had taped on the wall with the names of trees which couldn't be read even from the front row. As he also spent the first 2/3rds of his topic waffling off-topic, not surprisingly he completely lost the crowd's attention and by 50 minutes in everyone was just chatting to their neighbour and looking at their watch waiting for tea break.  I hope the organisers give him some feedback about coming into the 21st century and at a minimum getting some slides together, if not a laptop and projector. Luckily I had brought my knitting with me thinking that I might do a few rows before the talk started, so I was able to knit the whole time on my Basket Check Sock: knitting the heel flap, turning the heel and starting on the gusset.

Over the last few days of holiday, I finished piecing the stars for my Let it Snow Quilt and also cut out and pieced the tree blocks. The trees aren't part of the published pattern so I had to wing it a bit and draft my own block. I used a 22.5 degree angle ruler to cut the background wedges, and drew a template to cut out the trees. I like how it is all looking cheerful and scrappy.

For Kathy, wherever you are

A while back I came across two American-style cross stitch canvases in a vintage shop and bought them for a few pounds.  They were dirty and quite stained around the edges of the canvas from some previous framing, and not particularly well done. But there was a lot of work in them and I liked the folk art quality of the pictures.  One is signed 'Kathy, 1985' and the second 'Kathy, 1986'. I expect when Kathy stitched them she didn't imagine they would end up unloved in a bric-a-brac shop. 

A few weeks ago I took the measurements to a secondhand centre and chose two matching frames that were about the right size. Unfortunately they didn't have mats and I decided not to try cutting my own although I have that a few times a long time ago. I cleaned up the frames and the glass, and gave the cross-stitch a wash. Sadly the red thread in the house picture ran terribly and that picture dried with pink tidemarks all over.  After a bit of Googling, I bought some colour catchers and started soaking the picture with a colour catcher, changing the water and the colour catcher every few days.  After several days of soaking and stirring, most of the marks had either gone or faded to the point where they aren't immediately noticeable. The red roof meanwhile faded to a pinky-terracotta colour but at least the picture was saved.

I stretched each canvas over a bit of cotton sheeting on top of the backing board of the picture frame, and put the frames back together.  And now I have two nice Americana pictures in my sewing room. I suspect Kathy may have gone to the great craft room in the sky but perhaps she would be pleased to see them displayed again.

Dollshouse stuff

I've started cleaning up and renovating a 1/24th scale thatched cottage but haven't taken any pictures yet.  I mentioned in my last post that I got some lovely miniatures from my friend Anita, and here is a pic of them.

Can you believe those tiny teddy-bear buttons? The hangers have beautiful

crochet lace covers.

Anita was also having a bit of a stash clear out for the new year, and has passed over to me several goodies for my stash, which arrived in the post this week.  I particularly like the hand-stitched chair seat covers worked by her late mother - I hope to use these on some dining chairs possibly in the McKinley kit house if I ever get round to building it.  Thanks Anita!

Knitting

I was upstairs working a bit more on my second bobbin lace star which is set up in my knitting room. It's looking dicy whether it will ever make it onto this year's Christmas tree (which is still up). My stash is guilting me out - I really must try to knit more from stash and stop getting seduced by projects in magazines /on Ravelry which always seem to require buying more yarn.  On that basis, I picked up some bulky Jaeger Natural Fleece and I've been playing about trying to come up with a warm windproof hat. I got halfway on a hat from Ann Budd's book of patterns for a plain hat with a turned up hem, but not only was it coming out too tight, it looked lumpy and mishapen in this thick yarn. So I've pulled that out and will try something else, perhaps a ribbed turned up hem.  I'm partway through the second sleeve of my Rowan Summer Tweed Cardigan but am feeling guilty about several other UFOs lying around the living room, including the Que Sera Cardigan, the GAA Afghan, the Now in a Minute Shawl, and the Latvian mittens.  There are a few more hibernating UFOs upstairs including the Sampler Sweater and the Winterland mittens, and a lacy scarf that I need to pull out. Some of these are stalled because they are going wrong: don't fit, don't look good, are too hard, ran out of yarn. Others got derailed when I was seduced by a shiny new thing or had to meet the deadline of a new baby or an upcoming holiday.

How do you deal with your UFO guilt?  Do you have a new year's plan for tackling them?

Happy new year!