Boo housework

Not much to talk about this week as I've spent a lot of time hacking the house and garden into shape ready for the in-laws to visit and the dollshouse club outing. The downside of not doing much housework the rest of the time is it takes a while to get things into shape.

I've done a few more inches on the Rose Window hat and am now decreasing for the crown.  I'm also on the final garter stitch border of the main section of my Victorian lace shawl so will be moving on to the knit on border soon. I've also started experimenting with crocheting a chain around each of my 20 blocks for the GAA Afghan, trying to achieve the same number of crochet stitches on each side no matter what size the block is. The theory is that this will make it easier and neater to sew together.

On the quilting front, I cut the white binding strips for my Bear's Paw quilt then moved on to ironing all 25 blocks of my 25 block applique quilt.  I measured them all to make sure I can trim them to 17", a few are going to be a bit scant but the majority are fine.  I've started the trimming now, my heart a bit in my mouth as I try not to make an irreparable mistake.

I finished pricking the pattern for my Bucks Point hexagonal edging at long last.

I'm still winding bobbins, I need 39 pairs (78 bobbins) wound fairly full, so it is taking quite a while.  I think I have about 28 pairs wound so far.

And that's about it this week. At least the house is looking nice now.  I happened to look out the window while carting stuff around and spotted the cat somehow on top of our pergola.  I think she climbed up the rose arch then jumped across.

Speaking of spotting wildlife, I saw a river otter on the way to work this week.  It was raining steadily and I was walking through a park near a river, when suddenly the otter emerged from a bush and crossed the path about 10 feet in front of me.  It was huge, like a ferret on steroids, and had an odd conical tail.  It was probably at least 2.5 feet long. It didn't look at me, just trotted across the path then slipped into the river and disappeared.  I didn't have time to take a photo so here is a picture from Google.



We've been getting ready for our plumber/builder to start the installation of the shower at long last in our main bathroom in a couple of weeks. Only now he's not coming, he emailed last week to say that his previous jobs have run over and now he won't have time because he's going on holiday in August. I'm feeling like I can't give my money away when it comes to this shower, we've been trying to get someone for three years now, we keep waiting months and they keep letting us down.  I emailed him back to see if he could start in September instead and he hasn't answered yet. So infuriating.  We've now got someone lined up to install the patio underneath the pergola, he reckons he will get it done in the next month in between bigger jobs but it remains to be seen.  It would be nice because then we could get the plants in and actually use the pergola while it's still summer.