January slump

I survived my first week back at work but it all felt incredibly tedious and why-can't-I-win-the-lottery depressing.  My holiday-trained stomach was starving long before lunchtimes and my back hurt from sitting all day.  My first morning was slightly enlivened by stopping at a store on the way to work for bottled water and finding the Easter eggs were all on display - on 2nd January!  Honestly.

Not much to show this week for my crafting as it is all ongoing projects.  I've worked on my cross stitch, I've knit more inches on to my twisted cable border on the GAA Afghan, I've knit a bit more on the Latvian mittens.  In commuter knitting I've started knitting a doll from the 'My Knitted Doll' book by Louise Crowther which is on tiny needles with 4-ply cotton so rather hard to knit.  I've done some more sit-down quilting on my snowman quilt and I'm almost at the end of my Star Sampler quilt on the frame although I think I will probably have to re-do some of the appalling quilting at the beginning of it.

The only new thing I've started is a kit by Cynthia Howe to make a 144th scale Bliss dollshouse, which I ordered some time ago.  It was not cheap, and at first I was impressed that they had taken the time to pre-paint some of the components such as the roofs and base.  However, once I sat down to build it, I was disappointed to find that they had painted right over some rough wood without sanding, hadn't bothered to trim off some sprues sticking out either, and hadn't painted all the edges that would be on show.  Luckily I had some blue paint to match the paint they used so could rectify that. The porch supports were much too long (by more than 1/8th inch) and had to be carefully trimmed rather than 'slightly sanded' as per the instructions. They weren't painted either. And it turns out the dormers supplied are too long to fit under the supplied pre-painted roofs.  By the time I realised that, I had already glued the dormers in place according to the picture. Because they are longer, the dormer roofs will sit much higher up the main roof, thereby preventing the supplied chimney from fitting in place.  So I've had to cut my own new dormer roofs as theirs aren't long enough, which are currently being painted.  So in this picture the dormers have no roofs.  I did wonder if I had glued them on upside down but then the even-longer side would be facing the short roofs so I don't think so. It is a cute little house but given the faults I've had to correct, I'm disappointed in it for the price.

I've done a fair bit of lace this weekend, visiting a local lace gathering yesterday for almost four hours on my Bucks Point hexagonal edging and doing a few more hours today.  I only had to do reverse lacing a couple of times for a short distance, which was a huge improvement over recent attempts, so it felt productive and I am heading into the third corner now.

We took almost all the Christmas decorations down on New Year's day apart from some pine garland on the stairs which looks nice.  Much as I love the decorations, it's nice to have the house somewhat back to normal although I keep finding seasonal stragglers in various corners.

Storm Eleanor brought some very high winds this week.  Our pergola survived but the antique Victorian lantern frame I hung above the shed must have been swinging around very wildly as it has wrenched its support mostly out of the wall.  So that's had to come down until we can re-fix the support. The bird table went over but everything else seems to have survived, although I haven't checked our roof tiles yet!