An historic finish

Or 'A' historic finish, depending on your style preferences.  Anyway, I have finally finished The Great American Aran Afghan!

This was a series based on a design contest run by Knitter's Magazine in America and subsequently published as a pattern booklet of 24 squares.  According to my Ravelry page, I started my first squares in spring 2012. I finished my 20 squares in spring 2016, then it's taken me another two years to crochet join the squares and knit the twisted border.  So six years of intermittent work.  Most of the squares were quite fun to knit and also developmental for me as a knitter.  I couldn't afford to knit it in wool at the time, so I bought several big skeins of Hayfield Bonus Aran (80 acrylic, 20 wool) and thankfully did not run out, and it actually wasn't bad to knit with at all. The finished afghan feels nice, it's got a good weight to it and it's warm.  Probably not as warm as a wool afghan would be.  And despite the wide variation in my square size, it is lying reasonably flat.  It feels really good to have finally finished this long term project.

Minor alarm on the Japanese dollshouse front when I realised two of my instruction booklets had gone missing.  I couldn't find them anywhere but as DH had earlier done his usual Saturday morning rubbish collection around the house, it seemed an obvious possibility.  Sure enough, they had somehow ended up in the recycling bin outside the house, along with a parts diagram sheet that I hadn't even realised was gone.  So alarm over, although I don't know if I accidentally knocked them into the bin or if there was some overzealous collecting going on.  We've now had a refresher session on 'in the bin' versus 'near the bin' and which lot to leave alone.

Otherwise the house is proceeding along nicely.  The bathhouse is done now apart from I haven't glued the entrance wall in yet, and I've now opened up to Chapter 25 as I work on the two bay extensions for the bathhouse and kitchen. 

The finished bath house, with sliding wooden shutters. There will be
an internal wall along the edge of the floor which diverts bathers
into the front bay extension where the changing room is.  I really like
how 'watery' the water is.  I've got to make a bunch of little

wooden stools to go in here as well.  You sit on the stool and use the bucket
to completely clean yourself at the faucets before getting in the bath.

The two bay extensions, kitchen on the left and bath house on the right.

These hinge onto the front of the house.

One of my lacemaking friends came to visit and I was proudly showing off my handiwork on the house.  She looked at the massive box of almost 100 unopened chapters and announced in a nice way that I was obviously insane.  I don't know, I like building things and I like following instructions to build things, and I like the positive reinforcement of the many 'wins' as I complete each room or piece of furniture.  I think that's the reason many of us do crafts - unlike tasks that constantly have to be re-done like dishwashing or ironing, you have a concrete achievement that waits patiently until the next time you can give it some attention.

I actually did some work on my Bucks Point hexagonal edging this week and have reached the halfway point.  I really like how it looks but I do feel a bit bored with it now as I know how to do it and am not really learning anything new. It's taken me about eight months to get this far so probably another six or eight before it's finished at the level of attention I am giving it.  Obviously if I worked on it more often then it would go faster.  I like lacemaking but it's not something I want to sit and do for hours and hours, generally after a couple of hours I've had enough, my eyes are tired, my pin pushing finger is getting sore and my back aches from bending towards the pillow even though I try to sit up straight.  I know a lot of lacemakers who go to the courses at Knuston Hall which is relatively local, and I've felt tempted, but at the end of the day I don't think I would enjoy sitting doing lace for several days.  On a quilting course, say, you are moving around a lot more as you sew, cut, press, lay out blocks etc. so it's physically more varied.

The garden seems to have survived the snowfall although it remains to be seen if we've lost any herbaceous plants. Suddenly it is driving fast into spring, and the first daffodils are starting to appear.  The crocuses I rescued from the old hedge when we replaced it, then replanted in the new bed, are all blooming away. Although it turns out I missed several bulbs which are also blooming now around the new lavender hedge.  I went out with the claw thingy yesterday and loosened the soil around the plants yesterday - we have quite sandy soil so I don't think it needs proper digging.