Happy Easter

It's been a four day weekend here in the UK for Easter - according to a quick Google this doesn't happen in the United States but does in Canada. It's something to look forward to as it means a short work week both before and after.  We had the elderly in-laws visiting from Friday lunchtime right through until Monday lunchtime so sadly not much relaxing hobby time for us. It was nice to see them and we get on fine, but it meant three long days of quiet entertaining and sitting around drinking lots of tea while listening to stories about the children of people we don't know and isn't it terrible what the world is coming to, not to mention lots of cooking and eating and washing up. But not being free to watch our TV or do our hobbies.  M-i-l did encourage us to do what we would normally do on a weekend but I don't think she had in mind me disappearing off to the basement to dollshouse for three hours.

So I've been doing a lot of knitting while I listen to them and I also did a bit of bobbin lace one afternoon while keeping them company. The weather was pretty terrible but DH and I did get outside Saturday afternoon to do a bit of gardening, and we took them to the antiques fair at Lamport Hall on Easter Sunday which we all enjoyed. I did sneak downstairs a couple of times for a short burst of work on the first floor landing of the dollshouse but I haven't glued it to the first bedroom yet because I want to finish the second bedroom. Then I can check the entire first floor against the ground floor and make sure they are the same width before gluing everything together.

 DH drove the in-laws home after lunch today leaving me and DS to hobby to our heart's content all afternoon.  I did spend three hours dollshousing - hurrah! - and stained and painted all the pieces for the next bedroom in the Japanese house.  I also quilted several more gridlines on the Indigo Bear's paw quilt and marked out the remaining lines for this diagonal  first half.

Before they arrived I had finished and blocked the first Harriet fingerless mitten and while they were here I managed to knit the entire second mitten which just needs blocking.  Here's the first one.

Also before they arrived, this week I finished the first bedroom in the Japanese dollshouse including the tokonoma alcove with its tree trunk (a twig from the garden) and the tatami mats.

For the second bedroom I'm experimenting with adding some paper mache to the dowel post that comes with the kit, to make it look more like a twig, because it was pretty difficult using a real twig with bends and bulges.  I had to carve the wall panels to fit around the twig shape. If I can use the dowel instead then it will have straight surfaces where the wall panels connect.  The geisha scroll hanging in the alcove is actually petit point embroidery done by a friend of mine, it fits perfectly in this scale.

I was looking into hobby-sized disc sanders and not very happy about how much they cost (the Proxxon sander is about £180) when I stumbled across some Youtube videos that show you how to convert a bench grinder into a disc sander.  You can buy a 6" bench grinder on Amazon for £30, so look what turned up today courtesy of Amazon Prime delivery.

Now I just have to do the conversion. Probably not this week but maybe next weekend if I get time.

Now that I've finished the mittens, I've dug out the Japanese knitting pattern and yarn that I bought in Tokyo. I also found the notes I took in a class with Donna Druchunas several years ago about interpreting Japanese knitting patterns, which covers some of the basics.  I'm going to make a photocopy of the pattern so I can scribble translations on the copy.  Japanese patterns are based on schematics rather than written out, but there is a fair bit of writing on my pattern. I think I still have the app on my tablet that can translate kanji characters from a photo into English so I'll have a go with that, plus Donna's class identified some online resources for Japanese knitting instructions. 

I hope you had a good Easter and lots of quality crafting time!