Bank holiday weekend

It's a long weekend here in the UK, and as is traditional the weather has been cold and rainy.  I know I moaned a lot about the heat but it seems to have gone completely the other way now.  We went over to the Lamport Hall antiques fair yesterday and I felt sorry for the outdoor traders who had to keep their stock concealed under opaque tarps.  We enjoyed wandering around (most of the fair is inside the old stables), there seemed to be some new dealers this time and familiar dealers had new stock.  I came home with a vintage Royal Winton cake platter and a much repaired but still pretty balloon-backed Victorian chair.  It just kills me that something like this lovely carved chair  with tapestry upholstery is going for less than the price of a meal out for the three of us, I had to rescue it.  Brown furniture is so out of fashion here in the UK.  Hopefully it will come back in with a bang around the time we need to downsize in 15 years or so, he he he.

Over the past week I finished the second bedroom of the Japanese dollshouse including carving the traditional hanging fish pot suspension system over the fire pit (when I took this picture, I didn't realise the stewpot was hanging crooked!).

Carving the fish was challenging, it was a flat fish-shaped blank about 3/4 of an inch long, and the picture directions showed you needed to carve it into a 3D fish, preferably without slicing into your own fingers.  I roughed out the initial fish shape with my Dremel multi-tool but after that it was carefully cutting with a scalpel. It doesn't look too bad, not the same as the picture but I still have all my fingers!

On my day off I put together the stretcher frame for my ancient cross-stitch and carefully stretched the stitching while trying to keep it even.  I like it and it is hanging in the hallway near the kitchen where I can see it often. I still can't believe it is actually finished, it's been hanging around for most of my adult son's lifetime.

I also sewed the buttons onto the Purple rose cardigan.  Unfortunately it turns out that the cardi is too small for my friend's daughter after all, I should have knit the bigger size.  But it is quite cute, and will go in the stash waiting for another baby to come along.

Also on my day off, I felt like a quick sewing project so I pulled out the little packs of cigar-rolled Japanese fabrics that I bought in Nippori fabric town in Tokyo.  It was a shame to unwrap them, they looked so enticing in their neat rolls, but I wanted to use all the fabric I had bought on the last trip (so I can buy more on the next trip!!).  I used a 5-inch tumbler template ruler from Missouri Star to cut a few tumblers out of each of the fabrics, and stitched those into a table runner.  The edging and binding are also from Japan, left over from the handbag and wallhanging I made after we got back.  I chose to channel quilt because the resulting texture reminds me of how the fabric was packaged when I bought it.

Having surveyed my queue of quilting projects, I have now chosen to start another quilt.  This is from a pattern called Ode to the 1930s: A sampler quilt, by From my heart to your hands studio.  I bought the pattern a few years ago with the aim of using up some of my large-ish stash of 1930s fabrics, some of which date back to the early 90s. It has 42 different blocks both pieced and appliqued.

So I pulled out all my 30s/40s fabrics and piled them near my cutting table where I can easily get at them to pull fabrics for various blocks.  As you can see, I've pieced the first block.  I've cut the pieces for a second block but not stitched it yet.  This project should keep me busy for a while and use up a small part of my stash.  I like scrappy quilts and I like that every block will be different, I get really bored stitching repeating block patterns.

I've finished the stripes on my 10-stitch triangle shawl and I've started knitting on the edging in a solid blue yarn I bought in Cumbria.  I charted out a couple of edgings from the book of knitted lace edgings by Tessa Lorant that I found in Penrith. The first one was too complicated to repeat along an entire shawl (I got confused several times in the first 12 row repeat as it is lace in both directions).  The second one which she calls 'Wheel edging' is a simpler garter stitch edging so I'm trying that along the edge of the shawl to see what it looks like.  She says it curves a little, hopefully it won't distort the shawl if I block it straight.  I'm still knitting the Batik Swirl shawl on my commutes, it's widening out now but is still very pointy.  I don't really like shallow crescent shaped shawls, I don't find they sit well on my shoulders, and I'm starting to wonder if this shawl is that shape (you can't tell from the photo). There's only one photo on Ravelry and it looks like it might be crescent shaped.  We'll see. I could always adapt the pattern to make it deeper, or pull it out and try something else.