Heat makes me stupid

I'm supposed to be studying my Japanese but I just can't concentrate, it's too warm.  It's back up to 30 degrees again until mid week.  But at least we are better off  than southern Europe where it is literally roasting hot.  I've done very little today apart from some stints in the basement dollshouse room where it is cooler.

I've finished the first bedroom on the next floor of the Japanese dollshouse apart from making the tatami mat floor, and I've started work on the other bedroom today. I'm skipping the intervening hall for now so that I can tweak the width of the hall if need be once the bedrooms are built.

I used a Japanese print from a cheap book I found on sale for the inside of the sliding doors, and a graphic wave print scrapbooking paper for the cupboard doors in the tokonoma.  The 'tree trunk' is papier mache applied over the dowel that comes with the kit.

 You can start to get an idea of how big the house is going to be now that the next floor is under construction. I've now opened kits up to number 72 (out of 120) although I've left several bits for later like stairs and furniture while I'm doing the basic room construction.

Also while hiding in the cool of the basement on my day off, I  made the components for three more 'book' pincushions and finished the first one off today.  I used the embroidery alphabet on my Janome 6500 to stitch 'Journal' and then surrounded it in a leaf embroidery stitch to make the cover title.  I found some lace in my stash to go around the edge of the cover.  I might embellish it with a bit of ribbon as well.  This book is a quarter-inch thinner than the prototype and I think looks better proportioned.  I think you could still go thinner without compromising function.  I think these are really cute.  DH is more dubious, perhaps it's a girl thing.  When these are done I will have to decide what to tackle next from my enormous queue waiting.  It's rather exciting after not being able to start anything new in quilting for almost a year while I was finishing off old UFOs, to be able to look at the queue and pick things to do.  These books were on the queue by the way, I had seen a picture on Pinterest a few years ago and thought they looked cute so I had printed it off and stuck it on my design wall.

I thought I had finished my ancient cross stitch UFO this week.  I took it off the frame and admired it then pulled out all the fishing-line grid stitching I was using as reference lines.  Then I realised I had missed a bit. Grrrr.  So I just need to do that bit and THEN it will finally be finished.  I'm tempted to wash it to remove the grime of 17 years but I worry that the ancient embroidery cottons might not be colour fast so I may leave well enough alone.  I need to decide whether to take it now for framing, or whether to stretch it over an artist's canvas which would also look nice.  I'll take a pic when it's properly done.

I've knit the back and two fronts of the little purple rose cardigan and have started a sleeve.  I switched from metal points to wooden points on my interchangeables because the acrylic yarn seemed a bit 'sticky' on the metal points.  My corner of the living room is a bit of a disaster zone at the moment, I'm spending evenings surrounded by a high tide of craft projects I am intermittently working on.  Luckily we rarely have visitors  :)