Another week passes

How did it get to be September so soon?  I feel like I lost a lot of the summer just keeping my head down trying to survive the hot weather.  But it is lovely outside this weekend, mid-20s and a nice breeze, more what I prefer as proper summer weather. We had a BBQ last night and ate outside on the patio which was nice.

I've glued the next floor onto my Japanese dollshouse.  Unlike the first two floors, I didn't glue all the components together into a separate unit and then try to make the unit fit onto the house. There was too much variation in measurements and levels to accommodate from the existing construction.  Instead I cut the hallway floor and wall down a little in width to fit, and then glued on each room separately with the hall wall going on last. I'm a bit concerned about how strong the bond is but I've added some hidden staples at the back of the house to hold the gap between floors closed and as extra bracing for when the weight of the front balconies gets added on eventually.

I think it's getting to the point where I really need to put the house onto a rigid base to protect it from collapsing under its own weight when it's moved. I need to think about what I might put on the base as external decoration because that will dictate how big it needs to be.  The fronts need to swing open so anything near the house will have to be removable.  It would be nice to have a Japanese-style garden.

I had jumped ahead to complete this second floor structure, skipping over quite a few kits for stairs, sliding window screens, internal decoration and furniture.  So I think now I need to go back and work through all those to clear the decks before I start in on the next set of balconies.

In quilting, I finished block 2 of my 30s Sampler quilt.  I've picked the fabrics for block 3 but not cut anything out yet. The yellow print is what I am considering using as the border although it's more 50s than 30s so I might buy something else once all the blocks are done.

I spent a few hours yesterday working on my Bucks Point hexagonal edging and then a few more tidying up the area where I keep my lace stuff.  It was chaos because I had just been dumping things out when I got back from lace days and from the Nottingham weekend, and hadn't put anything away for quite a while. Loads of books, bobbins, loose paper patterns, threads etc.  It's more organised now.  I need to prepare the pricking and wind 60 pairs of bobbins for a lace weekend I'm attending at the end of the month now.

On the knitting front, I ripped out the Batik Swirl shawl because it was just such an ugly shape: a long thin triangle that was only gradually widening.  I think part of that may have been my fault for missing out some decrease/increases accidentally but overall it wasn't going to be something I'd wear.  Instead, I'm using the yarn to knit a second Itineris Shawl which is a pattern I knit about four years ago. It will look different in these long colour runs but hopefully still nice, and that's a shawl I have worn more often, I like the shape of it.

I'm slowly adding the knit-on garter lace edging to my 10-stitch triangle shawl.  It's not difficult but it is easy to get confused so sometimes I have to pull back when I realise I've done a section of the repeat twice by accident (usually because I'm distracted from watching TV).  

Film4 was running a Studio Ghibli event all through August so we've taped about a dozen of their animations which we are gradually watching.  I had previously seen Spirited Away and Howl's Castle and liked them although they were a bit odd.  Some of the others are very odd, and I question whether they were aimed at children as an audience.  We didn't like Princess Kaguya which bounced all over the place and couldn't decide what it was trying to tell, and When Marnie was Here was both tragic and creepy (although very pretty). Then we watched The Cat Returns which was more straightforward, we both enjoyed that one.  Apparently it is a spin-off from Whisper of the Heart which we haven't watched yet. It's quite interesting to see animated versions of Japanese neighbourhoods, or alternately a Japanese vision of what western cities/houses look like.