Feeling a bit like christmas

We're halfway through our weekend cleaning blitz and things are starting to look pretty good.  Tomorrow we will evict DS from his room and sterilise that to turn it into a guest bedroom, and put the final polish on the dining room, bathroom and kitchen.  It's a bit like spring cleaning, having guests is the impetus to finally tackle things we've been ignoring or not had time to deal with, like de-scaling the kettle and mopping the basement floor..

It's a good thing I had my stitches out last week because at the beginning of this week I came down with another cold.  I wouldn't have been able to blow my nose last week and probably would have suffocated.  I soldiered on until Wednesday when I had to stay home from work and just sleep all day.  Thursday was my day off and by Friday I had improved enough to go in for my last day of work before Christmas. Turns out several other people on my team are sick with a cold as well so I guess it's doing the rounds.  Now DS and DH are both claiming I've infected them. I hope not, I don't want them to be ill over Christmas.

Before I got sick, I finished the touch up staining on the Japanese dollshouse 2nd floor porch.  It's not hinged yet but looks good sitting in place.  It doesn't have its little roofs yet, they're in a later chapter. I've opened a few more chapters which are basically a repeat to build the left hand porch.  It's a bit tedious to contemplate doing it all again for a fourth time but that will be the final porch before moving on to the roof. Something to tackle over the Christmas holiday.

I did a lot of knitting while I was sick because I could do that without having to move, so I managed to finish the edging on my ten-stitch triangle shawl.  Once I felt better, I wet blocked it.  I was amazed at how much it relaxed and stretched out - it's huge now.  Considering it's knit from about 16 or so little skeins of variegated sock yarn, I think it looks pretty good.  I'm glad I knit the solid colour edging which helps tie it all together.  I finished it with a little 3-stitch i-cord along the top edge. It feels appropriate that I've finished this just before Christmas because all the little sock skeins came out of last year Opal sock yarn Advent Calendar.

Once I finished that, I needed a new project so tottered upstairs to grab the kit I bought a while back to knit the Shawl of Secrets in Scheepjes Secret Garden yarn.  This is an unusual yarn which reminds me of Noro Silk Garden but without the scratchiness.  It's 20% silk, 20% cotton, and 60% polyester and each skein is a different variegated colourway.  The shawl pattern is a simple triangle alternating stocking stitch and garter stripes, letting the yarn be the star.  I'm enjoying the knit.

I hadn't been down in the sewing room all week and I've come to realise that I don't really like going in there any more.  I was trying to analyse why.  It can be quite cold in there, and it feels dark since the window blind is really hard to open as the cord is too short for me to reach easily with the sewing table in the way.  It's also extremely cluttered and not very clean because it's a very long time since I had a proper sort out and put things away properly. I feel cut off when I'm down there as I can't hear the door bell, and the phone is so far away that I have to run like a maniac to answer in time. And I don't have a TV any more like I used to have in the old house before they got rid of the analogue signal.  I've turned up the radiator in there to warm it up and I've ordered a longer replacement blind cord.  Hopefully some time over the holiday I can do some tidying up. 

Anyway, I made myself go in and tackle another block in the 30s sampler quilt series.  This is a small block (9inches finished) with a lot of pieces.  I am not the world's most accurate sewer, and even though I was trying to be careful, the cumulative error over so many seams has resulted in a rather wonky block which is both bigger and smaller than it is supposed to be depending on where you measure.    I'm leaving it for now, if I really can't get it to fit into the finished top then I might need to try again.  I think I should probably check my seam allowance for accuracy but it's probably errors in cutting as well.

I got my biopsy results a few days ago and unfortunately I am going to have to have surgery on my nose to remove a superficial tumour.  That will probably be sometime later in January.  I'll be off work for about a week, I'll have to have some good craft projects lined up to occupy myself.

I've started a last minute Christmas make, which is decorating a couple of polystyrene balls with fabric, ribbon and beads along the lines of some that I saw featured on Kirsty's Handmade Christmas last year.  I made notes at the time and bought a couple of plain balls at Hobbycraft.  So far I've glued on the fabric and some ribbon and braid, but I will be adding more embellishments and hanging loops.

I hope you are all ready for Christmas and are looking forward to a happy holiday!