Wildlife garden

We're in a busy area of town so our garden normally only attracts urban birds such as sparrows, blackbirds, pigeons, blue tits, collared doves and pigeons.  DH called me excitedly this morning to come and see an unusual arrival.

It's a sparrowhawk, clutching the sparrow it has just caught.  According to DH's bird book, these are usually only found in rural areas and seldom venture into town.  DH's first clue was when every bird in the garden suddenly took wing and flew off in a hurry.  Well, obviously not this poor little guy who wasn't fast enough.  The hawk took its time to devour its meal over about 30 minutes before flying off.  Hope this hasn't grossed anyone out!

This week I finished the Christmas yarn socks.  They're just plain vanilla socks.  I usually knit socks in fingering weight so these DK socks seemed to go really quickly.  They fit well. 

I'm getting on much better with the Winterland Mittens now that I've shifted down to a 2mm metal needle.  I'm still struggling with the really long floats and at the moment there are some pretty wonky stitches.  But I plan to tighten those up when I deal with the floats at the end.  It's definitely a huge improvement from the mitten I unravelled.

Now that the Christmas socks are done, I needed a new commuting project.  I rooted around in the knitting room and found two balls of pink Excelana DK by Susan Crawford, which feels like a really nice yarn.  After a protracted trawl through my collection of tear-out patterns, I've chosen a pair of lacy fingerless long gloves.  I had to chart out the lace pattern because it was written out row by row, which I hate because I always get lost.  But the pattern wasn't too hard to chart as it's pretty simple.  I had one false start on the knitting where I felt the needle size was too big so I shifted down to a 3mm and now it is looking pretty good.

I'm still working on the fourth porch of the Japanese dollshouse and am currently attaching the balcony structure.  I've made one block for my 30s Sampler Quilt this week:  a 6-inch Card Trick block.  I tried really hard to be accurate on this one and it has come out better although as you can see still a bit wonky on the lower left  - I might unpick and redo that lower left block.  It's at least square but is slightly undersize.

I was watching this video on making placemats while I was doing some bobbin lace and decided to have a go as it looked so easy.  I was however sceptical at her use of unwashed fabric and Hobb's Heirloom 80/20 because I know that combination shrinks up.  I made a prototype using some unwashed furnishing fabric and Hobbs wadding and ran it through the washing machine to see what happens.  It indeed came out very wrinkly and determined steam pressing could only get it this flat:

I might try preshrinking the batting and fabric first and then try again to see if it makes a better result.  Because the placemat is a nice size and feels like it would really protect the table, and I've got lots of Hobbs wadding scraps left over from previous projects as well as quite a bit of furnishing fabric scraps.

Have you had a crafty week?