Silver lining

I had my surgery on Tuesday and the silver lining is that I had the rest of the week off so I've got more done craftwise than normal this week.  Actually it's been alright, I really haven't been that sore considering I had two holes cut in my face, so I have been able to proceed almost as normal apart from not wanting to go out in the bitter cold which is gripping the UK.   Just a bit uncomfortable from the dressings taped tightly to my face and I can't sleep on my right side where he cut the patch from.

On the day, DH and I were at the hospital for seven hours as the surgeon was alternating between four of us throughout the day. The tumour on my nose was removed in two sessions, leaving a hole the size of a two-pence piece (or a quarter if you're American), then in the afternoon he cut a matching piece from in front of my ear to patch the nose with.  A bit like quilting I suppose.  All rather unpleasant but not actually painful apart from the initial injections each time to numb me up.  In between we were stashed in a small recovery room with our loved ones around us, which enforced sociability as there were four of us, four loved ones and a couple of spares.  I could have done with more peace and quiet at times but at least it took my mind off things.  I'm glad it's over.  I took my lace fingerless mittens and knit all the way to the end of the first one during the day so I've cast on for the second one now.

So the rest of this week of 'extra time', I tried to tackle some things crafty and otherwise that I've been putting off.  One of these long-queued projects was to make my own version of a bobbin storage bag I've been looking at for a year or more at lace shows.  I don't know the trading name of the ladies who sew all the different accessories but their bobbin bag at £48 cleverly holds 96 pairs of bobbins on a couple of removable 'pages' held into the bag with velcro.  I of course have been looking at it thinking 'I could make that' but never actually getting around to it.

So last week I trawled the internet looking for a suitable pattern so I didn't have to completely re-invent the wheel and was delighted to find the 'By Annie' pattern called 'A Place for Everything' which is very similar to what I wanted to recreate only bigger as it is intended to hold sewing supplies.  I also found a few bloggers who had sewed the bag and learned from them that this is also a class on Craftsy (now Bluprint) called Sew Sturdy Travel Organisers.  One of the bloggers also said that it was better to take the class as the standalone pattern doesn't have many diagrams.  Bluprint pimped me a 7-day free trial so I signed up and watched the class.  The class was quite good apart from bizarrely she several times used her rotary cutter to cut things like zipper teeth and foamboard which made me cringe. She must go through a lot of blades.

Then I got out a few lace bobbins and a small bag I already owned and calculated what size I wanted my version of the new bag to be.  Unlike the original pattern which nests the two pages on top of each other, I wanted my two pages to go side by side like my inspiration bag.  I also decided to move the handles to the other side of the bag like one of the bloggers suggested.  I ordered the Annie supplies of soft mesh and a handbag zipper off Amazon and got to work quilting the fabric I would be cutting the pieces out of. They are stabilised with Bosal foam.  It was a nice project to work on the night before my surgery to take my mind off things, and then I sewed on it the couple of days after my surgery and finished it up.

So here's my finished bobbin bag, I'm fairly pleased with how it's turned out.  I went with elastic to hold the bobbins instead of little pockets like the inspiration bag because I want the bobbins to stay put and I want to be able to see more of them than just their spangles.  It's a bit more fiddly to insert the bobbins but then they stay put until needed.  I slightly miscalculated how wide an elastic slot I needed for each pair (I was thinking a half-inch but it actually needed three-quarters of an inch) so my bag only holds 88 pairs but it's still pretty good and will be great for taking wound pairs to classes or to a lace day.  The fabric matches the tool bag I sewed a little while ago but I went with a different contrast fabric.

Another long-queued project was to make covers for a wooden ironing ham that my f-i-l made for me a few years ago.  This ham is modeled on the June Tailor board which is designed to make pressing a variety of curves and points easier..  It was quite tricky to make the covers due to the three-dimensional requirements.  I draped the pattern in cotton fabric first to make a pattern then had to adjust a lot when I cut it out in calico and Insulbright heat resistant wadding. The main cover is secured with elastic. Hopefully I'll actually use this ham now, I've been nervous about using it since the wood made a permanent brown mark on a sweater seam I pressed on it a few years back.

In knitting I have cast on for the second Winterland mitten, knit the corrugated cuff and started the new fair isle chart which is different from the first mitten.  I was surprised to find both on this project (five years old) and casting on for the new set of Sanquhar gloves (eight years old) that my tension seems to have considerably tightened up with time.  When I knit the cuff for the first Winterland mitten I did the corrugated ribbing on a 2.25 wooden needle but when I re-used those to knit the second cuff, it came out significantly smaller.  I had to go up to a 2.75 needle and the cuff is still slightly smaller.  As for the Sanquhar gloves which were originally knit on a 1.5mm steel needle, the new cuff came out tiny.  I've had to scale up to a pair of 2mm Zing double points and it's still slightly smaller but I think that's ok as the first set of gloves were a tad too big on me.  Although annoying that I have already purchased the spare 1.5mm needles for the Japan trip and now won't be using them, it's also better because I have 2mm wooden needles to take through airport security onto the plane.  So I knit a half-inch of Sanquhar corrugated ribbing ready for the trip and just need to make a safety copy of the knitting pattern and I'm good to go.  And I'm trudging on with the Leaf yoke sweater, I pulled out the sleeve because I had mucked up the decreases, and have reknit down to the straight part of the sleeve.  I may actually finish that project this year but I don't feel very enthusiastic about wearing it. I haven't enjoyed the knit, the Drops pattern is really hard to read, and the yarn has proved a bit scratchy.

I've done a fair bit of work on the Japanese dollshouse this week.  I made two sets of chairs to go with the tables: one wooden pair and one upholstered pair.

And I've hinged the two final porches onto the house.  This went alright part from one is slightly higher than the other, and one wants to swing open all the time.

At the moment I'm building the kit for a traditional stepped Japanese storage chest but I haven't taken a picture because it doesn't look like anything yet.

The final huge job on this house is to build the roof which is really big as it overhangs the whole footprint of the house and is fairly tall.  I've been reading ahead on the final 30 chapters which are almost all about building the roof.  It looks incredibly complicated, more complicated than the house from the looks of things.  At least 10 of the chapters seem to be just endless shingling.  I've unpacked the pieces from chapters 91 and 92 which are the start of the left side of the roof armature. The blogger in Italy had problems with things not fitting together so I think I am going to do a dry fit with masking tape before I glue anything but I don't want to open too many chapters at once in case I get confused (or lose bits).

I've been pushing on with the Bucks point hexagon and am working the final triangle, joining to the start as I come to each starting pin.  I basically have no idea what I'm doing.  Joining lace seems to be this great mystery which is almost invisible online.  I can't find any videos of someone joining Bucks Point although I found a few where someone was joining Russian lace.  The books don't say much about joining and finishing lace, usually something like 'now sew your pairs into your starting pins, tie reef knots and weave in the ends'.  Which is the lacemaking equivalent of 'Quilt as desired' at the end of a quilting pattern.  Some references say to push all the pins down so they are out of the way, but if I do that then my pin heads are so close together that I can't see anything.  So each join is taking me about 10 minutes under high magnification as I fight to get the crochet hook through the right loop amidst a forest of pins, and I don't think I'm doing the actual joining very well either.  I have a good German/English book called 'The beginning of the end' which is great for how to hide the ends but says nothing at all about how to physically arrange the pillow to do the joining or actually manage the sewing in afterwords. It's frustrating.


My doll clothes reached their new owner and actually fit onto the doll, and I received a charming photo of the end result. Doesn't she look happy? It's nice to knit something and get such a lovely reaction. Some adults could learn from this example...

After sewing the bag and the ironing board covers, I didn't have much energy for quilting this week but I did eventually cut out the pieces for the next six-inch block.  Just need to sew it together.

As I said, it's been very cold lately and we even had a dusting of the white stuff - but luckily not the inches which have paralysed parts of Britain.

I stayed warm inside bundled up in woollies (we have an old house which does not reach a consistent temperature) and spending the rest of my time watching craft videos on Bluprint until my free trial ran out.  I printed off several more bag patterns for possible future projects, watched some quilting videos on improving my cutting and piecing, and even a beginner's machine knitting video which made me feel like I should get back to my own machines one day.  I watched most of them on double speed even though the Bluprint model seems a lot more watchable than the old Craftsy format which I didn't like at all because it was so mannered and slow paced.

Stay warm and keep on crafting!