It's a bit windy out

Storm Freya has come to visit.  We've just been for a walk (building up our stamina for our holiday and breaking in our new walking boots) and the gusts are pretty strong, with regular showers of rain being blown into our faces.  But still unseasonably warm.  I've got several daffodils blooming in the garden now except they are all lying flat at the moment, battered down by the wind and rain. Hopefully they will recover next week.

Here's a picture of the bowl of cherries cross-stitch notepad project I blogged about last weekend. Very Cath Kidston.

I've started work on another quick cross stitch project from a magazine, bought from the same secondhand table.  This one is a Victorian-style small pincushion.

Sewing time this week has been mainly altering clothing that I might take to Japan.  I narrowed and hemmed the legs of some drawstring trousers that I might wear on the plane, made a pig's ear of hemming a pair of work-type trousers because my overlocker blade is getting dull, and straightened out the hem of a t-shirt because the shirt-tail type of dipped hem doesn't suit my pear shape.  But I did do a bit of quilting, cutting out another block for the 30s Sampler Quilt and sewing it together today.

I've finally finished the Winter Wonderland fingerless mitts.  I dealt with the long floats in the end by crocheting them upwards the way machine knitters do, and tying the final loop in with some spare yarn which I then wove in the ends of.  In this picture they are still drying from being wet blocked, so hopefully the stitches will plump out a bit more evenly as it dries.  For some reason the mitt with the church on it came out slightly smaller so I tugged it out a bit while it was wet. It feels good to complete this long-standing UFO at last.

I have persevered with the roof of doom from the Japanese Dollshouse and got the rest of the under-eave covering glued on and trimmed.  Then you glue on some large beams which appear to support the corners of the roof.  I had to trim all of mine to individual length which took some time.  Now you can start to see the effect of the roof combined with the house.

I took the advice of the previous bloggers and skipped ahead to the part where you glue on the under-eave roof struts.  Again, each one has to be cut individually to length, the tip painted white, then glued in position.  I had all the ones for this back edge cut and painted, and laid in place waiting to be glued.  The cat came in and wanted to be petted, which resulted in cat hair sticking to my gluey fingers and thus to the roof.  Without thinking I blew to get the cat hairs off, sending several of my loose sticks cartwheeling. Sigh.  I got the back edge glued in place then stopped for a picture as it's a pretty tedious job.  But it looks effective and the struts conceal the seams in the eaves covering.