Is it summer yet?

After a spell of chilly wet windy weather, it's finally warmed up this weekend. We've decided to risk excavating the shed and have put out the garden furniture, bird baths etc. and have taken the cover off the fountain.  One would hope there are no more frosts coming.  I've also planted up the hanging manger/basket with some of the plants I got at the sale last week and a geranium that survived from last year's basket.  The garden is positively rampant, including the weeds which I yank out whenever I notice them.  The roses are all budding as are the clematis and we've got tiny pears and cherries growing on the respective trees.

I finished the machine knit tam that I blogged about last week.  I have a big head so while the band of this fits me, the brim is too shallow to sit comfortably.  If I make it again then I will add another 12 stitches or so to the brim section. I think the whirl effect from the variegated sock yarn is kind of cool.  It's blocked over a dinner plate.

Total fail by UHU customer services whom I emailed last Friday with my concerns about the oddly packaged glue I bought on Amazon.  Despite their web contact form promising a 48 hour turnaround, and chasing them up directly by email on Thursday, I've had no response whatsoever.  So I did some searching in Google Images yesterday and eventually tracked down my product on the Portuguese UHU page.  The packaging matches so I guess it is legit.  No idea why it is so much cheaper than the UK version.  So I started using it last night on my Japanese dollshouse roof and it seems to be the real deal.  I'm just about to the point where I will need to start cutting tile strips to fit into all the diagonal roof valleys which should be fun (not).

While I was futilely waiting to hear from UHU, I finished up the stair cupboard that I started some time ago.  I had a lot of trouble with the assembly of this one, but once it was together I 'aged' it with some acrylic paints to look more like the ones we saw in Japan, then applied three coats of varnish for a nice sheen.

This is the cupboard in situ.  You can't see in this picture but you may remember I had installed a fake loft hatch in the ceiling in that corner to provide a destination for the stairs to go to.

I've sewed eleven little 3.5 inch pinwheel blocks for the 30s sampler quilt - I'm on the smaller end of the decreasing block size instructions so I think next are some 3.5 inch bird in the air blocks and 3.5 inch bowtie blocks.

I eventually realised that I was not crocheting an afghan, I was actually crocheting a giant bowl shaped object.  I googled online about wonky granny squares and apparently this is quite a common problem caused mostly by tension issues, whereby the circumference of each row is greater than it should be, resulting in more and more fullness around the sides as the bowl-effect increases.

So I ripped out several rows back to where it was lying relatively flat, and now I am re-doing the rows but leaving out the Ch1 between clusters of trebles to eliminate some of the extra width.  I'll try that for a few rows and see how it is looking.  Another solution suggested online is to crochet each row with alternate sides of the afghan facing, to combat the natural tendency to 'cup'.

I've done some more work on the Floral Bucks Sample of bobbin lace, although it's a bit discouraging because I don't really know what I'm doing.  I went to a Lace Day yesterday so,as a change of pace, I wound bobbins to start a Torchon Fan Bracelet.  I wanted to use my travel lace pillow, which still has my ongoing Bucks Point edging on its roller.  So on my day off, I made a second roller pillow using the same method of pool noodle + felt + cover.  I didn't have any more of the high quality wool felt so this roller isn't quite as firm but it's still perfectly useable and it came out the right size to fit in the travel pillow.  So I could just lift out the Bucks Point edging project and wrap it in a towel, and slot in the second roller to make a start on the bracelet.  It's in blue thread and has beads added to it for decoration, quite a change of pace after all the delicate white Bucks.

I think I may have to get a new sewing machine.  Although mine has been sewing better since it had its double service, it still isn't great.  When piecing quilt blocks, it is still stuffing fabric down the needleplate occasionally and getting hung up at seam junctions, neither of which it used to do.  And last weekend I cut out the same t-shirt pattern I used before from the Liberty-style jersey that I bought in Tokyo.  The neckline and hems are finished with a twin-needle stitch which usually goes fine.  This time the machine did not want to play at all on the neckline, it was skipping stitches terribly no matter what I tried. I kept ripping out and trying again, and in the end I had to fake-stitch one line of the twin-needling with a normal needle (which of course came out wobbly and doesn't look great).  I gave up and left it overnight and the next day it behaved better on the sleeve and body hems.  So annoying.  Other than that, the t-shirt is fine and I've worn it to work already. The jersey isn't quite as soft and drapey as the first shirt I made but I love the print.

I'm thinking of getting another Janome, possibly the Horizon 8200QCP which is on sale nationally at the moment.  It has an 11-inch arm space.  I've tried Brother and Husqvarna in the past and haven't like them and I can't afford a Bernina.  I know Juki is popular in America but I'm not familiar with them.  My frame quilting machine is a straight stitch Pfaff which seems well built but I'm not familiar with their models for quilting, and there seem to be several online complaints about long-term reliability of computer-parts. There's a lace fair next weekend that will have a couple of dealers demonstrating models so I'll see what they have.

I've made a start on a new shawl using some West Yorkshire Spinners Signature 4-ply wool/acrylic blend and the pattern Misty Meadows from their Floral Collection.  The instructions seemed so odd that I looked it up on Ravelry to find several people complaining about how badly written they are.  I also found some errata on the WYS site.  So we'll see how it goes.  It looks nice in the picture, a mixture of textured stitch patterns including moss stitch, lace, cables etc.