An escape of water

So this happened:

The insurance company tells me it is classed as an 'escape of water'.  Basically the fresh water feed into the toilet cistern started a leak, probably some days ago.  We didn't know anything about it until we started noticing a strong damp smell in the study which is the room below and one room over from the ensuite.  It took a couple of days of going 'what is that smell?' before DH finally thought to look upwards and saw the big damp mark on the ceiling of the study. Then we discovered the wallpaper on the outer wall was soaked through and falling off. At first we thought it must be a leak in the waste water pipe from the ensuite shower and sink, that runs along the line of the damp mark. It was only yesterday that I discovered the leak from the water pipe and only because I heard a very faint hissing noise like a baby snake.  The ensuite floor was soaked so I had to pull up my 'new' lino floor to let the boards dry out.  The study ceiling is showing damp marks in several places so it appears the water was running into the wall along the water feed pipe, and then presumably falling onto the aforementioned waste pipe and running along that across the study ceiling.  Very fortunately the leak was above the stopcock valve so we've been able to shut off the water flow. So DH has had to move out all his books from the affected bookcase and we've got fans running trying to dry everything out.  DH wants to rip out the bookcase to let things dry but it's all built in with mouldings and would wreck the whole unit so I'm hoping we don't have to do that. The mouldings in the ensuite are all swollen and cracked away from the wall as well. The plumber is coming tomorrow morning. It could have been a lot worse, at least the leak is easy to fix and the ceiling hasn't actually fallen in.  It's good drying weather at least, being a nice warm weekend.

Also this week I have sanded down some peeling paint on our garden gate and on a few windows at the back of the house, and repainted them. I've got to do one more coat on the windows, it's just the bottom part where I guess they get hit the most by weather. I was on a DIY roll so I also took apart the cross-stitch frame I bought last weekend. The reason the embroidery looked so loose was because it was just stuck down with doublesided tape rather than being sewn on. I was able to peel it off but didn't have any luck separating the matboard from the foamboard spacers that were creating the ugly shadow gap around the embroidery. Instead I was able to cut down the board supporting the embroidery so it dropped into the foamboard 'valley' because luckily the matboard went further into the middle of the frame.  Then I could sew the embroidery onto the board, padding it with white felt to better disguise the thread ends and stretching it properly.  Then put it all back together.  It looks a lot better now and I've hung it in the bedroom.

I finished the first applique block for the 30s Sampler Quilt.

And I've started the second applique block.

I've started the lengthy process of sewing all the different sized blocks together.  The instructions have you do it in stages and there will be a lot of partial seaming involved I think. It's fun to look at all the pretty colours and fabrics again close up.

Last weekend I felt like doing something different so tried out the Kismet Trinket Box which is a PDF pattern from Sew Sweetness. I changed the size slightly to make it big enough to hold the spare roller for my travelling lace pillow, and therefore made it in the same outer fabric to match the pillow.  This is one of those projects where you read through the instructions and think 'yup, that's simple enough' and then it turns out to be a nightmare to achieve.  The worst bit was trying to get the zipper sewn onto the lid smoothly between the layers of outer fabric/stabiliser/lining fabric.  The zip tape just did not want to bend smoothly around the curves, and insisted on pleating at the corners and getting caught by the lining stitching (when you can't see the zip tape because it's hidden inside the layers). I ended up unpicking the corners several times and the end result is still not great but it's functional and does what I wanted.  Hopefully having made one, I could do a better job if I made it again.

I've progressed a few more steps on the Misty Meadows Shawl and am currently on the double moss stitch section. Still not loving this yarn, I'm hoping it will soften and bloom once washed.

I have forced myself to keep going on the roof of doom for the Japanese dollshouse, by breaking it down to achievable 'I'll just do this for an hour' steps then rewarding myself by escaping to something nicer. The front and back curved sections are all shingled now and I'm just working on filling in the rear roof gables so that I can add the wooden decorations to those.

improvised weighting to hold the warped shingle strips down while the glue dries

(By the way Peggy, if you read this, I tried to send you some photos of the prototype using the email address on your bento blog, but I don't know if you received them?)

The garden is looking very lush, almost unkempt, having greatly enjoyed the spell of rain we had last week. The roses are starting to come out on the arch and pergola, and it felt very private inside the pergola when we were sitting out there yesterday.

It's hard to remember that it looked like this two years ago: