Catching up

I'm a day late in posting because I was just too tired last night after a long day of setting up the house for the 'party', hosting and catering, then putting everything back where it belongs afterwards. Although I expect it will be weeks before everything we squirrelled away in the big tidy up gets found and makes its way back to its usual position.  The event went fine, after a concerning start where nobody showed up until 20 minutes after the time they'd been invited.  They trickled in gradually and eventually we had nine people who still managed to eat most of the food we'd laid in for the potential 25 guests which was fine. After a rainy couple of days, it was dry enough to sit in the garden so that's where everyone ended up.  The garden and house were much admired which was nice. There were some proposals that it should become an annual summer event - not sure about that.

(above and below) DH's models set up in the dining room as a display for his modelling friends

DH says I have to tell you this is the 44th East Essex Regiment (with some 95th Riflemen)

In between cleaning, de-cluttering and shopping for all of that, I did do some crafts.  I forgot to blog last week that a major milestone on the roof of doom on the Japanese dollshouse had been reached, with the completion of the main tiling at long last.  This week I have moved on to the decorative elements which will hide all the various seams and cracks. These are built up from glued on wooden strips with plastic trim, then everything gets painted black afterwards.

I also forgot to blog the final post-blocking photos of my red and white Sanquhar gloves which turned out really nicely. I felted them just a little bit when I washed them, and the fit now is quite good and the stitches have evened out nicely. I'm pleased with them although I don't think I'll be wearing them for a few months!  It's supposed to be 31 degrees C tomorrow.

I spent several hours in the week rehabilitating the embroidered fire screen that I pictured last week.  I took it all apart, cleaned it, wiped it over with dark oak stain to touch up the scratches and worn bits, glued the broken bits, cleaned the glass, and washed the embroidery (which turned the water brown multiple times). Then I had to press and stretch out the embroidery carefully and stitch on some toning fabric to hide the worst of the stained portion at the bottom. Then it was re-assembling it all, this time with a bit of calico behind the embroidery so that it isn't directly on top of the plywood (which I think is where a lot of the staining came from).  It looks pretty good, not perfect but a lot better than it did. Hopefully the original stitcher would be pleased.

Otherwise I've been working on ongoing projects:

The crochet granny square blanket is getting bigger but starting to flutter a bit around the outer edges again.

I've reached the halfway point on the Misty Meadows shawl so the next half is just the reverse image.  It looks a lot more stripy in this photo than it seems in real life.

I'm about halfway along the first edge of knitting the sawtooth border onto the Victorian Lace Shawl. Obviously this won't look like much until it's blocked at the finish.

I've had several goes at the hexagon mountain of the One Block Wonder  quilt. I think I started without about 20 plates each with five hexagons, and I'm about halfway through now.  There is a growing pile of hexagon halves joined to each other by thread which is waiting to be pressed.

This is my new sewing machine, which is behaving well. I'm still not completely happy with how it is set into the sewing table, I may have to have a re-think about that. The little seam roller gadget came with Today's Quilter Magazine as a free gift and it's perfect for finger-pressing the first seam of the hexagon half before I add the third piece.