Another week

Can't think of a headline today :)  It feels like a week where we were putting things back to where they should be.  I went out in the garden for a few hours yesterday morning before it got hot, and hacked back armful after armful of rampant growth and spent flowers, not to mention pulling up loads of weeds. It had all become very out of control after all the rain.

And we draped the study in plastic drop cloths and had a go at the ceiling.  A couple of coats of damp barrier paint hid the stain then we experimented with hiding the damp barrier paint with spot coats of emulsion.  Three coats later and it seems to have worked, so we don't have to paint the whole ceiling - whew!

I've also re-stuck down the ensuite vinyl floor that we had to pull up for the leak, and sealed around the edge with silicone.  It doesn't look as good as it used to but it's acceptable. So the only thing still remaining from the leak which needs remedying is the wallpaper that fell down above the bookshelves.  The wall still hasn't dried out fully so we will wait to do that.

I tried a free machine knit mitten pattern after finding it mentioned on Facebook.  I worked a sample just in 4-ply acrylic yarn to see how the pattern worked.  It's made from an outer mitten (the stripes) and an inner liner mitten worked on a tighter tension so it's a bit smaller.  You push the liner into the outer mitten and end up with two layers which I think would be quite warm in wool. The one I saw on Facebook had been worked in a fair isle pattern in sock yarn and looked really nice.  It's not exactly quick to knit as you have to do the manual increases by lifting 12 stitches across by one, many times.

I've now knit all the components for the four toy animals kit that I started last week, and I've started assembling them.  They are tricky to sew up attractively as they are so small and the directions are pretty skimpy.

I haven't done anything on the Japanese dollshouse this week but I did find an odd little thimble at an antiques fair we went to at Lamport Hall today.  It's got a tiny bell inside the pavilion and I thought it might work in my Japanese garden.  The bottom part isn't exactly Japanese but I can disguise the base.

I've done a fair bit of work on the One Block Wonder hexagon quilt this week, trying to get some borders on it.  I started out by measuring the centre and consulting a chart of bed sizes to see what size quilt I might make, but I soon found that wider borders just didn't look right.  I'm adding about a 12-inch border but will probably cut it down after quilting.  Adding the borders is quite tricky as the centre has to be appliqued onto the borders yet at the same time the 'ocean' horizon in the border has to stay in line with the horizon of the printed panel, the horizontal clouds had to stay parallel to the hexagons, there are no straight lines around the hexagon centre, and I want the transition to the beach fabric to be fairly blurred without a hard stop.  I've been doing a combination of applique and basting as I go along, and have got as far as seaming the top and bottom on, and then adding the two side pieces which are so far only seamed at the top.  I need to spread it out flat on the floor before I pin the hexagons to the side panels to a) try to keep it all flat and b) try to end up with a squarish quilt instead of a polygon. I had to do some invisible joins to get the top and bottom pieces wide enough.

This shows the top and bottom strips to which

I've appliqued the panel, but the top border needs trimming down.

This shows it on the bed, with side pieces roughly pinned in place. It's wider than it needs to be and not quite as long as it should be for this 60"x80" queen size mattress, but it looks better than I thought it would

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