job (in)security

I've been pretty happy in my new career since graduating from the initial tough training regime to working on a customer team 2.5 years ago.  That's something of a record for me, and it's mainly down to a) a very easygoing pleasant male manager and b) I've become accustomed to my colleague's little quirks and they to mine.  However, as seems inevitable in the modern working world. the organisation has decided to change everything in yet another attempt to increase efficiency. Somehow these reorganisations are always billed as the best thing since sliced bread and yet somehow things never seem to be any obviously better.

So sometime this autumn, my team (and all the teams in the office) will be broken up and recombined into larger teams.  There are no redundancies thankfully, but my manager has already jumped ship and is moving to a different job in the building, so I will definitely be getting a new manager and new colleagues.  There are a limited number of managers and I would say at least 50% of them are terrible, so the odds are not looking good.  I feel very sad because life was ticking along pleasantly and now it looks like it will get stressful again. I hate this kind of mandated change and it always takes me several months to settle down and become accustomed to my new circumstances. I joked to DH that if I really hate it, I could always retire early and live off of him.  He looked scared.

I've decided to sign up for the next level of Japanese after all.  I realised this summer that after the first few weeks of relief after my course finished, I was kind of missing it. I think somehow studying Japanese has become another hobby for me.  Not one I am every going to be any good at, but nonetheless one that is sort of enjoyable (when it isn't incredibly frustrating).  The new level starts in October and runs through until March but only once a week which hopefully will be easier.

Matching the theme of change, the knitting shop in Leicester, Knit One, is closing down its bricks and mortar shop to move online.  They've been running a 20% sale for some weeks and I managed to stay strong, but this week it has dropped to 40% off and my resolve crumbled.  A lunchtime visit ensued.

Even at 40% off, Rowan Felted Tweed is too expensive to knit a sweater out of, but I got two balls to knit a hat.  Two more cakes of the Stylecraft Batik Swirls because I enjoyed knitting my shawl a while ago out of that, and a ball of bamboo sock yarn.  Some Zing double points, and a bunch of bag hardware for sewing bags.

This week I turned the little cross stitch kit I finished last week into a needlecase, inspired by one I found online and using some sunflower fabric I happened to have.  I'm fairly pleased with it, it's cute.  I added some ribbon and buttons, and a tatted butterfly from my stash.

The Japanese dollshouse roof of doom is finished at long last.  Before I painted it, I turned it upside down to inspect what's been happening to the eaves after all the aggressive clamping I had to do.  I had one crack that's not too obvious and some loose rafters which I re-glued, and a few marks to erase. So not too bad.  Righting the roof, I went over it to scrub off glue strings and remove obvious lumps.  A number of the smears had dried surprisingly hard so they have stayed on as added texture.  To paint it, I bought some artist's acrylic from Hobbycraft which I thought would have more chance of staying on the resin tiles.  The painting took forever with so many nooks and crannies, but it really does look so much better now it's all one colour.  I remembered to paint the little roof of the front porch as well so it will match.  The main roof is certainly far from perfect (thanks to the warped tiles and the difficulties in clamping them particularly) but considering how much trouble it gave me to build, I think the end result is reasonably good and certainly gives a very good effect to the dollshouse, something special and unusual. Every time I look at it from a different angle, I keep finding more little nooks that need touching up but I'm just about there now.  I was thinking of weathering it or adding some moss, but some online research shows that a lot of Japanese tiled roofs look surprisingly pristine. Or they weather uniformly to a lighter grey.  Only a few older ones seem to get mossy and then the moss grows along each tile in a defined pattern hard to replicate in miniature.  So I don't think a few splodges of green flock here and there is going to look realistic. And I don't really want to wash all the tiles with silvery grey, I rather like the satin black look. 

I tidied up all the mess from seven months of roof construction and put the roof on the house.  I'd almost forgotten there was an inside to the house, it was fun to open the rooms up for the first time in months.  The whole thing needs a really good dust though.

 Now I've started to sweep up the last handful of kits.  I have six hanging lanterns to make, two chairs, 6 or 8 arm rests. 3 or 6 light fixtures, a sign for the ryokan and a television set left to make.  Once those are all done, I can start looking at the landscaping outside.  Then eventually I need to start accessorising and finishing the inside rooms (my least favourite part.  I know, I'm weird, most people prefer the interior design part).  The kit instruction books each have a prologue featuring Japanese cultural items and artwork, plus I have my own reference photos from our trip.


In quilting, I've sewn together the hexagon 'frame' to go around the panel, to see how it looks.  I am turning under 1/4 inch seam allowances on the hexies that will overlap onto the panel, and securing them with Roxanne's basting glue. Eventually these will be appliqued to the panel.  The frame seems to have worked out ok and fits the panel satisfactorily.  Now to sew the rest of the vertical rows together then I can start thinking about border fabrics.  Of course, I've started thinking about the next project and have pulled out a collection of red, white and blue London fabrics from my stash. I had fun looking through my collection of magazine tearout patterns and books, but I think I might use the Tumbler template that I bought from Missouri Star some time ago.

Facebook pimped me the Bluprint/Craftsy sale at a vulnerable time, when I had just found out I will receive a modest corporate bonus award this month.  I bought two layer cakes, and a quilt kit solely because it was the cheapest way to get two packs of fat quarters.  Must buy all the pretties bwah ha ha.