So it's not such a great idea to dust your dollshouses with a hoover/vacuum cleaner

Over the holidays I am trying to tackle some bigger jobs, one of which is a good spring/winter clean up of my dollshouse room.  I was using the hoover (vacuum cleaner) to dust the outsides of the houses, and also turning it down to half suction to clean some of the bigger floor areas inside in conjunction with a soft brush to wipe dust. It was all going fine as I worked along the row of houses, until I got to my Japanese house.  I was hoovering one of the tatami mat rooms when suddenly something whisked off the alcove and into the hoover before I could even blink, before I could even see what it was.

So I turned off the hoover and opened it up, it has a paper dust bag which turned out to be full.  So I cut open the paper bag and had to root around in the bucket of dust, cat litter, threads and god knows what else.  I didn't even know what I was looking for. I eventually found a very sorry little paper and wood japanese lantern near the back of the bag, which has lost its carrying handle.  I cleaned up the mess and, much chagrined, returned to work being hugely more careful.

Being stupid enough to try again, I promptly hoovered up a tiny little armrest.  At least this time I had put a new dust bag in the hoover so it was easy to find the armrest - now in two pieces.  Having learned my lesson, twice, I cleaned the rest of the house only using the brush.  It was when I was reaching past the house to unplug the hoover from the wall socket that I managed to snag the outdoor balcony of the Japanese house and yank part of the railing loose.  Sigh. Much repairing ensued.

One of my older houses turned out to be a bit mouldy - I hope it's a one off.  It is a house that spent 18 months of the build facing what is probably the dampest wall of the room.  At first I thought it was glue that had turned brown, but it turned out there was a film of dust all over the bathroom floor (which is made from a vinyl placemat), and the mold was growing in the dust.   I experimented and was able to wipe up the dust and mold from the bathroom floor using a makeup sponge. I've washed the round carpet but the stains wouldn't come out completely. Oddly in the next door room, the bedroom looks fine but the white shirt lying crumpled on the floor (artistically crumpled and presumably stiffened with glue) has also become all stained.  I think it is probably a write-off because if I dampen it, the glued-together shirt will fall apart.

Anyway, after about five sessions of an hour or more, the room is finally all clean and dusted and all the houses have been put back in order.    I'm glad that this big job is over.  One of my friends lives in France and runs a large and excellent miniatures museum (Mayenne Miniatures) as a side business, I wonder how many hours a year she has to spend dusting!

While putting away the accumulation of bits and bobs, I was getting frustrated with my storage system for beads, findings and small hardware.  I knew Wilko (a discount general store) had some cheap plastic storage boxes because I got one for DS for his christmas stocking.  So I headed there and found they have an excellent range from £1 shallow boxes with small compartments perfect for tiny hinges, right up to £4 larger boxes with deep compartments suitable for wooden beads and findings.  I started out with a selection of four and went back for three more later in the day.  I've rationalised all my ancient and inherited jumble of different sized containers into the new storage boxes and it's great, I can see what I've got now especially things like hinges, cupboard pulls and door hardware.

By now being on a bit of a cleaning roll, I tackled my sewing room next.  I dismantled and put away several collections of fabric/pattern/rulers left over from past projects, took down the towering pile of 'waiting to be filed' papers and moved it to the attic (a job for another day to sort those out), dealt with the pile of household ironing, packed up the enormous box that my 'new' sewing machine came in and likewise moved it to the attic, and then hoovered up all the threads, fabric scraps and polystyrene bean bag pellets from the floor.  It looks so much better now, and is a much nicer room to work in.

And I have been working: I pieced the rest of the blocks together for my Let's Bake quilt, sewed the border, and with DS's help, calculated and cut the inner coping strips and sewed the whole thing together.  The original pattern includes an outer plain border but as I plan to display this  quilt as a wall hanging and it's already on the large size, I am omitting that border.  So it's now a completed top!  I love how cheerful and bright it is, like a child's colouring book.  I've ordered some baking-themed backing fabric in the sales, so once that gets here I will sandwich it up and possibly even start quilting it.

As a reward for the big milestone, I pulled out a little kit for fun.  This is the decorated clothes hanger cover pattern that I bought at the quilting show a few months ago.  Here's an in-progress shot, I'm still sewing on flowers.  This was also the first time I've tried free-motion quilting on my new machine, it wasn't too bad. The manual said to set the thread tension to 'Auto' which looked fine on the right side but was too loose so the underneath side doesn't look great. Not a problem for this project as the underneath side will be hidden, but something to keep in mind for when I quilt the Let's Bake quilt.

One more picture this week - the 25 day Petite Properties advent calendar is now over and we're allowed to post pictures.  Look at all the different 1/48th scale kits I got!  Quite a fun treat to open every day, as good as the sock yarn calendar I had a few years ago. 

One finish this week is the Victorian leaf shawl at long last.  I knit the centre panel out of Victorian Lace Today some years ago, and this past year I've been knitting on a different border (I didn't like the one in the book).  It's blocked out slightly oddly as the top is very stretchy but the sides not so much due to the knitted on border.  It feels lovely and light and airy in wear.  The border didn't work out entirely symetrical as I wasn't really trying very hard, I just bunched it up around the point of the shawl by knitting twice into each joining square and stopped when I reached the last stitch in the side when perhaps I should have short rowed a bit.  At the moment I'm just glad it's finished, if it bugs me then I could add some short rows later.

So my first week of christmas holidays is over and I've got a whole 'nother week.  It feels strange, I don't think I've ever had two weeks at home without some other agenda like maternity leave or job-hunting while unemployed.  I've been glad I made a list of jobs to tackle because otherwise I think I would feel a bit aimless without my usual work routine.  It makes me wonder what retirement is going to be like.  I have to impose my own routine of Japanese homework, bobbin lace, jobs, some time out in the garden doing further clean up etc.  And a fair bit of video gaming (currently playing Dark Souls Remastered).  My friends who are retired have all said they are so busy in retirement that they don't know how they ever found time to work, so I guess it will be alright.

Did you have a good Christmas?  We certainly did, very relaxing and far too many sweets.  I judged the turkey size well - we had two dinners out of it, two lunches and the remainder was used up by DS in a traditional turkey leftover curry.  My main craft present was a set of Apliquik rods, interfacing and glue, for doing applique in a new way which looks a lot more accurate than my usual pencil+template method. I also got myself a clip-on Ottlite for doing bobbin lace and other crafts at my desk where the light isn't very good.  Did you receive any nice crafty presents?  I hope you've also had some quality crafting time over the holiday.

With best wishes for the new year!