Storm Bound

Our old house is once again being battered by a storm, this time it's Storm Denis.  The roof survived Storm Ciara as far as I could tell with binoculars on my day off, so hopefully it will continue to withstand the winds. Apparently it is getting up to 80mph in some places but here we are just being lashed by rain and I don't think it's as bad.  Although the cinema down in Rushden apparently lost part of its roof and they've had to close part of the shopping mall it stands in. They said on the radio that thousands of people are without power elsewhere, and of course there is the terrible flooding further north.  Not good.

So it's been a good day to stay in and do crafts.  After many sessions, I have finally finished the stippling in the middle of the Let's Bake Quilt, which has given a pleasant 3-D effect to the appliques.  My stippling is not great but as long as I don't look too closely, I'm fairly pleased.  The next step will be to put the walking foot back on and go in to add detail on the various appliques. I also need to stitch some kind of design on the gingham squares.  Then a wash & block, then binding, and finally sewing on the various button embellishments.

In between stippling sessions on the quilt, I've cut and prepared the pieces for the next set of two blocks for the Janet Clare BOM blocks, so they are ready to sew once I convert the machine back to normal sewing.  I've also pulled out a fun little Japanese kit I bought from one of the Japanese traders at this year's Festival of Quilts in Birmingham: it's a little 'basket of flowers' zip pouch.  The directions are in Japanese of course. I puzzled over them for a while and managed to decipher some of the kana, but I couldn't read most of the kanji so I will be winging it a bit from the picture.

I spent some time preparing the materials to start stitching the Little House Needleworks ABC Samplers that I bought for my birthday a few years ago. These are nine cute little cross stitch houses which I am going to stitch as a single sampler.  I prewashed the Classic Colourworks threads after seeing this recommended online, since they aren't colourfast, and I narrowed the evencount linen using my overlocker so it will fit into my Lapman frame.

I finished the Little Hearts Hat I was knitting with the mini skeins.  It fit but I didn't like how closely it was fitting on my big head: it looked like one of those skull caps people pull on before donning a wig. So I pulled it out back to the ribbing and started the fair isle section again, this time increasing two extra hearts' worth of stitches.  I will also knit it taller before I start the decreases.

Yesterday, before the storm hit, DH and I had a day out since we both had the day off.  We considered heading to Oxford, which we both like, but decided to try somewhere new.  So we went up to Oakham, a classic little market town in Rutland. We hit up the Land's End outlet store, where DH found a couple of shirts but I was disappointed as there was very little stock in my mid-range size. Then we followed the town heritage trail and saw some attractive old buildings, although it was very cold, and had a nice lunch in a pretty tea room with very slow service.  DH found a butcher's selling authentic Melton Mowbray pies so was pleased to bring home a couple of those for his lunches. It seemed to be quite a foody town, there were many bakeries, butchers, farm shops and delis dotted around.  Oakham is also apparently famous for its Victorian level crossing signalbox, used as the archetype signal box for modelmakers Airfix.  We were disappointed not to find any craft or antiques shops, although we did stop at the Rutland Sewing Centre out of town where I got a couple of half yards of background fabric. Everything was full price though  so I wasn't tempted to get more.

Much more to my liking was a stop at the Fabric Guild in Oadby on the way home.  Although they don't seem to have as much big-name brand fabric as they used to when in their former Leicester location, I was still able to get some yards of white background fabric at £4.95 a yard, some packets of bargain trim and velcro, and some pretty Japanese-themed fabric.  Also a book and some .50p secondhand magazines, and a couple of skeins of DMC thread I need for the ABC Sampler (3 skeins for £1).  So a nice haul to bring home and I've got some cheap craft mags to read.

The plan for the white fabric is to use it as background for some scrap quilts using up some of the scraps I have been painstakingly cutting up, once I clear the decks in the sewing room for a new project.

If you are in the UK, hope the storms have left you safe and dry and still with power...