It was the best of times, it was the worst of times...

I'm having a long weekend due to having cancelled my London trip (because everything I intended to do had been cancelled or shut and now the government is advising against unnecessary travel).  So I've been doing lots of sewing on the Scrapbox 9-patch quilt and even pulled out a pattern and some jelly rolls for the next quilt after that (machine pieced hexagons) to start pairing up strips.  I managed to design about 80 blocks just from pre-cut squares, so I only had to cut squares for the last 8 sets.  They are all seamed up now either into finished blocks or 3-patch strips awaiting ironing.  I even trained DH how to press a 9-patch, so he has joined me for company a few times.  I do the stitching and he does the pressing.  I've had to remove the intervening sashing rows so that all 88 blocks will squeeze onto my design wall, and I will need to move around some blocks at the end to adjust the colour balance.

I am very jealous of all the people I see online who are happily self-isolating and turning to all the WIPs and dream projects they've been wanting to tackle.  I will be back at work on Monday, sigh. This is assuming the trains keep running.  I went out yesterday to Leicester to pick up some clothes and the trains were half empty, and there is talk of reducing the timetable during the emergency.  Leicester was about half as busy as it would normally be, many of the smaller shops in the city are shut but the big ones are still open and everything in the mall seemed to be open.  I asked one clerk if it had been quieter, he said it had but not completely dead.  I don't like clothes shopping but this was probably one of my best trips:  stores were quiet, lots of empty change rooms, lots of clothes in my size (16, the most popular UK size and therefore generally  out of stock), and no queues at the tills.  In fact in Debenhams two young clerks were jokingly fighting over serving me because they were so desperate for something to do.  All the restaurants and cafs are closed as well so I bought something from a supermarket for lunch.  Back home, we decided perhaps it would be prudent to acquire two-weeks worth of emergency food just in case one of us falls ill and we all have to self-isolate.  Until now we have been mocking the hoarders but it is getting to the point where thanks to those people, the shelves are bare of even normal food.  We had a trip to Morrisons to pick over what was left, coming away with such exotics as tins of asparagus spears and artichoke hearts (the only tinned veg left) amongst other things.  We got about half of our list, we'll have to keep looking for things like flour and pasta.  I only want enough so that if all three of us couldn't go out for two weeks, and if the timing were unlucky and the kitchen was a bit bare, that we won't run out of food.

I've been really impressed to see how many designers on Ravelry have been giving away free knitting patterns for people to work on during their isolation.  Through their generosity I have collected about a half dozen projects that I will hopefully get to one day.  There also seem to be various free quilt BOMs and stitchalongs going on - the crafting community is really pulling together.

My bobbin lace friends have mobilised to set up a What'sApp group (new technology for most of us) and we're going to try it out this afternoon to see if it is feasible to hold a virtual stitchalong.

I finished my sewing-themed cross-stitch last night. I have no idea why the picture has come out this weird colour, sorry about that.

I was looking around online and I think I might turn the cross stitch panel into a little sewing bag using the pattern in this Youtube video. I will set the panel into the top lid. We'll see.  First of all I have to finish off the scrap quilt to clear the decks a little.

I've also been making a push on the border of my giant granny-stitch afghan, which is sized more like a lap robe.  The border is four rows wide and I am on the final row, looking forward to getting this finished.  I am not a natural crocheter and haven't really enjoyed making this, even though I like using all the different colours.  I'm hoping it will block a bit flatter once I weave the ends in (although half the ends were crocheted in and just need trimming).

I've been reminded of my immense age this week by two separate things.  One was in this bag video by a young thing who at 7:34 starts talking about how sweet is that her grandmother still has her yellow-handled rotary cutter "probably from the 1960s or so".  I guess  someone who probably wasn't even born until the turn of the century doesn't know that rotary cutters were only invented in 1979 or that we used scissors before then.  I still have one of those rotary cutters which I would have bought in the late 80s or early 90s, and I am not old enough to be the young lady's grandma (her mother yes but not her grandma...).  Then when DH and I were at a big charity shop last weekend having dropped off some donations, we overheard two young things in the book department.  The younger one (c.14?) had discovered an old Duplicate book for writing invoices with copies, and the older one (c.18?) was explaining it to her:  "You write on the first page and a copy of what you wrote shows up on the second page, it's like a photocopier on paper..", "Oh that's so cool!!!", "Yes, it's like making a photocopy right on the paper, it's so cool!!", "so cool!!!".  DH and I were just rolling our eyes at each other, they'd obviously never seen carbon paper before. Makes me wonder how many people working in offices today don't know what 'cc' stands for on an email...

Hope you are all staying well and safe.