Lockdown UK - week 1

As you are probably aware, the UK is now on lockdown and we are all asked to stay in our homes apart from one daily exercise outing or having to buy food.  Monday was my last day at work, late in the afternoon we got an email saying that no-one should be using public transport to come to work so my manager told me to stay home the next day.  I at least had the chance to bring home my stash of tea from work, then that night the government announced the lockdown and the office closed completely.

So I am now on indefinite paid leave, which is making DH jealous as he is working from home as he usually does with no real change.  I don't think DS has noticed much difference yet as he normally spends every waking hour on his computer anyway apart from perhaps one short outing for groceries if he is cooking.  As DS said, he and I have been training for this lockdown all our lives. Who knows how long it will go on for.  The streets are so quiet, it's almost eery.  We're on a busy road and normally there are revving engines and buses trundling by, but now it is almost silent.

So I've been doing loads of sewing, it's been wonderful to just think 'oh, I'll work on that' with no deadlines and the prospect of many days stretching ahead. I found the first day it was really difficult to slow down and stop rushing, when I am so used to trying to fit maximum crafting into limited time.  It's getting easier day to day to relax into it, although I worry that I will go too far the other way and start frittering away too much time playing video games (currently Dark Souls 2)  and watching Youtube videos.

In the first couple of days, I finished the top for the 9-patch scrap quilt and I'm fairly pleased with it. Even though it's such a random collection of fabrics, the overall effect is cheery and I think attractive.  It feels good to have taken a crumpled crate of useless waste scraps and turned some of it into a functional item.  The bin of 2.5 inch squares is much emptier than it was.  This is a large single but photographed on a Queen sized bed.

I also pieced the backing out of scraps cut into squares.  They should have all been 10.5 inch squares but I realised as I was seaming them together that I had absentmindedly cut some of them 10 inches square instead.  A little bit of trimming up and bodging ensued.

Once that quilt was cleared away, I seamed together all the jellyroll paired strips for the machine pieced hexagon quilt project but haven't pressed them open yet.  Then I caught up the next block for the Today's Quilter Block of the Month quilt which is a compass.  I managed to reverse the colours by accident, forgetting that the foundation papers were a mirror image, but it still looks fine. The colours haven't come out very true in the photo, in reality the blue is more navy and there is more contrast between the background and the lighter points.

After that I hand-sewed a zipper into a small pouch I made some time ago, then moved on to the cross-stitch panel zip pouch from YouTube that I posted the link for last week.  I found this quite challenging and it ended up taking me several hours to complete, with a certain amount of backwards sewing at times.  Lots of pausing the video to cut fabric to the specified measurements flashing up on screen or to work out what was getting pinned to what.  I have ended up with my two zips opening in opposite directions but other than that it has turned out fairly well.  I added a little handle, and some button embellishments on my cross-stitch panel, and a felt needleholder in the top flap.  (looking at these photos, I think I need to go back and press the cross-stitch panel again, it's become a bit crumpled with all the turning inside out and back again).

I used fusible fleece as advised in the video but I think the bag would benefit from something a bit stiffer as the bag is a bit floppy.  Although you couldn't make it too stiff as several times you are turning through sections and it wouldn't work well if the bag were really stiff.  I backed the cross stitch with fusible interfacing before adding the fusible fleece. I found the pouch quite fiddly to make because it was quite challenging to sew neatly around the zippers without puckers, especially the final seam when there are so many layers involved.

I'm on the final side of the final row of my crochet granny square afghan (hurrah) and I've started a new cross stitch project which is a set of ABC samplers by Little House Needleworks that I asked for for my birthday a few years ago.  When finished it will look like this (only possibly without the grid boxes):

It's a bit difficult as the evenweave linen is very fine and a bit slubby, so not every thread is the same width which is challenging my limited counting ability.

I ventured out for our first weekly shop yesterday.  Morrisons have a queueing system in place with lines painted on the ground for social distancing, and they were only letting in about 10 people at a time.  It was harder in the shop to keep my distance, the aisles weren't wide enough and the staff themselves seemed to be ignoring their distance from customers.  Most people were involved in an elaborate dance as we maneuvered around each other, but a few people were oblivious and just walked right past me close up.  Food availability was much better than it was a week ago, although spotty.  For example, there were loads of chicken legs and wings, but nothing else in the chicken department at all. Still no pasta, but there were eggs and you were allowed 12, and I finally found some chopped tomatoes in tins (2 allowed per person).  The checkouts were being traffic controlled so that it was one-in/one-out, and the till operators are protected by tall perspex screens now.

One thing I am getting heartily sick of is being bombarded by emails from every business or institution that I've ever come in contact with, all enthusiastically telling me that 'they are here for me' and here to support me and that 'we'll get through this together' etc. etc., with almost daily updates from the supermarkets on their latest tweaks to queuing and opening hours. I don't really see why a photo processing site that I haven't used for years feels the need to tell me that they are here for me, along with every bank that I've ever had an account with over the last 30 years.  Hopefully it will dry up soon once they've all clambered onto the bandwagon.

The radio station I was listening to while I was sewing was inviting text messages from listeners about what crazy  thing they are reduced to doing at home because of how incredibly bored they are (after less than a week of lockdown).   First of all, how do they exist without hobbies? and secondly, what are they going to be like after three or four weeks of this?

Anyway, I'm sure you have loads to do and like me are enjoying the chance to tackle long-standing wishlists of projects.  I've even done a bit of DIY: scraping down the flaking paint on parts of the back door, and giving it coats of prime and gloss paint. And I've done some gardening and weeding, laundry, and done a few bouts of hand-quilting on the neverending applique quilt.

Stay well, take care of yourself, and craft on!