Lockdown week 5 - Groundhog Day and unboxing the Sew Darn Sweet subscription box

It's starting to feel a bit like my favourite film 'Groundhog Day', where Bill Murray re-lives the same day over and over again.  Every day I wake up and it is blue skies and sunny, every day I do the same things, with the same people.  The only difference is how much food there remains in the kitchen (we've run out of veg and fruit so I might venture out today to a corner shop). I have to admit it's starting to get me down a bit now, especially since it's beginning to look like it could go on for months.  Even my company, which normally resists change and proceeds at the slowest pace possible, is talking about the 'new normal' and keeping offices closed in the long term and getting all of us working from home.  And as much as I love crafting, I'm not used to doing it every single day for hours.  It's still a treat to have to the opportunity but at the same time I'm starting to crave the normality of, say, a walk around the mall or a commute to work.

One brighter note this week was the arrival of my first subscription box from Sew Darn Sweet.  I had signed up a while ago for three months (£34) for a quarantine treat and then kind of forgotten about it so it was a nice surprise when it arrived.

What's in the box???

Oooo, shiny....

Cheerful spring flowers and bees from the Makower Sunny Bee collection

And a pattern for  quilt as you go placemats, plus batting to make one mat.

This cheered me up and it was so nicely presented as well.   It feels like good value for £11.33 a month (including postage) as well. I don't think I will use these fabrics for the  placemat so I will save them for a future project (perhaps another bag?). I used the wadding for the padding in my Japanese zip pouch (see below).


I had one more finish last week that I forgot to blog:  a cushion that I made from the same panel that the first 'houses' totebag was made from.  This cushion uses the wording from the top of the panel and the faux-patchwork border from the middle section.

This is a picture of the original panel (taken from the internet as I've cut mine up) and you can see where the totebag and the cushion have come from.  I still have the bit in the middle to make something from.  The book suggests a tea cosy but I don't really need another tea cosy.



From the same Japanese book by  Masako Wakayama I've been working on one of the little bag projects. As seems typical for Japanese projects, it is almost entirely sewn by hand and consequently every step takes a very long time.  The instructions are in Japanese, and I can only read a few of the words as I can't read kanji, but the pictures are fairly self explanatory with a little study.  So far I have appliqued and embroidered the outer body and turned that into a bag with a zipper and a lining (I had to sew the lining in twice because the first time I stitched too close to the zipper and it was preventing the zipper from operating smoothly).  And now I am working on the little zipped pouch that snaps inside, also appliqued and embroidered.   It's definitely not a quick project and yet it is quite satisfying to see all the little details emerging. The buttoned cord inside is for holding spools of thread, and the rectangular narrow pocket is for holding the Apliquik tools.

This project was the first time I had tried using the Apliquik tools that I got for my birthday.  They are like two metal chopsticks with shaped ends that you use for smoothing down the seam allowances of applique shapes into a line of fabric glue on the wrong side.  I think there must definitely be a knack to using them.  I found them useful on curves but I had less success in achieving a smooth straight line without wobbles.  Practice will make improvement hopefully.

I'm doing bobbin lace once a week in a WhatsApp session with my lace friends while we are locked down.  Facebook pimped me a handpainted bobbin by Dee Carver this week, which looked so much like the Japanese cherry blossom we saw that I had to get it.  Isn't it pretty?

My cross stitch is slowly coming along.  I have switched to a different frame which lets me bring the stitching closer to my aging eyes so that I can make out the linen threads more clearly, improving my chances of accurately stitching over two threads of linen. I recently read a tip by Betsy Morgan that when using hand-dyed threads, you should complete each cross stitch individually rather than stitching in rows.  This is is so that the colour graduations are revealed and not lost in a 'tweedy' effect.  This made sense, so for the tree on the right I was doing that, and I think you can see a subtle difference in colour compared to the rest of the stitching.

The garden is looking nice, it always looks better in the spring when everything is green and growing than it does in the summer when things tend to struggle because our sandy soil dries out so much.  At the moment, the Spiraea nipponica ‘Snowmound’ is looking spectacular, a mounded shrub taller than me all covered in clouds of white.  I brought some inside to enjoy in the hallway.

Our bearded iris are just coming out now, and my pots of tulips are still going.  The various clematis are growing strongly and starting to bud, and I've been training them onto supports with bits of string while looking forward to (hopefully) lots of blooms. The Cornflower, centaurea montana, is blooming, as are some self seeded aquilegias, and the Bleeding Hearts are a twinkle of pink under the pear tree.  The weather has been so consistently sunny that I've been running the drip hoses every few days.  One of the highlights of the past week (besides the arrival of the subscription box) was collecting our order from B&Q (all contact free, they've organised it really well), so exciting to go out somewhere and get stuff for the garden!  We got a bunch more bird food, some rose food, two packs of assorted bedding plants (should have got more as those have disappeared into the gaps), some lawn seed to re-seed our several bare patches and some paint to disguise an ugly drain pipe.  It's a struggle to keep the lawn seed moist, it dries out in the sun every day so I don't know if it will sprout or not, at least the birds haven't eaten it so far.

How's it going for you?  Is it the 'new normal'?

Lockdown week 4 - I have no idea what day it is anymore

 I don't know where the week has gone. Whole days seem to slip by now and suddenly it's bedtime and I can't really think what I've done. I think I am getting so chilled that I'm just losing the plot. I haven't been out the front door since Tuesday night when I went and did a big shop at Sainsburys which should keep us going for a few weeks. Which is fine, I'm quite happy staying safe behind our front door like the government is telling me.  I've seen enough half-dead patients on ventilators being interviewed on TV, telling everyone don't go out, it's not worth it.

We've all settled into routines.  DS is either on his laptop in the dining room during working hours, or on his computer in his bedroom outside of working hours - we see him at mealtimes and tea breaks.  DH is on his computer during working hours in the attic, and comes down also for lunch and tea breaks.  We all generally use the treadmill every day for exercise (not at the same time).  While the weather stayed warm, DH and I often sat out in the garden for lunch or tea.  I spend my days crafting, checking work email (I'm still not actually working), doing an hour of Japanese a day, playing video games and pottering in the garden.  One side effect of the quieter surroundings and more relaxing days is that I'm sleeping much better than I have done for some time.

After making the totebag from the panel last week, I had a rummage in my stash of panels to see what else I could make.  I found a garish print of American houses with quilts on a washing line and garden flowers, and by cutting away a lot of the garishness and replacing it with solid blue borders, I made another panel totebag.  This one is rectangular. I've been using it already to carry my current sewing project around the house.

I also found a printed panel to make a teacosy in the shape of the historic Mermaid Inn, a real building in Rye. I inherited the panel from a older quilting friend now passed.  There is a book bag pattern in the Masako Wakayama book which has two straight sides around an elongated oval base, with an inserted gusset to allow the bag to expand.  I realised that I could be creative and turn the tea cosy into a handbag.  This was quite fun to do and I'm pleased with how well it has turned out.  It's constructed using the Japanese method, where every component (sides, base, gusset) is first fully finished with no raw edges, and then hand-stitched together for the final assembly.  It's stiffened using Bosal foam stabiliser.  The handles were purchased previously and were in my stash.

The rest of the week I have been cross-stitching and hand quilting, and I've used some of my time in the days to start to learn needle tatting from Youtube videos.  I used to shuttle tat a long time ago, at an advanced beginner level only. I liked the physical action of using a shuttle but didn't like how hard it was to fix mistakes if you had to try to undo a ring especially in finer thread.  Needle tatting is done with a long blunt needle, and the stitches are formed directly on the needle.  This makes it much easier to undo an error - you can just drop the stitches off the needle or easily undo a closed ring.  It's also easier to count stitches in a long row on a needle than it is in a loop when using a shuttle.  That said, there is still a lot to learn about needle tatting and my initial try at a pattern is pretty lumpy and misshapen.  The motif is about two inches wide in this thick thread.  I'm trying the same pattern again in a finer thread and it's going a bit better.  Are you learning anything new during the lockdown?

Lockdown week 3 - the eternal now

The days are blending into one another as I continue to enjoy my unexpected 'practice' retirement, helped by the unseasonably warm weather - it was up to 26 degrees C in parts of the UK yesterday.  We've had some very relaxing sits out in the garden with the recirculating fountain trickling, it's so much quieter than it would normally be with reduced traffic volume and fewer people.  As it's the Easter weekend, the whole family is on holiday for four days so we are all able to pursue our various hobbies.  Obviously the world news is dire, and I'm putting off the next grocery shop for as long as possible, but inside our house we are fortunate to be doing alright and staying healthy.  I'm still not able to work, apart from having  to do a few online training modules, so I am enjoying lots of craft time and studying Japanese. At the point I don't feel like ever going back to work but I suppose if I want to keep getting paid, it's on the cards eventually.

This week I finished the jelly roll hexagon quilt top, creating a layout like a segment of a Grandmother's Flower Garden pattern so as to work with the three colour values of solid / mid-solid and background.  It doesn't look anything like the quilt in the magazine which used a much more solid  coloured jelly roll.  It's also come out smaller than the already-small magazine quilt for some reason - only 56" wide so it's a small single, or a lap robe.  I went through my entire fabric stash looking for something that would work as a border to make it bigger but came up empty. Anyway, I've added it to the collection awaiting future frame quilting.

I finished stitching the second pinafore dress for my felt doll, which has more of a denim look. This pic shows the bag I made last week as well.

I'm on a sewing kick the last month or so, perhaps it's a subconscious stress coping mechanism.  The elastic arrived in the post so I finished the waistband of the kimono pyjama trousers so they are wearable now.  The order also included some coloured cord to replace the frayed ties on the secondhand short kimono jacket I bought in Japan (previously blogged after the trip) so it is finally wearable now.  In fact I tackled a few clothing alterations that have been hanging around the sewing room for so long that I had forgotten why they were there:  fixing the waistband of a skirt, replacing a closure on some trousers etc.

After finishing the hexagon top, I had a look at my list of stashed projects and selected a Japanese book of accessories by Masako Wakayama, featuring her American Country fabric line.  A while ago I found the accompanying panel and a couple of matching fabrics at the Fabric Guild near Leicester so I got those out and pulled a bunch of toning fabrics from my stash.  My first project was using part of the panel to make this round-bottomed bucket bag, which was quite fun to do and suprisingly effective.  I might make a few more as I have several other panels sitting around waiting to be used up.

In knitting, I finished the Rowan Felted Tweed hat.  I finished it once and decided it was too short for my big head, so I pulled out the crown and knit it one repeat taller.  It fits quite well now.  I like the colours but the fabric feels a bit thin, it wouldn't be warm enough for really cold weather.

I've also finished the mini-skein hearts hat but I'm still darning the ends in on that one and I think it may need a pompom or tassel.  I've got plenty of the mini-skeins left so I may knit some matching wristers.

I forgot to blog last week that I had done the end of term exams for my Japanese class online:  we submitted the reading and writing tests by email and I did the speaking test with the teacher using Zoom (like Skype).  And I've passed!  I received the certificate by email from the university, so I'm just waiting for my actual test results to see what I got right/wrong.

We've been enjoying our own mini-display of sakura or cherry blossom, because the ornamental cherry we planted last spring on our return from Japan has really been putting on a show.  It has come out gradually over a couple of weeks and now all the stems are adorned with pink pompoms. The warm dry weather is perfect for it.  Even DH admits that it was worth digging up the lawn for (something he grumbled about at the time because he says it makes it harder to mow).

Hope you're doing okay in the lockdown and staying well.  We'll find out next week how much longer it's going to be, but early indications are that it could be until at least the end of May.  Not only will I have completely forgotten how to do my job by that point, I think my tolerance for spending my day shut inside a too-hot office surrounded by mildly annoying people while carrying out repetitive work under the supervision of an unsympathetic manager is going to be pretty minimal.

Lockdown week 2 - the craft goes on

Thus ends my second week locked down at home, on paid holiday.  I have to keep telling myself that it's the weekend now, because obviously for me there is almost no difference except that DS and DH aren't working like they do on a weekday. I've been building myself a nest in the living room - like a bird adding twigs I am creating an ever-widening circle of craft projects which won't stop until I have achieved world domination bwah ha ha ha hah...

But it is starting to feel a bit samey now, and although we are so fortunate to have lots of room and a garden, I am feeling a bit confined.  I did go out yesterday for our once-weekly shop, which was a bit scary and also very difficult to manage on my own.  I have no upper body strength so once the trolley got full I was really struggling to steer. There's a lot more to choose from in the shops now, and limits have been lifted on some items.  I even found some toilet paper!

Starting on Monday, I wrote myself a daily jobs list which has helped keep me in some sort of framework through the week.  Every day I tick off that I have:

- checked work emails and checked in with my manager
- checked the news headlines and BBC news site briefly
- done at least 30 minutes of exercise
- done one hour of Japanese study
- listened to native Japanese audio (usually Youtube) for at least 30 minutes (which I tend to do while sewing)
- done or continued at least one job from my longterm household jobs list
- done at least 30 minutes of hand quilting daily
- no more than 60 minutes of video gaming daily.

I haven't managed everything on the list every single day, but having a list (and using the kitchen timer) has given me some structure and a sense of achievement as I cross things off.  The rest of the day is free time.  And the jobs lists includes a lot of long-term procrastinated tasks that I've been meaning to tackle for a while, like scanning in precious documents for safety, so great to be getting some of those done.

One of the waiting jobs was to oil and wax polish my vintage handcranked sewing machine that I bought a while ago.  I gave it a good clean and oil and investigated the various components, and then waxed it with the same wax I bought for my Featherweight machine.  It's operating much more smoothly now and is nice and shiny, and the oil should help keep it in order.  I just use it for decoration, but it does actually sew.

Some other jobs I tackled this week:

- unpicked the closing seams on the cross stitch zip pouch I made last week, and inserted panels of plastic cross stitch canvas into the front and back to stiffen them up.  It feels a lot better now.

- collected all my lavender bags which I use in my drawers and linen cupboard, emptied out the old lavender and refilled with fresh (well, actually leftover lavender from the last time I filled the bags but stored in a plastic bag so fresh-er).

- sewed padded slide-on shoulder pieces to make the straps of a lightweight travel knapsack more comfortable.

- sewed carry handles onto the sides of my soft-sided sewing machine trolley so that it can be safely lifted into the car (if I ever get to go out again).  This was an extremely awkward object to maneuver under the machine but the machine stitched through all the layers with no problems.

- I unpicked the heavy cotton yukata (kimono) that I bought secondhand in Japan a few years ago, and pressed then frankenstein-ed the long narrow panels into yardage with my serger. I cut out a pair of simple pyjama bottoms from the yardage and seamed those up with my serger.  I had run out of waist elastic so I've ordered some, but here's a pic with some temporary elastic in the waistband.  Working on this brought back such nice memories of Japan and buying the yukata from a shop in Kyoto. And I've still got some big pieces left over from the sleeves that I could make into bags or something else.

This week I pressed the strip sets I had previously sewed and then cut out all the hexagons for my machine pieced hexagon quilt.  I've got most of the hexie halves sewn together now but I'm having trouble because there isn't sufficient contrast in the two jelly rolls I have used.  The many printed background light fabrics are all reading like they are the same fabric, so the effect is of polkadots and circles against a light background.  I will have to play around to find a layout that suits what I have. The colours are quite pretty though.

I've done some more work on my Bucks Butterfly Mat and am now on the third repeat of six. You can't see the butterflies very well against the blue pattern film.

I finished (finally) the giant granny square afghan which has come out about the size of a lap robe so not incredibly useful but I like the colours.  I really didn't enjoy doing this but I'm glad I persevered and have an FO.  Washing it and hanging to dry has flattened out a lot of the tension issues thankfully.

It's been nice this week to take the time to do some detailed hand stitching.  I've been making clothes for the felt doll that I made in October, using the patterns from the book.  It's been quite fun to add cute little details like embroidery and trim.  Since taking the first two pictures, I've gone on to make a matching handbag and I'm making a couple of pinafore dresses as well.  Not sure what I will do with her, she is very cute but far too fragile to give to a young child.  It would have to be a much older child or an adult who collects cute things.

Our magnolia tree has been blooming for almost two weeks now.  To begin with, the buds are quite tight and by the end they are splayed open, gorgeous when the morning sunlight hits them.  It's nice to see it this year, we missed the annual two-week show almost entirely last year when we were away on holiday.

How's the lock down going for you?  We are so lucky that we get along and have enough room so that we are not on top of each other. My son's girlfriend is stuck in a one-bedroom apartment by herself and isn't feeling very happy.  My in-laws, who live about two hours away, are supposed to be staying in the house as she is diabetic and f-i-l has lung issues so both in the vulnerable category.  M-i-l assured me that they are being extra careful, and not going out, apart from going to the corner shop yesterday to get groceries then back again today for a newspaper and a few more things.  I told her off and said it's not worth the risk to keep going out,  she said 'yes dear' in a subdued voice but I don't think with any real conviction. I expect she'll be back there in a few days. I personally don't think a newspaper is worth dying for, but I suppose they lived through the war and blah blah blah.  They had the washing machine people in a few days ago to deliver and plumb in a new machine as well.  It's like herding cats.  I hope your relatives are behaving themselves better and that you are staying safe and well.