Lockdown week does-the-number-really-matter

I'm giving up counting lockdown weeks now that it's looking like a long term situation, it seems a bit pointless now that it is becoming the norm rather than a temporary aberration. Some poll on the BBC site I think showed that a healthy percentage of people would fear leaving their home even if lockdown is lifted.  During my utterly pointless annual appraisal by telephone with my manager this week, he suggested that hypothetically I may be allowed to work from home in the long term to avoid public transport, perhaps only travelling into the office occasionally. Which is good news because I really don't fancy being shut up in a train carriage with the general and possibly infected public, it's bad enough during cold and flu season.

No real change here this week, apart from I have felt I am starting to lose energy and motivation and have been drifting through some of my days.

Last week I started pulling fabrics for a new quilt which is from the book Primarily Quilts 2 by Di Ford that I've had on my project list for a while.   Last year I bought a bunch of her Giggleswick Mill fabric line to go with the book, so I pulled that out to see what I had, and what I could make from the book.  I put it all up on my design wall and subtracted things and added other fabrics from my stash, and chose this pattern to make.

  Now I've started cutting the border fabrics and I've made  204 2.5 inch finished HSTs for the background using paper grids I printed on my printer using old Triangulations PDF software. Each sheet makes 12 triangles and I have made up 17 sheets using an assortment of background and coloured fabrics. Love these historic prints. Sure glad I have a design wall to lay them out on.

During my pointless appraisal telephone call, I put him on speakerphone and finished off my Japanese needlework bag while he was waffling on.  It made it much easier to contribute inane remarks ("Oh yes, I feel very settled into my new team, everyone is so welcoming!") while concentrating on my stitching.  I completed the little pincushion and the pocket, and sewed on their snaps so it's all finished now.  I muted my mic to take some blog photos when it was done.

In an effort to perk myself up, I ventured into the dollshouse room for the first time in months.  First of all I had to clear months of clutter build up off the desk, then as I still couldn't face working on the interior of the Japanese house, I pulled out a cheap Chinese vignette kit that I think I won in a tombola.  The instructions were rubbish, and the materials just jumbled into ziploc bags with no labels.  I puzzled my way through it but felt so out of practice and ham-fisted: getting glue in unwanted places, dropping things, mis-cutting etc.  Just as well I didn't touch the Japanese house.  Anyway, I added in various papers and things from my stash and it doesn't look too bad. Obviously not in scale but sort of cute.  I couldn't get the polyester tablecloth from the kit to drape properly and the 'gloves' are naff, but it was a good warm up exercise.

The job this week from my Procrastination List was going through boxes of paperwork I've been hoarding for decades.  Why do we do that?  In the first box, I'd still got school essays I wrote when I was 16 and 17, and some university papers.  I looked through them, obviously kept because I was proud of them and got good marks, and it was like some complete (much smarter) stranger had written them.  Plus the paper is severely yellowed and the typeface (I had to type essays as my handwriting was terrible and still is) has faded so they aren't even very legible. With some reluctance I have binned them as I can see no value in keeping them any longer, they don't mean much to the person I am now and would mean nothing to anyone else. I also had several school yearbooks (a big thing in North America but I don't think in the UK as DH didn't know what they were) from my distant past.  Apart from the pictures of myself, and a few people that I remember (one of whom I am still friends with), they are books full of pictures of strangers with awful hairstyles (remember the 70s?).  After looking through them, I scanned in the pages with my picture for posterity and binned the physical annuals. I've now got a big envelope of school reports to look through ("... must strive for neater work,...") and decide what to do with.

I've done a bit more needletatting this week but the thread was too soft so it wasn't working and I've cut it free and binned it.  I've excavated some firmer thread from my old shuttle tatting stash and will try again.  I've done a bit more cross stitch and I have finally started re-knitting 'Hey Teach', a free online pattern that I first knit 10 years ago in Rowan Summer Tweed which gradually stretched out so much that it became enormous and I had to give it away.  Ever since I have been meaning to knit it again because it's a cute summer cardi so now I've made a start.

The garden is looking very green and lush after several days of rain.  I managed to snag two sets of hanging basket assortments from Aldi so have planted up a couple of pots for the summer from those using old compost. The weeds are growing like topsy so have done a round pulling up all the ones I can spot.  So far the grass seed is not doing anything but I think it takes a couple of weeks before it sprouts?  At least the birds haven't eaten it (yet).  Our irises are blooming now and looking lovely and there are lots of fat buds on the roses and the clematis promising delights to come.