The Borrowers have taken my 4.5mm needle tips

I have two full sets of Knit Pro interchangeable needle tips:  one wood, and one metal. I need the 4.5mm metal tips to start my next knitting project in a cotton/acrylic blend.  Can I find them anywhere? No, I cannot.  Having trawled through ground zero of the needle disaster zone, comprising a litter of needle tips around the storage racks they are meant to be in, plus about 30 cable needles all tangled into a giant ball of mess, I widened my search to the pile of prior projects waiting to be dismantled and put away. It turned out there were a lot of these bags of old yarn and needles, it seems that it has been some time since I actually tidied up in the attic room, months and possibly even over a year. DH was waiting to watch TV so I gave up and did cross stitch instead last night, but today I headed back in for a full search and rescue operation.  I tidied away all the old project bags and yarn, extracting all the needles, picked up all the secondhand book finds and magazine pattern rip-outs, tidied away the spilled out yarn bags etc.  Then I moved the huge mess of needle tips, normal needles, DPNs and the tangle of cables and cable needles and storage pouches onto my little desk, fetched a needle size gauge and settled down for a long sort out.  It was actually fairly therapeutic, sizing up all the needles and tips and putting them back where they go, and measuring the cables to pack them away in the various pockets of their storage folder.  It took quite a while, and by the end of it all, still no 4.5mm tips.  They appear to have vanished. Stupid Borrowers.  So I've ordered another set which will come next week, and in the meantime I guess I'll use the wooden tips and hope it doesn't affect my gauge too much.

I need to carry out a similar archeological excavation on my sewing room, which is buried under multiple layers of projects.  I've spent a lot of this week altering a too-small dress to fit me, but while I was doing that, someone online kindly pointed out that one of the HSTs is twisted in my Giggleswick Mill Quilt top, in the bottom LH area.  So I've had to take that area apart and I'll fix it hopefully tomorrow.  Thank goodness they spotted it before it was quilted.  I made a quilt many years ago where I similarly twisted an HST in the sashing in a really obvious place, and I never noticed it.  It was finished, quilted and bound and had been hanging on the wall for a few months before DH noticed and pointed it out.  I couldn't face trying to fix it and ended up giving the quilt away.

As well as the dress alteration and the quilt, I've acquired a few more dress-lengths of fabric to sew dresses (and the accompanying lining fabric and patterns etc), the Disappearing 4-patch quilt I want to make, the pile of fabric I'm pulling from for the Janet Clare BOM, and the pile of fabric I was using from the Japanese book which I might still make something else from.  I don't have a lot of spare storage in my sewing room so I ordered some cheap folding stackable crates from Argos.  I've put each project collection into one crate and stacked them in the corner, which feels much more organised and also reducing the risk that something vital will go walkies.  Once I'm through with a project, I can fold the crate flat out of the way (or fill it up with new stuff).

I don't actually have any photos this week because it's just been more cross stitch, swatching for the new knitting project, a bit of bobbin lace, hand quilting, and altering the dress. I have had two minor DIY achievements:  I managed to sharpen my own overlocker blades, and I took apart my video game controller and fixed a sticky button.  My overlocker (serger) is quite elderly now as I bought it when DS was young in the mid-90s to sew clothes from knits for him.  The blades had become quite dull since the last long-ago service.  When I looked online, the upper blade was running about £24 while the lower blades were apparently unobtainable apart from a questionable one on eBay for £45.  After searching for a while, I did some lateral thinking and started searching on how to sharpen an overlocker blade.  I didn't find anything specific but I did find this video on sharpening small blades.  The sharpening stone he was using happened to cost £40 which is a lot of money but at the same time a lot cheaper than a new set of blades so I decided to go for it.  I had no idea what I was doing, just tried to copy his motions as much as possible. Having pushed the two blades back and forth a little on the wet stone, I put them back in the overlocker to see if there was any improvement.  Success!  it's now trimming fabric cleanly again and even deal with the slippery fraying lining on the dress alteration.  I would hope that I can keep sharpening the same blades for a while as well.

I did go and get my haircut today, it didn't feel any more risky than going grocery shopping which we also did tonight.  Such a relief to have my hair trimmed up above my eyebrows and off my neck, it was driving me crazy and starting to look like a mullet.  The salon was plastered with posters announcing all the precautions they are taking and the rules for customers, it all sounded very sensible and reassuring.  Except that the practice seems a lot less rigorous: while I was waiting I watched a couple of the young girls cleaning the seats and work stations with a few apathetic squirts of cleaner (no wiping) which hardly seems the 'thorough cleansing' promised by the posters. And while all staff were wearing plastic visors, none of them were wearing face masks so if they sneezed for example it would all come out round the sides. Customers are all supposed to wear masks but there was a pretty wide variety from the medical to the homemade, most being poorly worn or lifted up so the person could talk (that's not how it works!!!) Anyway, fingers crossed I didn't pick anything up.  I haven't made another appointment, I'll see how long I can go without.

Do you have Borrowers in your house?