Just doing chores

 This week seems to have flown by, in a sort of 'nothing much happening' sort of way. I can't believe it's mid September already, where did the summer go?  Although we've certainly had some lovely weather lately.  I had another roofer in to look at the leaky roof, he thinks it's most likely cracked felt around the skylight.  He was supposed to give me a quote on Thursday (no sign of it) and come next week to make the repair (date still unspecified).  The weather forecast of course says that it is going to start raining on Wednesday for the foreseeable future.  I spent part of the week catching up on the backlog of chores, like inputting all our receipts into the financial software I use, and cleaning out the inside of the fridge (how is it that you suddenly notice your fridge/bathroom/hallway/whatever is totally filthy - there doesn't seem to be an intermediate stage where you think 'huh, that's starting to look a bit off' - just wham, armageddon.  Now that all three of us are home all the time, it's taking its toll on the house).

I finished altering the Halloween dress, it looks a lot cuter now than it did (before and after pics below). Although we've realised that Halloween is going to be a non-event this year, in fact the way things are going in the UK we could very well be locked down again by then.  DS is strongly urging us to buy Halloween candy for our own purposes, even if we won't be receiving trick-or-treaters this year.  Just what I need, entire tubs of Halloween candy lying around the house. 

I'm cutting out pieces for another dress now, using some fabric from Japan which has little chocolates printed on it, really cute. This has necessitated cutting out a bodice block then trying to make it fit, a deep mystery which is beyond me, even with much pouring over my old Palmer/Pletcher fitting book. The best I can do is to cut it out in waste fabric and keep pinning and re-sewing and trying it on to see if it is getting any better (it isn't).

I went and got my haircut again, I managed to last two months before my fringe/bangs started to drive me batty. The hairdressers are now wearing proper masks, not just visors, and the owner said it has been really quiet the last few weeks.  Perhaps people are paying attention after all to the escalating infection rates. It's hard for small business owners though like her.

I finished the third cross-stitch house in the middle row of three (there will be nine houses altogether) and went to start the top row / fourth house.  That's when I discovered that in stitching the first house in the middle row, I had accidentally stitched over three linen threads instead of two in the middle of its top row. It's too late to fix it now, with the next two houses already stitched and spaced along the linen.  So then I had to decide what to do with the upper row: do I start it one thread in from the left so that it will line up on the right with the house below but half the stitches will be misaligned with the stitches below? Or also stitch over three threads to make the stitches match up with the ones beneath?  I think I'm going with starting one thread in from the left, it won't be obvious unless someone studies the picture up close.

Otherwise this week I've done some knitting on the Brodgar mitts, which seem to be coming out the right size for DH, and tried a flat braid on the square Kumihimo plate - having a lot of trouble with the tension on the flat braid, it's hard to keep it flat and even.  Sumo has started on the telly again (the only sport I watch ) so I'm enjoying watching the highlights from Tokyo every evening. And I am having a renewed spurt of interest in my Darks Souls 2 video game having finally found a DLC that I can actually get through without getting stuck (although the final boss is coming up so that may be the time).  So not much at all really - although my fridge looks a lot cleaner!