And suddenly Christmas is on again

 The first I knew about it was when DS came downstairs, all excited that he would get to see his girlfriend at Christmas and to ask if she could come to stay. So we had that discussion and then awaited the announcement the following day.  It wasn't until almost 24 hours later that I suddenly had the 'oh sh*t' moment and realised that we were now duty-bound to invite the in-laws.  I had become so accustomed to the idea that we were going to have a cosy locked down Christmas to ourselves that it took me a while to change gears.  So we made that offer, the in-laws don't want to come up to us but we've agreed to go down to them for lunch during the permitted visiting period over Christmas.  And the girlfriend will be coming for a few days as well.

On the subject of Christmas, I received my first Christmas card yesterday in a strangely well padded envelope. It turned out to be a card from a woman whose name I didn't recognise (no surname given, no return address), and she had enclosed a Santa-embellished face mask and a cute little memo pad.  The card thanked me for 'all my hard work'. After puzzling over this for a minute or so, I realised that it must be from the woman of that first name who manages our whole virtual team, my boss's boss. I don't have anything to do with her, apart from listening while she waffles on for hour-long pointless meetings a few times a week and don't really rate her, and am unlikely to ever meet her physically in real life.  I'm sure she meant well but honestly I felt a little invaded to have my virtual work life suddenly arrive in my actual personal home. I don't think in the 'old' days that even though managers probably had access to your home address, that they would just casually send things to you at it, your personal information was there for emergency contact and sending official letters.  I suppose it's another aspect of life that has changed now that we are all working virtually and I'm showing my age by having any qualms about it.

I finished joining my Bucks lace edging back onto itself.  I didn't do a great job as the join is visible on the right side when you look for it, but it's unobtrusive and I've hidden it in a gathered part of the lace.

The join is where you can see the raised edge running along

one of the 'zigs'. 

After darning in the ends as unobtrusively as I could manage, I am now tacking the loop of lace onto the linen fabric I am using for my mat.  I've mounted the fabric into a frame to try to keep it flat while I add the lace, to avoid ending up with a concave mat that won't sit flat.  In this picture the lace is just pinned on, but I've started basting it with a small running stitch to the fabric.  After it's all basted, I will stitch it on permanently with either a small buttonhole stitch by hand, or a 'three-cornered' stitch.  I am once again using Jean Withers book 'Mounting and Using Lace' as my guide.

I've been doing a little quilting most evenings on my 25 block applique quilt, it's going faster than I thought and I'm on the third block now.  I have switched to a smaller round hoop as I found the big square hoop I started with was too cumbersome when I am having to turn the work so often.  When I get tired of quilting, I switch to knitting on the pink shoulder shawl which is growing steadily now.

I've also cut out pieces for another dress, using a pattern I traced off a purchased vintage-inspired dress that I like.  I'm using quilting cotton again because it's cheap and readily available online. I'm rather pleased with how the collar has turned out, I learned how to finish the raw edge with bias tape from watching a Youtube video.  Hopefully it will fit, although I find it difficult to trace a flat pattern from a 3D object so I'm not entirely confident about the sleeves and armholes.

I ventured to Wilko for a few bits and bobs, it was still open despite the lockdown. While I was there, I picked up a cheap packet of fake holly leaves and berries.  A bit of crafting turned them into a Christmas brooch, and I even found an old packet of glitter glue for a bit of bling.

Have your Christmas plans been changed by the announcement? Or are you in agreement with my in-laws, who think it will all change again and we'll be locked down anyhow?

Sending away my guilt

 Taking advantage of a £1 max fees on ebay offer, I listed a few items a while ago including a big length of wool crepe fabric that I bought (extravagantly as it was very expensive) at least 20 years ago from Liberty's of London.  I was going to sew a suit for work using a pattern from Prima magazine. The fabric and accompanying (also high quality and expensive) lining fabric and interfacing has been on my 'to do' and guilt lists ever since, never getting done.  As I got older, the vibrant colour no longer suited me, but the fabric had cost so much money that I couldn't just give it away.  Two houses later, it was still kicking around my sewing room and making me feel bad whenever I came across it.  And now I have sold it, and posted it out of my life.  Off the guilt list!  Hurrah!  Now for the other 2,999 similar items....   Seriously though, I am going to have to spend at least two years of my retirement divesting the house of the decades of accumulated acquisitions before we can downsize.  At the moment, I am going through a stack of letters six inches high from the 1980s, from my attic museum archive.  Letters I wrote (my parents saved a lot and gave them back to me later), letters I received, old birthday cards, postcards from friends.  Why did I keep all this stuff?

The big news this week is that I finally finished quilting the diagonal lines on the 25 block applique quilt and the quilt frame is out of the living room - hurrah! 

It looks better than I feared it would.  While the spacing of the lines does vary, it isn't as obvious on the bed. What was quite obvious was a half a dozen places where I had stitched a wobbly line by accident. So I marked all those and put the quilt back on the frame, and pulled out the section of wobbly stitching and replaced it with straighter stitching.  There is one huge mistake where three lines go into a leaf, and only two lines carry on (with wider spacing) but there wasn't any good way to fix that so I've just left it.  Nobody's perfect.  So now I have switched to a hand frame for the next couple of years while I stitch around the individual applique motifs.  I can only stitch in one direction so the hand frame lets me keep turning the quilt as I go around the motifs.

I've started knitting a shawl out of pink cotton aran yarn, more of a shoulder warmer really.  One of these ones where you cast on over 300 stitches then decrease upwards.  As usual I had a lot of trouble getting the first couple of rows correct to set up the pattern, not being able to count accurately, but I am away now.

I've decided to make one final project out of the Japanese book before I dismantle the fabric collection I pulled from stash.  It's another zip pouch with cute applique houses.  I've traced the patterns onto the Appliquik interfacing and will be attempting to use my Appliquik tools although the pieces are quite small.

The clock in my sewing room bit the dust a while ago after I accidentally dropped it (well, juggled it frantically and then dashed it on the ground by accident) trying to reach it down to change the battery. I ordered a new one on Amazon and it has finally turned up.  Nice to know what the time is again down there and a very handsome picture.

Another mild day and the sun is out, so I'm off for my daily lockdown exercise walk.  It's so mild that our magnolia tree is budding early, hope that isn't going to be a problem later if it turns colder.  We gave the garden a good tidy up yesterday, uncovering the plants from the layer of pear tree leaves covering them (which had to be done by hand so as not to damage the plants with a rake) and hacking back a lot of dead growth.  Our fuschias are still blooming away, the pergola roses are just finishing after one final brilliant display, the lipstick salvia is still cheerfully blooming, and the autum flowering sedum are a rosy glow in the undergrowth. I'm going to try leaving my Chinese Elm bonsai out this winter, although I've placed it in a protected spot along with other pot plants. It only barely survived indoors last winter so I reckon it has a better chance out there. How's your garden doing (if you have one)?

New flooring at last

 Look at our new floor!

So much nicer than the flood stained concrete and old 1960s tile, and nicer even than the  previous battered black & white square effect flooring it has replaced.  Although the pattern was a last minute choice, it actually looks quite well with the skirting and doors.  A very nice man came on Wednesday and just got on with it all by himself, it took him six hours to do all the nooks and crannies of the corridor, utility room,  downstairs loo and all the doorways and corners.  So in terms of being in lockdown it worked quite well, I only brought him a few hot drinks and didn't have to interact with him otherwise.  And the replacement pattern was a bit cheaper than what we originally chose, so a win all round.  Today we put back the white goods and the furniture etc., although it did seem a shame to clutter up the pristine new expanses.  Let's hope it never floods again while we live here because I don't want to do all that again.

I've had a bit of a sewing burst this week.  I was looking through my tub of fabric I pulled a while ago to go with the Japanese book that I made the little appliqued sewing pouch out of.  I found the bit of panel that was left, and decided to throw on a few borders to make a tablecloth out of it.  This is a pic of just the top, I will put a backing and binding on it eventually.

Then I turned back to my production run of quilted notepad covers for Christmas gifts.  I cut out five of them, including one to cover the notepad I keep by my sewing machine.  I did each step five times: cutting out, quilting, sewing the pockets, sewing on the binding then hand stitched the bindings down over a couple of nights watching TV.  They've turned out fine and a couple are quite cute. The one on the right is mine, hopefully the recipients will like the others.

I had another look through the Japanese book because I really like the fabric colours I had pulled from stash, and decided to make this little embroidered zip pouch.  The instructions are in Japanese and I can't read kanji, so I just made it up from the pictures. The pattern sheet was in centimetres so I cut to the nearest easy imperial measurement for the piecing. I am not great at embroidery so that's a bit clumsy but I still think it looks cute.

I finished my vanilla socks and blocked them.  I've worn them as bedsocks once already and they are quite comfy. Pretty colours.

I've called time on my Bucks Lace edging, if it's not long enough then I'm just going to make the fabric centre a bit smaller.  So I brought the starting end around to meet the working end where I am with the bobbins, and did my best to pin the starting lace back onto the pricking.  I particularly tried hard not to twist the lace accidentally as I don't want a moebius strip.  Then I worked the final bit of lace down to join up with the starting lace.  So far I have only sewn in the newest lace to the oldest lace, and haven't cut any bobbins off yet.  Once it is fully joined, I need to go back and knot all the pairs with reef knots to secure, then cut the bobbins off leaving ends which I will need to darn into the lace.  If I do a decent job, the join will be unobtrusive. I find joining really difficult and time consuming.

It's mid-November and continues to be so mild (14 degrees C many days) that our pergola rose is having a last burst of flowers. 

But it's chilly enough at night that I've got two handmade quilts back on the bed, and I'm enjoying wearing handknit hats and handwear when I go out for my daily walk. I actually quite like this time of year.

Tokyo news

 I was very sad to read in the latest issue of Quiltmania magazine that not only is the Tokyo International Quilt Festival cancelled for 2021, but that they don't intend to hold it again in future.  That was going to be my next trip to Japan and I had already started general planning for a January visit once it was possible to go again.  I hope it isn't true, and looking online there are still tour companies saying they will be attending the festival in 2022.  But Quiltmania has had close links with the Japanese quilting scene for a long time so they are more likely to have inside knowledge. I've been wanting to go to the festival for years, and was really looking forward to all the shopping opportunities and the marvelous exhibitions. I wonder if the organisers are yet another economic victim of the pandemic?  

Not that we are going anywhere at the minute, with another lockdown in place.  Although you wouldn't know it looking outside, still plenty of shoppers and cars, not like the first lockdown.  We've just been to the DIY shop ourselves for some PTFE tape, to fix a leaking outside tap (thank you University of Youtube).  And surprisingly our replacement basement floor is still being fitted this coming week.  The floor we ordered wasn't available any longer, and when the shop phoned they said that supply and delivery issues have been really difficult for them.  Both they and us were anxious not to miss the fitting date as they are fully booked until the new year, so they texted several pictures of possible substitutes and we managed to find one that can be supplied for next week and will look okay. They said they've looked into the government regulations and feel they can still carry out fitting while complying.  So tomorrow we need to empty the basement including disconnecting the washer and dryer, and give it all a good clean.

I finished the Disappearing 4-patch lap quilt top I blogged last week, and have hung it with the growing collection of tops awaiting quilting.  I probably have enough tops now that I would have planned to set up my quilting frame in the new year - but with DS using the dining room as his workplace, that isn't an option for now.

I still had plenty of Aldi fat quarters so I turned to a pattern for a hexagon tabletopper from a book I own called Best of Fons & Porter: Tabletop Quilts.  This uses the technique of cutting one large hexagon (5 1/2 inches) and one smaller hexagon (3 1/2 inches), and sandwiching them RST with a small hexagon of wadding.  Then you fold in the edges of the larger hexagon to make a binding to finish the edge. There are Youtube videos for the technique.  It's both easy and fiddly, as you have to be quite precise to avoid the hexagon going wonky.  I found the best thing to do was to cut a 3 1/2 card hexagon and use it as a pressing template, only inserting the wadding and top fabric at the end before sewing.  It's a great time to try out all the decorative stitches on your machine when you stitch down the binding.  When all the hexagon units are finished, you butt them together and join with a narrow zizzag stitch: first into rows, then puzzle fitting the rows together.  If you have any wonky hexagons, this is when you are going to have trouble.  I had a couple but I found I could tuck the excess as an underlap and just keep zigzagging along the seam to maintain a flat construction.

A blurry photo (sorry) showing the different stages of construction

arranging the colours on the design wall

What the back looks like after joining

Missouri Star Quilts has patterns for quilt tops made using this technique but I don't think they would feel very comfortable, with all the stiffness and ridges of the binding.  It is a nice technique for making a coaster, on the other hand, and great for fussy cutting.

My next sewing project is going to be making some more notepad covers as Christmas gifts. I've picked out some matching pairs of various fabrics and plan to make between 3 and 5 covers, I'll see how I go.

I finished my second Vanilla Sock but still need to weave the ends in, and then wash and block the pair.

The PVA glue fix on the hall floor tiles seems to have worked great, and things aren't shifting underfoot any longer.

It's getting dark from 4pm now, so I think I will need to shift my after-work daily walk into a lunchtime walk or I'm only going to see the sun out of a window.  I could walk on the treadmill and I probably will shift to doing that once the weather turns really foul, but I much prefer to walk outdoors.  The other advantage of going out is that it's impossible to quit early, you have to keep going until you get home again.  Unlike the treadmill where the boredom overwhelms me after about 20 minutes, even watching Youtube videos while I walk.  What are you doing to exercise during lockdown?

Back into lockdown

England is heading back into lockdown on Thursday for at least a month, although they aren't ruling out extending it past Christmas.   Although it's a funny sort of lockdown since the schools and unis are staying open, people can still go out to work, take their children to childcare etc. My initial reaction was to be depressed but after a few days I've realised that it doesn't really change anything for us.  Apart from presumably we won't be getting our new basement floor fitted next week after all.  It would just be nice to see some light at the end of the tunnel, but I feel grateful that so far we have stayed healthy and we are together and able to continue to earn our livings from home.  I hope you are all staying safe also.

As a palate cleanser after finishing up the sea-themed BOM quilt, I cut out blocks for a small lap-sized Disappearing 4-patch quilt with snowball corners, based on a partial tutorial I found online.  I used up some cheerful Aldi fat quarters I had been collecting.  Their quality is not the best, the weave is a bit coarse, but I prewashed them and they seem colourfast. Can't complain when they retail at, I think, 5 or 6 FQs for £4.99 then go on half price after a few weeks. The blue is what I am thinking of using for a simple border.

It's called a 'disappearing' 4-patch because you start by sewing together four squares into a block (two of colour, two of white) then slice that block up into 9 segments.  Then you rotate some of the segments and sew the pieces back together into a 9-patch.  This pattern finishes off the block by sewing a white triangle across opposite corners.  The effect is quite lively and dancing a bit.  I shall finalise my border choice then sew it on, then decide what to make next.

I did actually clean up my dollshouse room this week so I feel slightly less guilty about it.  During the flood we had yanked everything out of the bottom shelves up onto higher surfaces, then later a bunch of other stuff from the flooded utility room got dumped in there, so it was all a bit of a disaster.  I've put everything away and cleared off surfaces and it looks much better.  My Halloween 1/48th house had its annual trip upstairs to be displayed for a few weeks.

Halloween was pretty low-key.  We kept the front dark and didn't receive any trick-or-treaters, and I didn't hear much going on outside apart from a few fireworks.  I watched some Halloween streams on Twitch and also took party in a small virtual party with some friends online which was fun.  We all ate too much candy resulting in DH and I feeling poorly - apparently we are now officially too old to pig out on Halloween candy  :(   Normally I would now take all the leftover candy to the office to get rid of it but of course this year that isn't an option, so we're hoping DS will eat it up.

I finished my first vanilla sock and have made a start on the second one.  The toe is finished with kitchener stitch and I may re-do it because I've ended up with small nubs on either end which feel a bit uncomfortable.

I've been making a push on quilting the 25 block applique quilt and I am so near the end of the diagonal lines now, it's hard to show in a photograph but I've only got the last half of the bottom of the final row to quilt. Then I can take the frame down and switch to a hand hoop for stitching around the appliques. Or possibly no hoop and just do it in my hand.

The 4th of nine cross-stitch houses is taking shape now.  Appropriately, this house features pumpkins on the lawn.

The weather has been very unsettled the last few weeks, raining most of the time with intermittent spells of bright sunshine.  It's not cold at least.  I try to time my daily walk to coincide with the sunny spell but the weather doesn't always cooperate with my working hours.  Our roof has stayed dry, hurrah!  We aren't going to try and redecorate until next summer, the beam and surrounding area needs time to dry out.  As yet another 'old house' type job about which I have long procrastinated, yesterday we spent an hour or so crawling around on the Victorian mosaic hall tiles, testing for loose ones.  A lot of the floor has lifted from the supporting mortar bed but it would literally cost thousands of pounds to restore.  We have contented ourselves with prising up the loosest tiles, hoovering out debris from the cavity, then re-gluing the loose tile with PVA- a tip I found online. It's a removable fix which hopefully prevents the tile from rocking underfoot but doesn't preclude a proper restore in future should anyone ever feel inclined.