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.