Too Many Hobbies, Not Enough Time: What is this thing called 'dollshousing' again？

A few days ago, for no discernible reason, I sort of felt like working on my Japanese dollshouse again. I haven't touched it since Autumn 2019. I was thinking about how I might do the garden wall, and I retrieved some insulation foam from the attic stash and started pottering, and just kind of kept going. I am using photos that I took on our Japan holiday as reference, when we saw a lot of older homes that had plain stucco privacy walls topped with black tiles in varying degrees of elaboration.

I decided on a height and took measurements and cut the foam to size, and textured it by bashing it with a wire brush. When I went to glue the foam in place, I ran into a problem. It turns out that when you don't use your craft glue for over a year, the opened bottles dry out and the contents of the unopened bottles separate and turn to useless watering ooze. I hot-glued the foam to the base and scraped out some white glue gunk to glue the joins, then went upstairs to order new bottles of Aileen's Tacky Glue.

Similarly, when I went to paint the wall to match the house, I found some of my paints had dried up. In addition, I found that I had ruined the majority of my medium and small paintbrushes on the house build, and dulled the blades in every single Stanley and craft knife. Upstairs to order more paintbrushes online, and then 30 minutes spent extracting and replacing all the old blades using new ones from my blade stash. Perhaps I should have done a better job when I tidied up after the Japanese house build, but I think I was so fed up after the Roof of Doom that I couldn't wait to get out of the room.

After the first coat of paint, I filled the joins and applied two more coats, with some weathering introduced into the third coat of paint while still wet. For the top of the wall, I couldn't think of of a feasible way to create decorative tiles (the roofing strips aren't the right orientation) but I found pictures online of walls with plainer tops. So I had a root around in the workshop and found a strip of wooden moulding I rescued from a skip, which was just the right size. I cut pieces to fit the top of the wall, sprayed them with grey primer, painted them black, then dry brushed them with satin grey to look more like tiling.

Then I turned my attention to the little roof over the gateway. It wasn't too hard to build the wooden frame, but when I stained it with the same stain I had used on the roof, it turned out a lighter colour. Belatedly I realised that the stain sediment has probably all settled in the year's hiatus and I should have given the can of stain a really brisk shake and stir.

Next it was time for tiling. I had kept a lot of scraps and leftovers from the Roof of Doom, so I had the materials. I just couldn't remember how I used to cut the tile strips. Examining old photos of the build showed the frequent presence of sprue snips/wire cutters, so I guess it was that? I know I used my little power sander for grinding strips to size and neatening cuts. Considering it took months to build the roof, you would have thought I would remember, but I don't. I have cut tile strips to fit the front and back of the roof and the glue on those is currently drying under pressure. It feels weird to be doing this again but I am enjoying it.

This week I also finished the pink capelet and blocked it. It's probably a little large for me but still looks nice. I just need to add some kind of closure. The pattern calls for a metal fastener but I am thinking perhaps ribbon ties.

On Christmas Eve I started knitting a mini bunny girl using a purchased pattern by Julie Williams of Little Cotton Rabbits. I have previously knit one of her larger bunnies and they are so cute, so was quite taken with this mini version.

Still hand quilting, and stitching the bucks lace edging to its mat fabric. Obviously this week we were also getting ready for Christmas, wrapping presents, getting the final shop in etc. It all felt relatively calm this year since it was only going to be us plus DS's girlfriend. She came Christmas morning and they spent an ecstatic day together - let's hope we all don't live to regret this. She didn't want to stay for the Christmas meal as she's a novice driver and wanted to do the one-hour-plus drive still in the daylight. So we had our tiny turkey dinner just the three of us, and it was very nice too. Santa brought me a quilt pattern called 'Campania Reprised' by Hat Creek Quilts, and a ruffler foot for my Janome sewing machine, as well as a Japanese dictionary and a video game. All chosen by me of course but isn't that the best way to get exactly what you would like? My friend Anita sent me a cute kit for a dollshouse bag and some mini Japanese swords for the Japanese dollshouse, and sweet cute cat fabric.