Winter wonder

 We had snow!

Just a few inches, but it transformed the garden into a winter wonderland.  It fell all day Sunday and lasted until Tuesday when it was banished by rain and warmer temperatures.  But as I type this, it is actually snowing again.  It's not settling though, too warm I think.  Monday morning I had to walk almost a mile in the snow to post something I had sold online, DH came with me in case of accidents, but for the most part it wasn't too slippy and we enjoyed the walk.  It was nice to get out into the snow but also nice to get home for a nice cup of tea.

I've done the main knitting on both the Jamieson Spindrift wristwarmers now.  The second one is blocking, and I completed the thumb steek on the first one using the crochet method shown here.  Having considered that, I wondered if my thumb would get cold just hanging out with no covering, so I am experimenting with picking up stitches around the steek and knitting a thumb. If I don't like it, I can just pull it out again.

This week I finished the bit of Torchon edging for the Christmas decoration kit.  I applied the supplied scrapbooking papers to one of the MDF shapes and have added some of the trimmings and my bit of bobbin lace.  I just need to glue on the gold snowflake properly.  I don't love the end result, I think it looks a bit rough and ready.  I'm not sure I want to make another length of the lace (which needs to be twice as long) for the other MDF shape which is a bell. We'll see.

After finishing the saddlebag last week, I poked through my box of 'kits in waiting' and pulled out the kit for a kimono wallhanging that I bought from a Japanese vendor at Festival of Quilts in 2019.  The kit included all the fabrics, the pattern (without seam allowances) and a sheet of fairly rough hand-drawn diagrams with a few English words on it.  I puzzled over the 'instructions' for some time before tracing off the separate pattern pieces onto tissue and adding a seam allowance.  It became clearer as I went along though, and I managed to complete the Kimono and am rather pleased with it.  The actual Japanese fabrics really make it, and the little details like the separate pockets, and contrast lining poking out from behind the sleeves and the hem.  It's fairly large at about 15" collar to hem - I think it would be cute sized down although even more fiddly to make.

Having enjoyed the kimono, I had another trawl through the box of kits and chose a kit for an applique binder cover that I bought at the Carrefour Europeen du Patchwork, Sainte Marie aux Mines, France a few years ago.  The trading name appeared to be Spanish, but the thick pack of instructions turned out to be in Catalan according to Google Translate.  I sighed, and got on with typing in the instructions to Google Translate, and writing down the English meanings.  When I got to page 3 though, I was puzzled to find that it appeared to be a repeat of page 1.  That's when I realised that I actually had two sets of instructions: one in Catalan, and one in French.  I was kicking myself as I can read French (at a poor level) so basically had just wasted a lot of time. Oh well.  So I've traced off the applique pattern onto Steam-a-SeamLite and  have sorted out all the small scraps of fabric (unlabelled) that came with the kit to match them up with the various pattern elements, and I am ironing them on in preparation for fusible applique.

I've spent a fair amount of time this week on the Japanese dollshouse garden.  It was rather nervewracking, I was trying to explain to DH why, but I don't think he got it.  It's just that every decision I make, and every change I effect, is whittling away at the Potential of the project.  The Potential being the ideal Japanese garden in all my holiday photographs and in my mind's eye.  The more the project takes shape as an actual concrete creation, the less Potential remains, and the more the pendulum swings towards possible  naff-ness.  At the back of my mind are all those foreign attempts at 'English thatched cottages' which exist in the dollhouse world - you can tell what they intended to make, but the end result can be extremely variable (like the one that had used faux fur for thatching...).

Anyway, I started out by applying paint effects to the driveway and cobbled terrace, until I was happier with those.

The next step was to install the larger trees and rocks.  The trees are some scenic trees I had in my stash, and I gave them a severe haircut with scissors to mimic the cloud pruned trees we saw in so many domestic gardens, I also decapitated an evergreen with some difficulty using wirecutters, to achieve the pruned look. I added the Japanese stone lantern.  Then I applied a variety of clump foliage and small stones along the edges of the dry gravel river and pond, to conceal the edges.  Meanwhile I was improving a couple of cloud pruned small trees that I bought in a model store in Japan by adding flock to the rather unconvincing dish-sponge leaves.

Next was the flocking, applied using the wet working method described in the previous post.  I tried to use a variety of colours but as it turns out, the glue darkens everything, so I don't think I'm quite there yet.  Once that all dried, I added the smaller trees, some clump foliage bushes and the bridge.

There's still a lot more detail to add and refine, and the pavilion to add, but here's where it's at so far: (I'm sure to a Japanese person, this all looks rather like faux fur thatch...)