Old crock

 I managed to do my back in while gardening this morning. I was bending down patting the re-installed drip hose into place when suddenly something popped or snapped in my lower back and it was game over. I have spent the rest of the day being very carefully upright and taking ibuprofen.  I blame lockdown inactivity.  I've had a weak lower back since I damaged it in 2003 with inappropriate lifting, and I guess for the past year I've mostly been sitting down apart from my daily walk and using the stairs in the house.  It just adds to my general sense of physically falling apart, or as DH supportively said: "You're an old crock".  He did make me lunch though when I was trying not to move too much, and brought tea to the sewing room later.

This week I've been sewing on the little Japanese house box that I am making from the Yoko Saito book.  The designer pieced it all by hand, which as well as being a huge amount of work, would just be begging for gross inaccuracies if I tried it.  So I drew out the pattern as a foundation piecing pattern and did it that way instead.  Still some inaccuracies but overall a better result.  This is a picture of the four walls joined to the base and ready for machine quilting, which I've since done, and the lining piece.

Next the wall spaces get trapunto-stuffed with yarn for some definition, but before that I sewed the lining to the quilted front piece.  My sewing machine scared me by suddenly refusing to sew the two parts together.  I'm still not sure why, because the bulk wasn't that great.  I started out re-threading, then graduated to replacing the bobbin/needle/thread, then rewinding bobbins and trying other threads, and more needles. I was starting to panic when it finally decided that a gigantic size 100 needle would allow it to sew normal stitches.  It's a pretty new machine so I hope it was just having a moment and is actually okay.

Another thing I did this week was to harvest a drawstring from my very old winter coat to re-use  on my brand new Land's End super duper squall coat.  Which despite being advertised as able to protect you through pretty much any kind of weather, lacked any means of pulling the enormous hood in around your face.  It did have a sort of useless horizontal drawstring to make the hood cup the back of your head - which wasn't going to help when you are trudging headlong into a cutting winter wind.  I found some quilting cotton which was a good match, and sewed a little casing into the hood for the drawstring.  I don't think it looks like an add-on, and should help a lot next winter.

The autumn hand-painted yarn socks have continued to re-transform.  I got almost to the heel on the faceted rib pattern before deciding that it really wasn't making me happy, it didn't look that great with the yarn and, once on the foot, disappeared altogether.  So I pulled the sock back to the ribbing, again, and just started knitting a simple twisted cable pattern which looks much better.  However, since I started with the 72 stitches that I had increased to for the slip-stitched rib pattern, when I tried the sock on after a few inches, it was way too loose.  So I pulled it back completely (so re-start #5 - I am getting my money's worth out of this yarn) and reverted to 60 st which hopefully is now going to become a sock.

Also this week I set up and worked a few repeats of a simple Bucks Lace edging re-using some bobbins that still had thread on them, just to get my hand back in before I tackle the much more complex Butterfly Mat again.  It came back fairly quickly once I looked up a few stitches, muscle memory is definitely still there.

Still haven't received my Empress Mills order so still haven't been able to finish the Hope handbag with bag feet nor start sewing the second version I cut out.  I telephoned them to see what was happening after 12 working days, and apparently they were out of one of the interfacings which was why my order hadn't been filled. So we agreed they would substitute a different type and my order finally shipped a few days ago.  In the meantime, I also ordered some bag hardware and fusible fleece from Sew Hot, who are much more prompt and delivered within a couple of days - that's in preparation for the March Bag of the Month pattern which will be released the day after tomorrow.  That will be the last month in my special rate subscription - I'm mildly tempted to sign up again at the full rate because it has been fun so far and I have learned several things.  There is something very satisfying about a relatively quick win of sewing a bag or pouch - compared to a years-long quilt make for example  - and to have a functional end result. Although having said that, I have so many bags and pouches now that I'm not actually using most of them, I just display them :)

One of those days

 I have been in the habit of booking one day off a month as a 'treat day' and that fell on a Wednesday this week.  I headed down to my sewing room in pleasant anticipation of some relaxing sewing.  I had cut out pieces for some more of the zip pouches that I made one of a few weeks ago and pieced some cute lining panels.  But it turned out to just be one of those days:  you know, where lots of little things go wrong and it starts to feel like you are going backwards more than you are going forwards. Perhaps I was too relaxed on my second time with the pattern, thinking I knew how to do it.  Perhaps I shouldn't have tried to make three at the same time.  In addition to lots of unpicking resulting from sewing the wrong things together, or too messily when the stitching would show; I also managed to cut two of the vinyl pieces too short and only noticed when one vinyl panel was already irrevocably sewn in (that's the pouch that has the extra piece of vinyl sewn at the bottom).  I'm upcycling old duvet packaging, so had to resort to cutting a replacement piece out of a part of the packaging marred by marks from the former label (that's the blue pouch).  I then managed to accidentally catch the vinyl in some stitching, resulting in visible perforations across one panel.  Sigh, perhaps I should just order some actual vinyl.  The icing on the cake was when I discovered that I have been threading my bobbin winder wrong for god knows how long, possibly since I got the machine.  I had been vaguely wondering why the bobbins on the new machine seemed so spongy.  They were getting so bad that I actually resorted to getting the manual out (shock, I know) to look at the diagram.  That's when I realised that I had been misthreading the thread path to the bobbin winder.  It still didn't seem right though, so I partially took apart the area to try to see what's happening.  It turns out there is a hidden little tension finger in the thread path that the thread is meant to slide into, to put tension on the thread. However it is extremely difficult to get the thread into the finger, even now that I know it's there.  I have to push down on the thread in the right place and sort of work it until it goes into the finger.  Which doesn't seem right, usually threading a bobbin winder is quick and easy.  One day when my new machine goes for a service, I will try to remember to query this.  Anyway, I eventually produced three functioning pouches which look okay from a distance.  These are only for my own use thankfully, so nobody else has to be subjected to all the flaws.

A more relaxed backtracking has occurred once again with the Autumnal socks.  Having ripped out the first cable pattern and restarted using the Faceted Rib pattern, I again achieved 4 inches or so of knitting then tried the sock on.  I should have remembered from my machine knitting days that a slipstitch pattern is always less elastic than normal knitting.  The sock was far too tight.  So I pulled back (again) to the ribbing and increased 12 stitches, from 60 to 72, and have restarted.  I've just tried them on again and I think they are okay now.  Although the stitch pattern doesn't look as nice in actual wear, because the natural tension of shaping to the leg tends to flatten the slipped-stitch effect.

The big finish this week is the Bucks point lace edged mat at long last.  I finished the three-corner stitching then very very carefully, with my heart in my mouth a bit, trimmed the raw fabric edge close to the stitching on the reverse, desperately trying not to snip any lace or main fabric by accident.  It's turned out fairly well and the mat looks great on my dressing table under the similarly-shaped vintage glass dressing set I use.  The pattern isn't incredibly complicated, so this is a triumph of perseverance as much as it is of skill.  I don't know that I would ever make such a large mat again, been there done that now.

So I should go back to working on the Bucks Lace butterfly mat that has been parked for several months now, but when I got the pillow down and looked at it, I realised I don't really remember what I was doing.  I think it would behoove me to work a bit of Bucks lace sampling to get my hand back in, before I go back to the complicated project.

My little cross stitch christmas ornament is taking shape.  It will make a 3-D angel cone-shaped ornament when it is done.  The white area is meant to be stitched with white cross stitch but life is too short so I'm just leaving it empty.

I've been looking through the three volumes of patchwork patterns by Yoko Saito that I bought in the new year's sale from Quiltmania.  It's been an interesting refresh on my limited French, plus I've learned a few sewing-related vocabulary words.  There are some interesting construction methods using the Japanese method of seaming finished panels together then concealing the seam allowances with bias binding.  I was quite taken with this little hinged house-shaped box and thought it would be fun to try.

The designer pieces everything by hand but I will adapt this to machine sewing for the most part.  I spent some time drawing out the pattern (the book only gives outline suggestions for the doors and windows, and just measurements for the pattern).  I also had a look online for the Japanese fabrics that are commonly used:  yarn dyed weaves, textured weaves, and of course all the taupes.  It turns out that these imports are incredibly expensive in the UK, about £17 a metre, and nobody seemed to be offering a convenient selection of mixed small pieces.  So instead I turned to my stash and had a trawl to see what I could find.  The fabrics on the left of the picture are ones I bought in Japan, and the ones on the right are normal cotton quilting fabrics.  So the fabrics won't have the same textured look as the original but the colours aren't a bad match. I'll have a go.

In garden news, we now have three daffodils blooming (relics of futile past planting of 50 or so bulbs each autumn), and quite a few crocuses and still lots of snowdrops.  It's been much milder and I was able to dig up and divide the rhubarb.  This turned out to be a hugely difficult and exhausting job, akin to wrestling giant octopuses out of the mud.  Unlike the Youtube videos I subsequently watched, my rhubarb crowns had enormously thick roots the size of an older child's arm reaching deep into the ground.  They absolutely did not want to be dug up and it required a huge and muddy excavation about 18 inches deep before I could finally prise them out of the ground.  Perhaps I should have done this job last year.  The video-pictured crowns had fairly normal roots like medium carrots. Anyway, I divided the two octopuses up with a breadknife into multiple smaller plants and replanted about six of them (that's all the room I had in the patch) so we'll see if that reinvigorates the plants.  I don't even eat rhubarb because I'm allergic to it but DH likes it.

Extreme gardening

 Well, by mentioning the Spring word in my last post, I obviously jinxed the weather and we are once again in freezing temperatures with occasional dustings of snow.  I have been waiting to do some February jobs in the garden on a non-work day.  It was at least sunny today despite being minus 2 degrees C, so we bundled up and headed out.  DH sprayed the roses with fungicide (which I'm really hoping didn't just immediately freeze and possibly damage the plants) while I dressed the beds with bone meal, and pruned the roses and summer flowering clematis, and tried not to get frostbite in my extremities. It's probably too early given the temperatures but since I work in the week I decided to just get it over with. I wanted to divide the rhubarb but the ground is just too hard so that will have to wait.  Hopefully once things thaw again, our efforts will give things a good start for the S-word.

I had a go at the February Bag of the Month pattern, which was the Hope Bag by Mrs H.  This is a hardware-light little handbag which builds on skills learned from the January pattern (such as sewing an internal zip pocket) and adds new techniques such as a inset top zipper closure and rolled handles.  I fumbled my way through a first effort which turned out not too bad, and I've cut out pieces for a second version.  I've ordered some bag feet from Empress Mills plus more interfacing, so I'm waiting for that to arrive before I can carry on (hasn't despatched yet despite placing my order over a week ago...grrrr).  This is a nice size to be a little lunch bag, or a little knitting bag.  Isn't this Moda fabric pretty?

I spent some time knitting half of a sock foot this week, using some handpainted yarn I received from Rosie's Moments in a Squirrel Nutkin-themed mystery sock box a couple of years ago.  The yarn is many shades of caramel-brown autumnal shades.  It came with a cabled sock pattern, with cables that are meant to look like little owls.  However it became clear after half a foot's worth that the yarn was completely concealing the owl effect, leaving the cables just looking messy and unbalanced.  So I pulled that out and retrieved my Little Box of Socks by Charlene Schurch and Beth Parrott, which has some good patterns for hand-painted yarn. I chose the Faceted Rib sock and have made a start on that instead. It's a simple four-row pattern with slipped stitches on two of the rows.

I haven't done much on the Japanese dollhouse garden this week.  I improvised a ramshackle dust cover from some scraps of perspex I had lying around, made even more ramshackle than it needed to be by my lack of anything effective to cut the perspex with.  The jig saw just shattered it, the little scrollsaw couldn't cope with the thickness, a Stanley knife made little impact.  I ended up grooving a line with a cutting disk on a Dremel tool and then snapping each piece off along the grooved line.  It's not pretty and by no means airtight, but hopefully it will stave off the worst of the dust settling.  Then I spent a tiring few hours tidying up the dollshouse room after the build, as I have a bad habit of covering every available surface (including the floor) with discarded materials and tools until I end up working on a three-inch bare patch remaining on one corner of the desk.  I also re-organised my extensive collection of terrain materials, trying to get everything out of their crumpled leaking packaging and into labelled plastic containers.  And I've made a start on a little ladle for the basin, adapting a 1/24 teacup. It's very cold in the dollshouse room however, which is not enticing.

Otherwise I'm still hand-quilting the applique quilt, I've done a bit of cross-stitch on the house sampler, I've started a free kit for a cross-stitch angel christmas decoration, and I'm in the home stretch of stitching the bobbin lace edging to its fabric.  And I've spent far too much time playing an old video game called 'Dishonored'. 

And then it was spring

 I've just been out in the garden doing a bit of tidying up and it was lovely to see all the snowdrops blooming away, crocuses poking up green sprouts, daffodils ditto, buds on the magnolia and cherry trees...and of course lots of weeds getting in on the action and the slugs are doing their annual decimation of the primroses. We've made it to February, so time to stop comfort eating and try to look forward to spring and eventually an end to lockdown.  The government is now optimistically saying that all over-50s may be vaccinated by the end of May, I 'll believe that when it happens.

I finished the thumb on my Steeked Jamieson Spindrift mitts and decided I didn't like it at all, so pulled it out.  These will remain as wristwarmers with a thumb hole.  I've still got a fair bit of yarn left from the hat kit but I'll just add that to the general Jamieson stash baskets.

I spent most of the week working on the appliqued binder cover.  I gave up on the instructions, because anyway my binder was a different size, and so I just kind of winged it from the kit photo.  Embroidery is not my thing so that's a bit crude, but overall it is cute.  You want a binder cover to be snug so it doesn't wrinkle but this is probably a bit too snug.  I'm happy with it though and it makes something functional into something nice to look at. The scissor and ruler charms came with the kit.

  n  

While sewing, I am listening to or watching things on my 'new' laptop (previously DS's).  I got fed up with the weak wifi signal in the sewing room so spent an hour or so running a long ethernet cable from the socket I installed in the dollhouse room when we moved in six years ago, along the basement and piercing through the basement stairs from which it emerges to just reach into the sewing room at the other side of the house. The socket didn't actually work back when I first wired it in, thanks to my ineffectual join in the outside cable, and I had done a repair on a ladder six years ago then never actually got round to testing the socket again.  Luckily it does in fact work and I am connected to the router upstairs. The only issue now is the huge amount of room being taken up by the large old laptop and all its peripherals on my not-very-big cutting table.  I've scootched it all over to one side near the wall.

Another thing I sewed this week was an organiser pouch from a pattern called Viewables by Liz Schaffner of 'Moments by Liz', which FB pimped me a discount for.  This is a very useful little pattern for seven sizes of accordion-sided zip pouches.  I made mine from some Aldi fabric and some upcycled vinyl from packaging that a duvet came in, but now that I understand the pattern, I might make some more. They would make great gifts too.

The pouch was to contain my new assortment of Wonderfil 'Invisifil' 100-wt invisible thread, which I used for the first time on the binder cover.  I think this thread has been around for a while, it is marketed as a 'cottonised' alternative to the usual shiny plastic fishing-line type of invisible thread, and it comes in loads of colours.  I saw the full-page ad in the AQS magazine and decided to try it because I have another applique quilt pattern I mean to get to one day. I bought two assortment packs that were on sale.  My review would be:  Pros - the thin thread does almost vanish into the fabric when I buttonholed around my fusible applique, giving a superior result with none of the shine I've seen even on so-called matte invisible thread in the past. There are loads of colours, so it was easy to find something to tone in with most fabric colours.  Cons - my (high quality and fairly new) machine really struggled with this thread, shredding it constantly at the needle and breaking the thread.  I started with a 70 size quilting needle, which should be making a hole plenty big enough for this thread because you don't want to punch huge holes into fusible applique, switched to a fresh 70 size quilting needle, then tried a 75 embroidery needle, and ended up using a 75 Metafil needle intended for metallic thread.  The last needle was the best but still not great.  I loosened the top tension to avoid the bobbin thread peeking through.  Another thing I noticed which is sort of a 'con' is that the thread is so invisible that you do not get any definition around the fusible applique, the way you would if you buttonhole stitched with a normal thread. Stitching with a normal thread would also give a sort of 'edge' to the applique helping to conceal the threads of the raw edge, and this thread is too thin to do that. So I feel that some of my applique pieces just kind of disappear into the background due to insufficient contrast in fabric colours and the raw edge of the appliques can appear more visible.  Still, it was interesting to try the thread and I will likely use it again.

I worked some more on the Japanese dollshouse garden this week, and I think I am just about come to the end of what I can do with it.

I started out making a 'bamboo' fence out of kebab sticks, based on one I had taken a photo of in a park in Japan.

Kebab sticks

paint effects

Ties made from black thread, and installation

Dressed with some shrubberies for privacy.  The fence conceals the 

path leading to the service quarters.

I had noticed in previous terrain videos that gamers pre-make tussocks and bushes by adding scatter to little piles of glue on a non-porous surface, and I wondered if I could do the same at my scale.  So I tried it out on an old tupperware lid, making little piles of tacky glue and poking chopped up artificial foliage into the glue.  It actually worked surprisingly well. The glue dries translucent then you can peel it off the tupperware with the help of a knife and turn the bush over to finish drying on the underside.  Any protruding translucent flaps can be snipped off with scissors.  I dropped some green scatter on top of the fresh glue of the 'ferns' to conceal the butts of the plastic pieces.  The flat bottom gives a good gluing surface when it comes time to install the bushes.

I glued the viewing pavilion into place then added the roof.  The roof needed some kind of ridge pole to finish it off so I concocted something. I'm not entirely pleased with it but I think it looks generic enough that it doesn't stand out.  I had ordered a small pot of Vallejo Still Water to fill my stone basin with, and on the same website spotted some realistic looking taller shrubbery which came yesterday.  So I spent some time adding my ferns and bushes and the tall shrubbery around the garden as finishing touches. The Still Water has to be added in 3mm layers so in the picture it is only the first layer and I have since filled the basin up to the top.  I'll make a little ladle to go across the basin.

Apart from tidying up some stray flock spills, there isn't much more I can do to the garden so I think it's just about finished.  I need to stipple the service path on the lift-away portion of the garden to match the path on the house base, and I could put something in the pavilion like cushions or a tea set.  It's come out better than I expected but not as good as I had hoped, if that makes any sense.  It certainly sets the house off very nicely.  

Now - do I carry on working on this house and start trying to accessorise the interiors?