Autumnal weather

 Ever since we got back from the last caravan holiday, the weather has remained autumnal and I have actually worn a knitted hat for a few walks in early morning or evening. Hard to believe it's still August, apart from the second flush of roses in the garden it is starting to feel more like autumn. Still, I would far rather have cooler temperatures than the awful heat wave some weeks ago.

This week I have been soldiering on with Block 3 of the Australian BOM.  As I re-drew the block, I had to substitute a couple of the kit fabrics since I couldn't wash off the pre-printed embroidery transfer on the provided fabric. I've also found that my normal go-to fusible web, Steam a Seam Lite 2, is not working well for hand embroidery.  The glue is gumming up the needle and the stiff layer is difficult to stitch through, so I'm not enjoying this block.  I've queried the supplier and they recommend Clover Wonderfuse which they say hardly adds any stiffness, so I've ordered some of that from Amazon and will try it on any subsequent applique block.  Block 4 hasn't shown up yet so I feel like I am catching up.

I have been amassing a small collection of different kinds of embroidery needles and felt that was getting out of control, and it was hard to get needles out of the various packets and baggies.  I looked online to see what others do, and one solution from America was to use a baseball trading card album.  The UK equivalent appears to be a Pokemon-type card album, so I ordered a cheap A5 one of those, then disguised its hideousness with a fabric slipcover and sewed on a crocheted doo-da I had in my stash.  I cut up some weird flannel/bump stuff that I inherited from another quilter to use for the needles, and labelled them in permanent marker although it was difficult to write on the flannel stuff.  Anyway,  it all feels a lot more organised now and easier to access.

DS was away for last weekend visiting the girlfriend, so I was able to move his computer stuff off the dining table and use it to lay out the crocheted insert that I bought several weeks ago for a few pounds, on top of the antique cotton tablecloth ditto. I soon realised that neither were square and the crochet in particular was quite distorted.  I dealt with the tablecloth by ironing central and horizontal creases into it for reference lines.  The crochet I had to wash and wetblock, making extensive measurements to try to stretch it into something that lay flat and was approximately square.  It really is an amazing piece of work, tiny stitches in cotton thread and so much work in it.  Once it dried, I pinned it to the tablecloth trying to keep it all square.  I attached the crochet to the cloth by zig-zagging around the edges, made more difficult by the wobbly crochet in places and some unwanted fullness.  So it's not perfect but at least both pieces have been rescued from neglect and will get used again.  Then I very carefully cut away the cloth from behind the crochet insert.  The result is an attractive Victorian look which we enjoyed for about 18 hours before having to reinstate the protective layers that keep the dining table from being ruined by DS using it as his office.

I've assembled a few more rows of the strip-pieced star quilt, started the final repeat on the Bucks point butterfly mat, and part assembled the knitted penguin from the magazine kit. 

My major achievement this week is that I have spent about 10-12 hours finally working on my pensions. It was difficult to overcome the procrastination (and black despair about my incompetence) but I worked through all the files, assembled a list of all my pots (10 of them!!) and started researching information about each pot or emailing providers for missing documents.  I also had a one hour session with a free government advice helpline yesterday called Pensionwise, which was useful, and I've been watching lots of Youtube videos while I'm in my sewing room.  So I feel a big sense of achievement even though technically I haven't really reached any conclusions or decisions yet :).

I hope your week has been similarly productive!