When your camera photos start looking like your (ageing) eyesight

 Well, all the photos this week look poster-ised thanks to the camera somehow getting reset from automatic to god-knows-what. Apologies, although they do resemble what the world is starting to look like without my glasses on.  I only found out when I uploaded the week's snapshots so it's too late to go back and retake them all (also I'm too lazy).

So you will have to use your imagination a bit to make out what the strip-pieced star top looks like in its finished state.  As expected, it isn't that big, about 60"x70ish", so on my Queen mattress (60x80) it was only a topper.

I've had the week off (using up leave) so I made a real push in the first few days to sew the rest of the rows together (tedious) and press all the crossing seams open (even more tedious). But I'm quite pleased with the finished result and the soft colours, very cottagy.  Obviously it needed a border, both to make it bigger and to finish it off.  I had a trawl through my stash looking for something low volume that would go with the stars. I selected a small floral in similar colours with a slight period feel to it, I wanted a frame that wouldn't shout out, just support the stars from the background.  For now I've added it as a plain frame but perhaps after it's quilted, I will cut the border edge into scallop shapes. It looks better in real life than it does in this blurry picture.

I've cut matching binding strips and sewn a backing from some Tilda yardage, and added the quilt to the queue of quilts waiting for when DS eventually moves out and I can take over the dining room (his office) and set up the quilting frame.  I think there are 10 quilts now in the queue.  With that project off the cutting table, I've now booked my 'new' sewing machine in for its first service since buying it two years ago.  I did investigate local service places but for the same price I can send it back to where I bought it (Sew Direct in Wales) so that's now booked in for courier collection next week.  However I am going to try one of the local places for a service on my overlocker to see if they can bring it back from the dead.  I've discovered (after realising the Janome 6234XL overlocker looked identical to my ancient Janome 634D) that the 6234XL blades will fit my old overlocker. As the non-functional dull blades are one of  the main issues, along with tension, I thought was worth spending out on a service before spending hundreds of pounds on a replacement. DH is going to drive me and the overlocker over to the shop soon to drop it off. On the bad news front, I discovered a left over screw from when I took it apart.... oops.  Perhaps if I give that to the service people they can work out where it goes.

On the advice of Swooze, I gave the antique Mennonite top another rinse after detaching the blocks that were running, and still more dye came out so perhaps even the red plaid is running a bit as well.  I also found that the fabric, although a lot cleaner, is a bit rotten.  I'm tempted to just throw the whole thing out but I had a trawl through the stash to see if I had anything I could use as a border.  I didn't have any suitable reds and a black print just killed the pattern, then I thought green as a complementary colour.  It turns out that I have very few greens in my stash - loads of blue, fair bit of reds and pinks, almost no green fabrics.  I found one reproduction print that is the right shade of green but there isn't very much of it. I'll have to do some arithmetic to see how wide a border I could piece.  Must order some more green fabric online.

I've spent a lot of my week off working on the knackered arts and crafts bookcase/desk that I stupidly impulse-bought in Cumbria.  After watching a lot of Youtube videos where professionals use amazing products and expensive power tools to rejuvenate antique furniture, I thought it was worth seeing what I could do with my paltry skills and feeble tools.  I'd already taken all the hardware off so I gave the desk a good clean with sugar soap to degrease and take off the first layer of filth.  Then I spent a day poisoning myself and the other two household members with fumes, as I took off the wax finish with steel wool and wax remover.  Then I started repairs, harvesting period oak wood from the £5 mirror I bought for the purpose on Facebook.  I cut and glued in the missing drawer support, cut and replaced the 'heel' of the foot which had been previously cut off due to woodworm so the desk is now much more stable, filled some holes and cracks, glued up a few gaping seams, and managed to greatly reduce the opacity of a big black ink stain on the inside.  My dollshouse collection of wood stains has come in very useful for matching replacement pieces and fills to the original. The piece de resistance was designing and cutting a curlicue trim piece to substitute for the missing little door across the right hand upper cupboard.  We have no power tools that will cut a straight line, and no bandsaw, so it was all a bit of a bodge job using a power jigsaw and a Dremel tool sanding drum.  By no means perfect but it came out a lot better than I thought it would.  Unfortunately the grain of the mirror's oak is much broader than the fine grain of the desk, so my replacement piece is never going to look original.  Perhaps it's like restoring old houses where the planners insist the new additions look completely different from the old part.  I've now got to put the wax back on for a final finish which I've started on, before replacing the hardware.  Hopefully it's going to look better than when I started anyhow.

The donor mirror frame 

Curly doo-dah on the top right is mine

The foot repair

I had an enjoyable outing today to the Makit Fenland Lace and Needlecraft Fair, my first such fair since before the you-know-what.  I was a bit worried beforehand but the Lace Guild was holding its AGM at the same venue today which I wanted to support, so altogether I felt it was worth having a look.  It turned out to be fine: the majority of people in the hall and at the AGM meeting were wearing masks or face shields, there was plenty of hand sanitiser, and it's a fair which has always had wide aisles anyway so it was easy to avoid getting too near to people.  Between COVID and the UK fuel crisis, I wondered if there would be many vendors or customers, but I would say levels weren't that far below normal.  I think about 75% on the traders and maybe 60% or higher on the customers.  I also wondered if I would buy anything, since I haven't been doing a lot of lace lately, but I did get a bit carried away by the sheer pleasure of seeing new stuff and doing something 'normal'.  Excuse the rubbish blurry photos but this is my haul.

I found the bookmark sleeves I wanted to protect the bobbin thread picture I stitched last week, and on the same stall some plastic key chains and a coaster for inserting lace or anything else really.  There was a cute little turned wooden jar with beeswax in it, and some pretty old-fashioned needlework scissors.  On another stall I picked up some beginner books on needletatting.  I didn't get very far with needletatting when I tried to learn from online last year, mainly due to a lack of beginner-friendly patterns.  But it did seem easier than shuttle tatting so I thought having some instructional books would definitely help me.  The bobbins include my usual purchase from Margaret Wall of a Christmas bobbin showing a bunny hanging a stocking on a tree, a painted bobbin that looked like Japanese cherry blossom from another stall, and two timely souvenir bobbins: one for Lockdown Lacemaking 2020, and one for the first anniversary of the Lace Suppliers Spotlight Facebook page (another lockdown creation which helped small lace vendors keep going during the time where no fairs were taking place).  I also bought some Sublime Merino aran wool from a lady having a clearance after losing her husband, after listening to her spiel my tender heart was twanged and I bought something to support her as well.  I thought it might make a nice hat and glove set perhaps as a gift.

The fifth block of the Australian BOM turned up in today's post so I can get started on that this week.  While I was waiting for it to come, I've been working on the little house sampler cross-stitch, and continuing the hand quilting on the 25-block applique quilt.  I've quilted all 16 blocks around the edge of the quilt now so have started on one of the remaining nine in the middle.  

And suddenly it's October - how did that happen?  Time just seems to be rushing along all of a sudden, do you find that?