Un-Happy Villages

  This week I took an online workshop to make a 'Happy Villages' wallhanging, taught by the technique's creator Karen Eckmeier.  In six hours we made a start on collaging our oddly shaped template-cut scraps into a 'village' and started adding rooftops, windows, doors etc.  The technique seems fairly simple when Karen explains it and she's a good teacher, having been teaching this class since 2005 I think.  Unfortunately, I totally sucked at it, and found the six hour workshop mentally and physically exhausting.  So no happy village for me and my village came perilously close to ending up in the bin several times.  The collage technique that Karen showed, where she quickly nested together several odd shapes into an organic whole, seemed to be completely beyond me.  I don't do jigsaw puzzles and really struggled to get  my pieces to fit together properly. Karen also effortlessly freehand cut beautiful trees, peaked roofs and windows - I couldn't do it. I would cut a triangular roof, it would be crooked, I would trim it, still crooked, trim it again, now it's too small for the building it was going on; I'd cut a door and it would be crooked; I would try to cut eight matching windows and they were five different sizes.  My pieces kept falling off or got knocked askew, half the fabric I had prepared was the wrong colour so I had to pull more - my sewing room looks like a bomb went off in it now.  My wallhanging is starting to look like a village now but still needs a lot of doors and windows and detail.  Karen's quilts are amazing - she gave us a slideshow and her imagination is incredible, everything from undersea villages to villages on the moon.  Once the collage is finished and tacked down with basting glue, you apply a layer of tulled over the whole picture to hold down the pieces and then quilt around all the shapes.  I've ordered a copy of her book in case owning it will magically make me better at the process.

My second attempt at collaging - the first was awful so I had a re-do

With some roofs and windows added, starting to look more like a village now. But I don't like how chaotic my colours are, it looks messy. I also don't like how out of proportion the various buildings are, although Karen said not to worry about proportion or perspective.

I posted the pretty Mother's Day card that I made first class. It should have got there Thursday or Friday, and it's gone missing so my m-i-l won't have it for Mothers Day tomorrow.  Really annoying, I hope it turns up eventually.

I finished the 'EFG' block of my Little Houses cross stitch sampler.  It's looking really good I think.  I have one more row of three to add at the bottom.

This week I finished the Ripstop nylon backpack and I've been field testing it when I go out.  It's working quite well apart from the rain flap on the top zip, being fairly flimsy in this thin fabric, constantly gets jammed in the zipper so I'll have to try to fix that.  I hacked the Youtube tutorial to add an extra zipped pocket on the front, two waterbottle pockets, a laptop sleeve inside, and a security zipped pocket on the back plus a trolley sleeve.  The intention is for this to be my travel daypack so I'll take it to Paducah next month.  If I were to make it again, I would choose a Cordura type fabric I think which would be a bit more rugged.

It's felt strange this week not having my son living with us any longer. I keep thinking I hear him upstairs, and it feels really quiet during the day when DH is working.  I've been compensating by throwing myself into decorating my son's old room.  When he lived in it, it was a gloomy cave, with dark grey walls and a navy carpet that we inherited when we bought the house, plus he rarely opened his blind so as to avoid glare on his PC screen.  The walls were all marked up and had various holes left over from former curtain rods etc.  I emptied the room out with DH's help, cleaned it all up and filled the holes, and started by painting the ceiling beam (stripped by the former owners) and the ceiling.  Then I cut in all the corners and angles, and rollered a first coat of paint on the walls.  All hard work for my upper body but I definitely feel that doing Aquafit twice a week has made me a lot stronger than I used to be before retirement.  I've ordered a new blind, new light fixtures and we ordered a new carpet, along with a new bed and mattress, so it will be all changed when it's done. Meanwhile the furniture is cluttering up other parts of the house. We haven't told DS yet that we've basically gutted his room in case it hurts his feelings.  Meanwhile he is happily settling in to his new place and everything seems to be going well for them which is great.

old colour - looking less gloomy because the blind is open

New colour on walls (first coat) and on ceiling.

Spring has sprung and the clocks go forward tonight - we get the time change wrong almost every year so I will probably have no idea what the right time is for the next few days.  The daffodils are blooming in the garden and also our magnolia tree is looking lovely.  It's hitting about 15 degrees C in the afternoons, so warm enough to go out without a coat on, but still quite chilly at night.

Empty nest

 DS has left the building.  We had a very long day yesterday making two trips down to Milton Keynes with all his stuff (about a 45-60 min drive) and on the second trip it was our job to meet the 'man with a van' that the girlfriend had hired to move her apartment contents. Meanwhile DS and girlfriend were travelling by train from her flat so they didn't arrive until later.  DH had to help the man tote everything up to the first floor.  Then we started moving things to the second floor bedrooms.  Once DS and girlfriend arrived, they started unpacking and we helped with preliminary furniture placement, sorting out bags to be unpacked, carrying more stuff upstairs, removing rubbish etc.  Then we drove them to IKEA (they are currently car-less) for DS to buy a work-from-home desk, storage shelves, and the usual trolley full of things that you didn't go for but realise you may need.   That filled the car up to the point where girlfriend and I had to stay in the canteen (we had all eaten supper there, meatballs of course) while they took the IKEA stuff back to the flat, then returned to fetch us.  DH and I finally got home about 8pm absolutely exhausted, but we toasted the new couple in a bottle of champagne they gave us as a thank you.

This leaves DS's room in our house in theory empty, but in reality still containing a lot of things he wants to keep but doesn't want in the new flat.  So we need to pack all that up and move it to the attic, we will start today.  It also needs a huge clean, and eventually we will redecorate the room.  DS's departure has a knock on effect on many things: the fridge is a lot emptier now that all his Asian sauces and jars that he liked to experiment with are gone for example, and for the first time in two years we have our dining table back.  I was able to take off the waterproof cloth that's been protecting it while it was functioning as DS's office, take the leaf out, and expose the natural wood.  The floorboards are all chewed up where his office chair was rolling around but otherwise it looks like a dining room again.

On Thursday I travelled up to the Birmingham NEC for the Sewing for Pleasure/Creative Crafts show.  I had a nice wander around although the 2.5 hour journey by train had tired me out before I even got there. I was only there three hours then had the return journey so it may not be worth it, I don't know. It's the kind of thing I looked forward to being able to do in retirement - go to craft shows on weekdays - but I've been feeling quite tired lately.  I did buy a dress-worth of washed linen in a pretty teal colour which will be another linen dress, and a half yard of tapestry fabric for making bags.  I purchased a Sapphire anniversary bobbin from the Lace Guild stand to support their celebration of their Sapphire anniversary.  As there is still no sign of the webbing I ordered (I've had to open a Paypal dispute now), I was able to get some at the show and the necessary plastic buckles.

So with the webbing I've been able to work on my ripstop nylon backpack again, and have added the straps and handle to the back piece.  So all I need to do now is to join the back piece to the prepared front/sides structure.

I can work on the ripstop backpack because I finished the Karvi mini backpack earlier in the week.  It's turned out fairly well. The cork fabric behaved much better than I feared it might, and gives a nice professional look to the bag.  The hardware all went on ok, and apart from some wobbly topstitching, the bag looks pretty good.  I feel like my bagmaking skills are improving.

As the next instalment of the Australian BOM hasn't arrived yet, I've gone back to working on my Little houses cross stitch sampler which had been waiting patiently in a corner of the living room.  I'm working on the F-G-H picture.

Mother's Day in the UK is approaching, so I had a go at a cardmaking cutting file from the Brother site which I cut out on my Brother Scan N Cut.  It's a pop up card, so it folds flat for postage but I think I will need to post it in some kind of box so it doesn't get crushed.

Meanwhile it is glorious sunshine outside, yesterday was up to 15 degrees C, our magnolia tree is starting to blossom, and the daffodils are out everywhere.  Spring has definitely sprung here.  How about where you are?

Marriage rush hour

 DS, having now reached that age when all his friends are getting married, is off attending a wedding this weekend with his girlfriend. My Japanese teacher said Japanese call this age 結婚ラッシュ, which translates to something like 'marriage-rush hour'.  Having him away is giving me a foreshadowing of the empty nest which is fast approaching and I feel a bit sad. I know he has to go out and be an independent adult though. And it's certainly helping my ongoing decluttering because in addition to his own things getting packed up, I've been finding other stuff we can give to him to help get him started - like the redundant IKEA bookcase from my sewing room and some closet organisers from our last house.  I've realised that I only know how to cook for three people, it's going to be really difficult to readjust my thinking to quantities for two people.  Luckily we have a decent-sized freezer.

We're off to check the caravan today, which we do regularly while it is in winter storage. We're also going to try to swap out the almost-empty gas canister for a full one, ready for the upcoming season.  Apparently there were severe shortages of gas last season due to the huge demand during staycation time, but we were able to get through the entire summer with the canister that came with the van since we usually have electric hookup on site. The storage site exchanges gas canisters so hopefully they have our size in stock and we can do that today.

I finished the little red cotton baby cardigan and will be sending this off to California to my friend for her little girl. I think it's too big for her at the moment but she will grow into it.

I blocked the vanilla socks that I posted last week, and you can see the ankle stitch patterns much better now. I've been wearing them as bedsocks and they fit quite well.

I've spent several more hours this week finishing off the spinning tool holder that I cut out on my Brother ScanNCut.  The whole thing has taken ages and needed a lot of refining/sanding to get everything to fit together, due to the inherent error factor when gluing multiple layers together.  I really don't feel the end product is worth all the time it took, but somewhat to my surprise it does actually spin fairly well (it pivots on a central dowel). I'm going to keep my ScanNCut tools in it.  I don't know if I will make anything else from that USB - I will certainly calculate in advance how many pieces need to be cut out before choosing anything.

I finished Month 9 of the Australian BOM. The cat popped out of nowhere to photobomb the pictures. There was a lot of work in this block because of the applique.  I've started Month 10 which is just embroidery and it's going a lot faster.  I think we are getting near the end of the embroidered blocks and will be moving on to the pieced fabric sections soon.

Still no sign of the webbing straps that I need for the ripstop nylon backpack so instead I have made a start on the Kavi mini backpack pattern.  For me this is quite a technical build with various hardware pieces to install, various types of stabilisers , and my first experience sewing with cork fabric.  The cork (which is a thin layer of cork adhered to a knit fabric background) is actually not bad to work with, my machine seems to be sewing through it easily as a double layer.  For six or eight layers (when you are sewing folded straps to already constructed flaps for example) I've had to switch up to the Super Stretch needle that the engineer recommended to avoid skipped stitches.  Despite trying to be careful, I'm having my usual issues with visibly wobbling top stitching but overall it's going well so far (touch wood).

My computer, after a short-lived rallying following a hard reset of the router, is starting to play up again. I'm also getting warnings that the CPU is not compatible with the coming Windows 11. I don't know, maybe it's time to get a new one. This one is five years old which I suppose in dog years is getting on.  At least it will still let me play the video game except that I've worn out my controller (one of the buttons stopped working, allowing enemies to bash me at will while I ineffectually mashed an attack button that wasn't doing anything) so I've had to order a new controller. Thus two days of withdrawal symptoms but the new controller should come today and I can get back into it. Also the Osaka sumo tournament starts tomorrow so lots of TV time over the next few weeks watching those highlights on NHK. DH is baffled that after a lifetime of loathing all sports, I have chosen sumo as my sport to be interested in.  We went to the Osaka tournament in person in 2019 which was my first time actually seeing the matches, and I just found the whole thing so fascinating.  The cultural and religious aspects, the apparently simple rules (unlike, say, the arcane aspects of football), the lack of weight classes which can see comparatively tiny wrestlers fighting behemoths (and often beating them with clever technique), the discipline involved - and the short matches which suit my sometimes short attention span. I hope to go to another tournament in person if I ever get back to Japan (which still hasn't fully opened its borders).

I'm weak

 Not a lot of crafting this week as a massive new time suck has entered my life:  Elden Ring.  This is a 'souls-like' video game that released recently, and DS and I went halves on buying it.  Since we are sharing it on his Steam account, I can only play it when he isn't playing it, but even that has eaten up 14 hours of my life this week.  I have no willpower once I turn it on: I start out thinking 'I'll just play for an hour then go and do something worthwhile' and after that it's an endless string of 'what's over there?' 'I need one more X and I can level up', 'aaargh stupid monster that leapt out of nowhere and one-shot me' etc.  However my proven  ineptitude at combat is continuing, DS has reached level 90 while I am lingering around level 20 and averaging one death (mine) every five minutes or so.  The game is still  addictive and I have a problem  :)

The webbing I ordered two weeks ago has still not arrived although the supplier eventually responded to say it will get despatched eventually as they are snowed under with volume of orders. So I haven't been able to progress the ripstop nylon backpack.  I did cut out most of the copious number of pieces for the Kavi Mini Backpack, a design from the Bag of the Month club that I am still subscribing to.  I haven't made the patterns up for a few months as they didn't appeal to me, but this pack looks like it will be useful for popping into town with. I have some cork for the contrast material, which will be the first time I have tried to sew with that.

Another project with a copious number of pieces is this spinning tool caddy I've been cutting out with my Brother Scan N Cut.  It's from a cutting file by Cutting Craftorium, and on the face of it, it seems like an easy project. You take 1mm greyboard, cut out the pieces, and glue them up in layers of three to create 3mm boards that you then decorate with scrapbook paper. Being terrible at arithmetic, I hadn't really worked through the requirements of cutting three layers of over 30 pieces which the rest of you bright people will realise is around 90 pieces of cardboard plus cutting over 50 pieces of cardstock.  This took a very. long. time....  around 5 hours or more.  It blunted my blade as well, so this is turning into an expensive and time consuming project.  Since taking this picture, I have glued up all the various sandwiches of card and paper, weighing it all down with books on my cutting table over a few days while it dries, and have sanded the edges.  I still need to paint the edges and then do the final assembly.  I am skeptical that the end result is going to be worth all this time and money but I've started so I will continue. On the plus side, the machine behaved really well for the most part.  The mat that I made sticky again with the Pinflair Temporary Stencil Glue is working great, better than the original state it came in.

I finished the pieces for the red garter stitch baby jacket and have wet blocked and pressed them ready for assembly and adding the collar.

I finished the vanilla socks I started in the caravan in the late summer.  They aren't blocked in this picture so the ankle pattern isn't stretched out properly yet, they will look better once blocked.  I just noodled various stitch patterns as my fancy struck me for the ankle, but then had to recreate it for the second sock.  Knitting nerds please note I achieved a similar looking pair with this self-striping yarn.

I fancy knitting a summer t-shirt with some soft mint cotton boucle yarn I bought at Aldi so I knit a tension swatch.  I found a really nice plain t-shirt pattern on Ravelry but unfortunately it requires DK yarn and the Aldi yarn is knitting up at 19.25 stitches to 10cm which is more of an Aran weight. So I'll have to go back to Ravelry and look for a different pattern since I don't feel up to converting the first pattern's raglan decreases to match my gauge.

I bought some embroidered double gauze from Fabric Godmother on spec, it has turned out well as the fabric arrived this week and is so soft and the embroidery is subtle and not scratchy at all.  This is for a summer blouse pattern I bought from Sew Liberated at the same time that I bought the dress I made up a few weeks ago.

We took DS to Milton Keynes yesterday to meet the letting agent and collect the keys to his new flat. I say flat, but it is more like a maisonette over two floors.  Apart from a somewhat manky kitchen, it is all in really good condition in a recent new-build, streaks above anything we could have afforded at his age.  It's like he's jumped the first three or four rungs of the housing ladder that we climbed, but good for him. Over the next few weeks we will help him get packed up and move the first tranche of possessions over.  His girlfriend is supplying most of the furnishings so we are mainly dealing with clothing, PC equipment, his computer chair etc.  It's a big step for us all.

And finally, we had some visitors in the garden this week: a flock of six goldfinches! We don't often get them in our garden, but they seemed to quite like the dead seedheads on the Verbena Bonariensis and were perched all over that, having a good nibble.