Out and about

 I went down to London on Wednesday, just for the day.  I had lunch with my son who works in the City, and then went to see a couple of things in the afternoon.  I visited a free exhibition near Farringdon at the Goldsmith's Centre called The Craft of Tea 1660-2024 featuring silver teaware from a private collection, starting right from early examples when tea had just arrived in England, up to very recent works by UK silversmiths.  Some lovely things.

Then I hopped on a bus out to the Shoreditch Town Hall to visit Craftworks, a showcase of artisans and craftworkers in conjunction with London Craft Week.  Some very beautiful and expensive displays in the institutional grandeur of the old town hall, everything from glass blowing to tapestry weaving.  All very high end, lots of nice things to admire.

I finished with a trip up to Camden Lock Market, somewhere I hadn't been for a few decades.  At one point, say 30 years ago, I felt I knew London pretty well: I'd worked in various locations around the city, I'd done all the tourist spots and heritage walks etc.  But this week's trip really made me feel like I don't know London at all anymore - a combination of having forgotten and because so many things have changed.  Camden Lock is much more organised than I remember: most of the kiosks are in purpose built lock-up units now and there is a lot of tourist tat, but it's still a labyrinth of converted industrial buildings and covered over alleyways. Amidst the tat and t-shirt shops are some of interest: a branch of Bandai Namco complete with gashapon machines, a Japan food store (bought some mochi), an American sweet store (bought some Red Vine licorice), a secondhand bookstore, and hundreds of food stalls with cuisine from around the globe.  

Back at home, I have finished up Version 2 of my travel knapsack.  I'm waiting for a good heavy rainfall so I can test out how waterproof it will be. I haven't any way of sealing the seams so they will let in some water, but overall it should be a lot more water resistant than my old one.  The straps aren't going to be as comfortable though, but I'll test it out in Latvia and see how I get on.

I've done a little more work on the Lori Holt My Favourite Things quilt top, swapping out one background fabric I didn't like and adding a bit of sashing, but I still need to choose a border fabric.

I've also loaded my oldest quilt UFO onto the longarm, a reproduction Lone Star quilt that I bought as a kit  over 20 years ago at Houston Quilt Market.  I started piecing it at our last house, put it together 10 years ago in this house, and actually basted it into a sandwich on my old quilting frame a few years ago but had been procrastinating ever since about the quilting.  Now that I have the bigger machine and can use rulers to do the continuous curve quilting on the points, it's all so much easier.  Fighting with it at the sit down machine and attempting to free motion the coninuous curves would have been a nightmare.

I've started a fair isle hat which is the Bonnie Isle hat, the 2022 Shetland Wool Week patttern.  I bought the kit in 2022 from Jamiesons' using Spindrift yarn but hadn't got around to actually making it. I want a project to take to Latvia although it will be a bit bulky with all the colours - maybe I can squash it into a compression cube.

We had our first night away in the caravan: a test camp not far from the storage site.  As well as having to replace the gas bottle and discovering a few things we had forgotten, I found more gifts from the stupid cat. Not content with shedding all over my duvet and pillow, she must have been kneading our matched set of throw pillows as well, which now feature several pulled threads and snagged loops hanging out.  Free cat anyone?  We did have some nice walks along the nearby canal and saw lots of narrowboats, marinas and locks on the canal.

Gearing up for summer

 The UK had its hottest day of the year so far yesterday, reaching about 25C where we are. It's definitely feeling like summer is just about here, and we've eaten lunch out in the garden most days.  We've taken the winter wrappings off the big fountain, and put out the ornaments that live in the shed over winter.  Unfortunately the little water pump in our other plastic water fountain didn't make it through the winter, attempts to plug it in resulted in repeatedly tripping the RCD protector for the house, so the pump is toast.  Maybe the scaffolders squashed the cable or something. We then gave the shed a big clear out, it was a disaster zone.  

And because summer is coming, our little caravan has been in for its annual (expensive) service, and we've taken three car loads of caravan stuff over to put back in it. I was not impressed to take my duvet and pillow out of their storage bag and find they were covered in cat hair - the cat had obviously burrowed in and made herself a nice cocoon over the winter.  Hopefully this summer will be without any more car trouble.

I've been working on my new travel daypack this week, it was going pretty well until after I took this photo, when I came to do the final assembly.  I managed to put both strap buckles on backwards, so those need to come off again. And there are a few puckers here and there. But overall it has turned out pretty well. I've added all the same hacks that I enhanced the original one with: hidden passport pocket on the back, trolley sleeve, extra zip pocket on the front, internal lap top sleeve, internal snacks pocket, and twin water bottle holders.

I'm just finishing up the third cross stitch Houses of Britain instalment.  So much backstitching... but it really makes it.

I've added a few things to the kitchen of my Japanese dollshouse this week, including this faux sake barrel. I printed out part of a photo I took of an actual sake barrel to use as the label, and shaped a bit of wooden dowel to be the interior.

I've made a start on the new piece of bobbin lace this week, but it doesn't look like much yet.  And I loaded a practice sandwich onto the longarm and did some practice for the first time in a couple of months.  It seems to be working a lot better after its trip to the workshop so that's good.

Now that I'm home, I've returned to the decluttering project and have flogged several unwanted items on Facebook this week.  Including the rucksack I bought for my first holiday after retiring, to Italy, when I discovered that I am now too old to comfortably carry my worldly possessions on my back. It's gone to an energetic young woman who does expeditions, so that's good.  

I've spent a lot of time this week scoping out a possible trip to Norway next year. I've never been to Scandinavia and of course there is the knitting, and the hardanger. Travel there is reminding me of New Zealand: lots of fjords and mountains in the way when trying to go places.  I'm off to Latvia next for a knitting holiday all about knitting Latvian mittens, I hope it's good. I haven't got very far with my own attempt at a Latvian mitten so I may take my project along for advice if I'm feeling brave.

Thousands of photos later...

 One of the jobs this week, in between weeding stints in the garden, was to tackle the 4760+ photos that I took over seven weeks.  After retrieving them from their SD backup weekly folders, I split them into separate days then started the mammoth task of reviewing.  I've managed to whittle them down to 3600 - there were a lot of duplicates from slightly different angles, plus a lot of very dodgy 'through the bus window' attempts to capture passing scenery.  Out of the 3600, I am trying to pull together a representative selection of around 100 to show the in-laws, which is virtually impossible.  Without context, it just looks like more lakes, more mountains, more Maori carvings etc.  I've done my best.

At least I've got back to doing some crafts.  I finished the little coloured Bruge Lace flower that I started before the trip. It's a pattern from a German book with no translation other than Google so I was kind of winging it. Mistakes were made - but it looks cute.

Now I'm going to attempt a coloured lace border that incorporates flowers and scrolls, so I've wound a bunch of bobbins in preparation for starting that.

I tried out another carpet on my mini-loom in southwestern colours.  I still had trouble finishing it off neatly, even though I wove as close to the end loops as I could.  It's better than the first carpet but still a bit wonky. I don't know what the secret to finishing neatly is.

Mat 1 in a bathroom

Mat 2 in a shop

I'm re-making my travel knapsack which has been working superbly for two years but is now starting to fall apart a bit. I had to do a couple of emergency repairs on the road during the last trip.  This time I am using a heavier weight waterproof canvas for the exterior, in the hope that the new bag will be a lot more waterproof than the old one and thus eliminate the need to carry around a separate rain cover.  I'm using the same pattern as last time, and trying to remember all the hacks I have since added so that I can re-create the same useful bag.  I'm off to Latvia in a couple of weeks so hopefully I will get it done by then.

Before the waterproof canvas turned up, I got out one of the fabric picture kits I bought in Tokyo last year from Sakura Horikiri.  This kit makes four little bag charm sumo wrestlers.  The two on the left are doublesided with a dangly cord and bell.  The two on the right I am keeping one-sided for the time being, because I may use them in another picture. The kit includes foam shapes which you glue fabric around, and all the fabric and accessories. The picture instructions are in Japanese but Google Translate did a decent job.

DH has also been busy. He has a new rust effect paint, so he kindly aged a tin bucket for my Japanese house and also this set of cheap 'copper' pans. They look so much better.

I finished the last blocks for my Lori Holt 'My favourite things' quilt and sewed the centre top together.  It's already almost too big for my hanging bar in the hallway.  I don't think it's very suitable as a bed quilt because of all the buttons and embellishments (the jar will also be covered in buttons after quilting) so I intended it to be a wallhanging.  But I'm not going to have room to add more than, say, a two inch border which is going to look a bit skimpy.  I will have to think what's best to do.  I substituted some actual vintage crochet doilies for the designer's 'doiley' block (because hers was going to be incredibly dense with eight layers of fabric and stabiliser stacked on each other).  My scissors and four pincushions came out too big but I think they are ok.  Overall I am fairly pleased with it so far, nice and cheerful.

On my holiday I started cross-stitching the third house from the CrossStitcher 'Houses of Britain' SAL - I am way behind and the SAL has now concluded after a dozen patterns.  But I've put in a lot of stitches this week, and it won't be long until I can start the extensive back stitching that outlines all the architectural details.