After last week

 If you haven't read last week's post, I am referencing the traumatic experience with my mother-in-law when we attempted to make a start on getting her and my f-i-l ready for a move into a retirement flat.  It took us a full day to recover and I think it took my m-i-l even longer but she assures me she is now with the program and is trying to do a bit of decluttering every day.

Meanwhile, I have worked out my post event stress by ruthlessly tackling my own stash and evicting all of the same sorts of rubbish that my m-i-l is clutching onto: old curtains from the last house we moved out of 10 years ago, the homemade folding design wall I used  in that house before getting a proper wall in this house, all kinds of old home dec fabric I've been given and never used or that is left over from our current curtains and cushions, old dressmaking fabric left over from projects or that I've never used, five inherited tapestry and embroidery frames, loads of scraps left over from various things, jars and boxes that 'might be useful', bits of plastic tablecloth and ripped up bed linen, canvas I've never used, and a whole bunch of other stuff that 'might be useful' that just becomes wallpaper, unnoticed at the back of a cupboard.   I added the good stuff to the m-i-l pile and we took it all to charity today.  I also produced a  big pile of rubbish stuff which DH took to the dump. 

I also pulled out my two bins of batik fabric left over from my batik phase about 15 years ago - most of the leftovers in colours I don't particularly like, and I've donated the lot to Project Linus along with the remains of the jelly roll from my Checkered Dresden quilt instead of hanging onto more scraps. And I sold 14 book-type sewing magazines online, and got back what I paid for them, which freed up a chunk of bookshelf in the sewing room. I have so much more room in my sewing room now and have actually been able to clear most of the floor - I can walk around now without it feeling so much like an obstacle course.  It feels good.

I was on a roll so raided the spare coat closet and my own wardrobe, and we took two big bags of old or never worn coats and jackets, along with some of m-i-l's items, to a local charity shop.

The most unexpected result (for me anyway), is that I have impulsively moved up my departure date for Japan by a week so that I can see the cherry blossom after all.  Based on the latest blossom forecasts (which are a big thing in Japan),  I had philosophically accepted that once again I was going to miss the blossom time by a week or so, like all my previous trips.  But being haunted by last week's trauma of my m-i-l wailing in tears that she had wasted her life was quite a spur to stop and seize the roses now while I can.  It turned out that while I couldn't move the return date without spending almost the cost of another flight, I could change the departure date for only a change fee.  So now I will arrive in Tokyo while peak cherry blossom is still on the trees (according to the latest  government forecast anyway).  This sort of impetuosity is very unlike me and part of my brain is still panicking but the rest of me is looking forward to such an iconic experience.

As mentioned above, I got my Checkered Dresden quilt to top/flimsy stage.  The final border is a bit skimpy because I had run out of the green background fabric and didn't like it enough to order any more.  So the quilt is now up in the 'to be quilted' queue upstairs.  It's turned out alright, I like the pattern although I don't like the colours much - that's what you get when you pick up a 'bargain' jelly roll and can't really tell what you are buying because it's all wrapped up.  It's come out about a double size or perhaps a bit bigger.  I would be tempted to make the block again in colours I like more.

Since that I've been working on the final three Lori Holt Zippy Bag pouches.  I again modified them by adding a vinyl front and got them all to binding stage.  I thought I would use single-stage binding because I had some cute red gingham double fold binding from my m-i-l's stash.  What a mess.  I first tried just winging it, and of course didn't catch the binding on the back.  Then I tried clipping the binding, but it was still moving around as I sewed on my industrial machine.  I've resorted to fabric glue which is doing a better job of holding the binding in place while I stitch, but it is still much messier looking than my normal two-stage binding (where you machine on one side, then take it the back and machine again to catch the back down).  I ran out of bobbin thread after starting the second one, so have given it up as a bad job for now, I will try again tomorrow.

On the loom, I have started a set of four placemats using torn strips of leftover quilt backing from my Lori Holt Let's Bake quilt, which is in a pretty aqua colour with somewhat ugly cooking motifs on it.  Using it as weaving material, you don't see the motifs.  I'm weaving two placemats on the same warp, they are looking nice.  The thing I don't know, is whether they would be machine washable or if a washing machine would just make them fall apart.  Perhaps if I have left over warp, I will weave a bit of a test sample and run it through the machine to see what happens.

  

I finished the knitted wool hat that I started on the Malta trip, it fits well and the double band feels nice over my ears.   Of course, meanwhile the outside temperatures have jumped up to 12 degrees so I may not be wearing this until next winter.

I've been plugging away on my multi-coloured bobbin lace and finally am starting to have somethign to show for it.

This is from a German book that I bought several years ago, with several patterns in multi-colours that I was really attracted to after years of making only white or ecru lace.  This is why I taught myself Bruges lace the last couple of years, so I could try out some of the patterns.  However, now that I'm actually doing it, I can't really say I'm enjoying it.  There is a lot of stopping and starting with the different colour motifs, which you have to do in the right order so that later motifs join to earlier motifs.  And a lot of sewings (joins) which I find tedious.  I'm glad I'm trying it but I think maybe I won't be making so many things out of this book after all.  I liked Bucks lace better, where you just continuously work on one pattern in one colour.

Since I'm now leaving in just over a month, I am starting to think about what craft projects I will take with me to do on the trip.  Probably a cross stitch project, and possibly also the Gail Pan BOM 'Bloom and Sew' quilt that I have signed up to.  Bloom and Sew is a mystery quilt with blocks that are a mixture of the designer's characteristic embroidered motifs featuring flowers and sewing themes, and pieced fabric.  I'm thinking I will take the embroidery with me to do on the trip, because that worked quite well on my last trip to Japan when I was embroidering the blocks for the Paducah quilt kit. And I'll need a knitting project for the plane, but I'm not sure what.  Usually I take either a lace shawl or socks, but I have many multiples of both shawls and socks and really don't need any more. I'm trying to think what else would have the same benefits of a single ball of yarn with lots of knitting time from it.  Suggestions gratefully received!

I have seen my future and now I'm scared

 I may have mentioned here before that my sister-in-law is determined to get her elderly parents moved out of their terrace house and into a retirement flat this year, because they can no longer manage.  So today we drove down there and while DH and his sister tackled clearing out some of the shed tools and clutter, my job was to sort through my m-i-l's fabric and craft stash.  I'm not going to lie, it was awful.  She literally had fabric dating back decades, everything from quilt fabrics of various eras, dressmaking fabrics and linings, old cutup clothing, inherited linens, bits of old bedsheets, boxes of old sewing patterns, drawers of bits of ribbon and string and half-made cards and envelopes of old cardboard templates, half-started projects, abandoned projects....  And everything had a story, mostly full of regret for the things she never made.  And there were tears.  Lots and lots of tears.  I had to go get my sister in law three times and in the end she just stayed with us, to talk her mum down and convince her that she really can't hang on to everything.  She hasn't really made anything for years and yet she still wanted to keep most of it, including obvious rubbish. And she wouldn't let us touch the wool or books yet.  I've brought back three large suitcases of fabric to possibly go to charity shops although I need to go through it all again, we binned a lot of small scraps and rubbish, and there is a mountain of the good stuff which she wants to donate to the quilting group that she hasn't been to in years (I was hoping I might get some of the good fabric but sadly no).  So we finally got back home, exhausted, from our day, and I visited my basement craft room and looked at my own vast hoard and I now feel very depressed.  I really hope that in another 20 years I am not going to feel like my m-i-l is feeling.  Although I do think that I have been working hard the last few years to clear out the obvious rubbish and the stuff I know I will never use.  There is so much more to do though.  

We just got back from a week in Malta and Gozo, which was meant to be winter sun but in fact was pretty stormy apart from our first day and our departure day (of course).  The rest of the time it was overcast, 15-16C, very breezy and frequently raining - with the result that the convenient timesaving ferries were all cancelled and we spent a lot of time on buses instead.  But we still had a nice week, our hotel was lovely, and Malta is such an easy place to visit with everyone speaking English, and a high standard of hospitality.  This time we also travelled to Gozo for two days/one night, which was surprisingly greener and more lush than Malta, and fewer tourists, but still lots of history and lovely old buildings.  On Gozo, I visited two lace shops - one not very good, and the other one in the Citadella which was superb.  The Maltese lace is made on a long sausage pillow leaned against a wall, with all the bobbins hanging down, completely different from English lace.  A lot of the lace sold for tourists is very crude, but the Citadella shop in Victoria had some lovely work, really well made.  I only bought a bookmark because all the mats and doileys were more than I wanted to pay for a souvenir, although priced at well below what they would cost in terms of time to make.  The less-good shop also surprisingly had a lot of well executed tatting, so I don't know who is making that but I bought a doiley.

I took the knitted hat with me that I started on the retreat weekend, and got the double brim turned up and started in on the textured pattern which features a float that you catch up into a subsequent row.

I also worked on my fourth cross stitch house from the Houses of Britain stitchalong from CrossStitcher magazine.

After we got home (and all the laundry was done), I had a second attempt at sewing an inner bag for my tatted drawstring bag.  It is surprisingly difficult to make a neat bag to fit inside a constantly shape-changing mesh, but I got there in the end.  It's not wonderful but it looks ok.

The drawstring isn't very functional because the edging wants to all fold in on itself when you tighten it to close the bag.  I may try a wide ribbon instead to see if that is an improvement.  At the end of the day it isn't a terribly practical bag but it's cute.  Let's just hope that I am not crying buckets over it in 20 years...

Not much

 Not much happening this week.  I did sell another dollshouse which was great.  It was a first house for the purchaser, she wanted something unique and not too big and she really loved it.  So it's lovely that it's gone to a good home.  I still need to tackle my biggest house, a massive townhouse that I've had for over 30 years.  There is a lot of crude work in it from my early days as a miniaturist, so I think I will probably be better off emptying the contents out before putting the house up for sale. It also needs a good clean.  The acrylic windows have yellowed badly, but I don't know what you could do about it as they are not removable without breaking them.

I've re-started the hat I was knitting at the retreat last weekend, three times now.  I'm obviously not getting gauge as my initial cast-on was enormous, then I went down a needle size and still enormous, so now I have reduced my cast-on to the 'small' size which is looking more promising.  Even though my ginormous head is actually bigger than the 'large' size that I initially cast on, but it just shows the effect of being a loose knitter.  While choosing yarn for the hat from my stash, I came across some more skeins of wool/alpaca so I will need to sell those.  I thought I had cleared out all the alpaca from my stash after discovering I am mildly allergic to it.

I've loaded up the Lori Holt 'My Happy Place' quilt onto the frame and have been stitching around all the blocks to stabilise it.  It does feel a bit 'samey' to the previous quilt with the embroidered panels, and will also require individual treatment for each block.

I finished tatting the drawstring tatted bag kit that I bought in Tokyo.  My first attempt to make a fabric liner was a disaster, so that is having a time out for a while. I'm annoyed because I ruined the nice piece of linen that came with the kit, I will have to look in my stash and see if I can find a suitable replacement.

Having given DS a six month grace period in his new house, we have now started ferrying a few boxes of his belongings with us when we visit.  He is not very impressed with this but I am determined to get our attic storeroom significantly more cleared out.  At the moment, I can't even get to one of the cupboards where I am storing quilts, nor to the big filing cabinet of patterns and magazine tear-outs that I want to go through. I also do not want to take any risk of being accused of throwing his stuff out, even though I feel fairly certain that he will throw 90% of it out himself once he gets it.  He still brings up my supposed 'robbing'  him of his old Nintendo console - the one that he absolutely didn't want and I said let's put it in the attic for a while in case you change your mind, then years later I gave it away when we were clearing that attic out to get ready to move, and somehow history has re-written itself.

On retreat

 I'm just back from a nice weekend away in Sheffield, on a cross stitching retreat.  I really only dabble at cross stitch so I felt a bit of a fraud in a room full of 50 very serious stitchers - some of them with all the gear to prove it.  But everyone was really nice and I had fun - albeit getting very tired both days because I am not used to concentrating on something as fiddly as stitching for several hours.

We were sat in tables of eight in a large room with decent lighting and I was lucky to have a good group of  table mates.  There were also some mini workshops: I learned some tips for keeping the back of my stitching neater (always an issue for me), how to make a tassel from one skein of embroidery thread, a bit about choosing needles and which types to use, and a workshop on how to attach stitching to a vintage spool or bobbin.

For no reason given, I was upgraded to an enormous room - the hotel is a bit tired so it wasn't luxurious, but I could have invited all 50 stitchers in if they had all brought their own chair. Two king-size beds and not visible in the photo was a foyer with the ensuite and wardrobe off of it.   I had a couple of swims in the hotel pool as well, so it was a nice getaway

I was working on the fourth house from the CrossStitcher magazine Buildings of Britain series from last year, I think there are twelve altogether.  I also took along an embroidery panel from a French designer that makes up into a zippered pouch once the embroidery is done, and I made a start on that.  For the evenings, I have started knitting another hat.

I'd not been to Sheffield before, so I had a bit of a walk around the centre before going to my hotel.  Lots of monumental Victorian buildings on a sloping compact centre that didn't seem very lively, perhaps the shops and cafe area is somewhere else.  I did like the Winter Garden though, a sort of mini-jungle underneath wooden arches.

During the week I tried out a new project on my loom, experimenting with weaving with strips of fabric.  I already had some scrappy 1.5" wide strips of quilting cotton in my scraps bin, so I used those. They were a bit difficult to handle, I think thinner strips would work better.  But I'm pleased with how my placemat turned out even if it is a bit wider than I intended.  I might cut up some yardage on purpose to make matching mats.

I made up the other three Lori Holt small zippy bags and took one of them along to the retreat to hold tools. And I sewed together the blocks from the Checkered Dresden Plate but haven't cut fabric for the border yet.

I also tried out a project to print off and assemble a journal.  A papercraft designer called VectoriaDesigns does a lot of Youtube tutorials and free printables, which are a gateway to being tempted to buy things on her Etsy shop.  I was rather taken aback at how much printing ink it used up to print the components for the journal, which made it a pretty expensive project (more below on that) but the end result is very cute.  I don't know if I will actually write in it because my handwriting is really terrible. I took these pictures at night so the lighting isn't very good.  The tutorial shows you how to assemble and decorate the cover, and how to assemble the printed pages into signatures that you stitch into the spine.  The envelopes are optional but can be attached inside the covers or left loose.

Printing this project used up basically all three cartridges of ink for my Canon inkjet printer at a cost of around £12 per cartridge.  I went back over my order history and it turns out that I have spent, just for ordinary printing tasks because I don't print many photos, over £400 on ink since buying the printer in August 2023!  The printer itself was only £80.  It's ridiculous.  So the plan is, when I get a chance, to ditch this printer (might offer it to my son) and get a tank printer which apparently are hugely cheaper to run.  The Epson Eco-tank printer has been recommended to me.  

The dollshouse room excavation has continued.  We took a car load of various items including a dollshouse kit and a bunch of cheap furniture to the charity shop.  I finally put away a lot of clutter that was on the the countertops (in some cases for years).  I sold one small house for  less than I wanted but still a decent offer.  There is still a lot in the cupboards that I need to go through.  I also decluttered a lot of Japanese language learning notes and papers left over from the evening classes I took before COVID, so the study looks a lot better as well.  I am getting drafted in to help clear my elderly m-i-l's sewing and quilting stash (comparatively small) as she is beyond being capable of doing it herself, hopefully not much of it will come back to my house if we can find places to donate it.  I've contacted Project Linus for her area but haven't heard back yet.  We will also have the fun job of clearing out their shed.  My sister-in-law is determined to get them moved out of their terrace house and into a retirement flat this year, really they should have done it years ago.