We're in the wrong guidebook

 We are starting to wonder if our garden features in some sort of travel guidebook for pigeons, as we have hosted no fewer than three non-flying pigeons in the last couple of weeks.  DH has suggested the book must be called 'Places to go and die'.  The first visitor was an incredibly bloated bird, who landed on our bird feeder then sort of fell off into the garden.  He couldn't fly and spent the rest of the day creeping around before finally crawling into a drain pit under the downpipe where he died overnight.  The second one may have hit a window as DH heard a bang. We found it in the same alley down the side of the house, shuffling around.  It seemed pretty perky but couldn't fly and when it lifted its wing, it appeared something had taken a chomp out of its side, perhaps while unconscious?  Curiously enough our cat won't go anywhere near any of these birds.  The second one wandered around for a few days and started making forays out into the garden and we haven't seen him for a while.  The third one arrived (or was noticed) a few days ago.  A much bigger bird than Chompy, it seems quite perky and active but can't fly, so it is spending its time wandering around the garden and is currently sitting on the lawn in the sun. It's like having a pet pigeon. Either that or Chompy has grown a lot bigger in a few days. I don't know what is causing this strange phenomenon. I wondered if someone in the area has put out some kind of poison but I don't know what would make a bird unable to fly but otherwise apparently fine.

I finished off the London hexagons top this week complete with borders, and sewed up the backing and cut binding strips before moving it to the queue corner to await future quilting.  This was the first time I had really used the built in dual feed on my new Janome MC8200QCP, having been a bit scared of it to begin with.  It's a bit fiddly to get the special foot onto the machine and engaged with the drive unit, but once on it worked brilliantly. I sewed multiple long strips for the triple border, with absolutely no movement of the layers, so I was quite pleased with that.  DH is pleased with how the quilt has turned out.  It's actually come out bigger than I expected, somewhat drowning this double-sized bed. It feels satisfying to complete a relatively 'quick' quilt.

I used up some leave this week by taking an extra day off. I used some of my extra time to sew a zip-up tray pouch using the fabric I bought in St Ives last weekend.  I reverse engineered this by looking at pictures of a larger version online which is a commercial pattern by Aneela Hoey. I worked out my own smaller version which I am going to use to hold my hand quilting supplies for my frame quilting.  Mine isn't perfect but fairly close to the original and it pops out into a useful tray just like it's meant to.  You can see a working version of her original pattern in this video.

I finished stitching  my Christmas house cross-stitch!  Just need to tidy it up and get it into the frame now.  In the original Bucilla kit, they just paint the house frame a solid red which I've always felt detracted from the cross stitch.  I had a rummage in my dollshouse supply stash and found some excellent brick and roof tile paper which I think my friend Anita gave me when she was de-stashing.  It took a bit of careful cutting to fit around all the uprights but I'm pleased with the end result and I think it will make the stitching pop more.

I also finished the all-in-one knitted teddy bear this week.  He's come out fairly well, just a bit of a counting error on his nose which resulted in a line of decreases being slightly to one side but it doesn't affect the shape of the nose and isn't obvious to a non knitter.  I used safety eyes and knit him a little green scarf to set him off.  I shall take him to machine knitting club next month to show to the woman who gave me the pattern.  As you can see, our cat is absolutely thrilled with it (not).

This weekend I went to a Quilters' Guild Area Day here in Northamptonshire, a first for me.  I  picked up the Northamptonshire leaflet at the Festival of Quilts and noticed there was an Area Day so decided to give it a try. My experience of the Guild a few decades ago was not positive but I've been told that there is a younger friendlier generation running it now.  I wasn't sure what to expect but I think subconsciously I was expecting it to be like a Lace Day, however the uncomfortable seats were laid out theatre-style and the emphasis was very much on listening to the two speakers and not on doing handwork or making conversation.  Poppy Patch were there as traders, there was a bring & buy and a raffle, and the ticket included tea and cake.  I took along a fat bag of fabric for the bring and buy, mostly inherited panels and home dec fabric that I was never going to use, so hopefully they found good new homes.

The speakers were Greta Fitchett in the morning, an artist who scrapbooks and journal quilts her way around multiple travel destinations every year, and draws on those inspirations to make larger art quilts. And in the afternoon it was Julia Gahagan who specialises in miniature quilts and in particular on a type of glued on applique covered in soft tulle then machine quilted. While neither were brilliant speakers, they were both interesting and it's always intriguing to hear about someone else's artistic process.  Julia had some cute designs and also some finished work for sale.  I bought this miniature crazy quilt from her because I really liked the Victorian styling and colours. I plan to hang it in the bedroom.

I bought some Halloween fabric off the bring and buy table and won a bag pattern in the raffle.

In the morning I was stitching together a felt doll after making an impulse buy of this cute book from The Works a few weeks ago.  In the afternoon I was knitting.

In the lunch break I walked over to the nearby Poppy Patch quilt shop to peruse their offerings, and came away with this Lynette Anderson pattern.  I've been tempted by their Japanese aesthetic before but never bought one as the patterns are so expensive, but I decided to take the plunge on a small item to see if  I like it. I didn't actually realise the beehive was punchneedle until I read the instructions, I shall substitute applique.

I've picked most of the apples off our tree now and have started making pies and applesauce.  It hasn't done very well this year, having a bad case of apple scab and a lot of the apples never grew very big.  Hopefully it won't rain tomorrow as I need to do a fair bit of hacking back and tidying up out in the garden.

As I was going to St Ives

I had a fun day out yesterday with three of my bobbin lace self-help group members.  We travelled east to the town of St Ives in Cambridgeshire to visit the Fenlander's Lace Group Exhibition at the Norris Museum in St Ives.  A small but perfectly formed exhibition, very professionally mounted and with excellent signage. I wonder if someone professionally skilled in museum work or communications was involved? It was only one room but we still spent almost 40 minutes exclaiming and discovering things we hadn 't noticed first time round.  There was a wide range of types of lace and the exhibit labels often said what thread was used and where the pattern was from.  Some very high standards of lace as well as some that we felt we might achieve some day.  I was attracted particularly to some attractive modern examples of Flanders lace, a lace I've never tried. It was all very impressive, they must be a very inspiring lace group to belong to.

After a fortifying cup of tea, we crossed the road to head into town and immediately stumbled across a great quilting/sewing shop called Escape and Create.  A good size by British standards with more fabric upstairs, they had so many lovely fabrics that I was tempted off the wagon and ended up at the cutting counter with a few finds.

a future bag with lining?

Two christmas fabrics

As we headed further along the road, we found another craft/haberdashery shop, Star Dancewear and Crafts that had yarn (I bought some bulky yarn for use as doll hair) while across the road there was a good old-fashioned toy shop that had quite a range of cheaper dollshouse furniture and accessories (I did not buy anything).  Coupled with all the lovely old buildings, the farmers market that was going on in the marketplace, the live jazz band playing in the sun on the river bank, and quite a good pub lunch, I have decided (and informed DH) that we should probably retire here!  DH said it will probably all be under water soon being fenland, the way things are going with climate change.

Last weekend I took some time out from the quilting queue to do a little fun project, which is a tiny little snap purse kit that I bought at the St Marie aux Mines quilt show in Alsace a few years ago.  It's made from two yo-yos sewn together then sewn into a tiny keychain purse frame.  You hide the frame stitches on the inside with ric-rac. Very cute, although not incredibly useful. I suppose you could keep a few coins in it, or a thimble perhaps?

On my day off, I persevered and got the rest of the hexagon blocks for the London hexagon quilt sewn and trimmed.  Predictably I had not calculated the right number of background triangles and had to cut a lot more, luckily I had enough fabric.  As the quilt may end up going to DH, I suggested he might want to design the quilt layout himself.  He was a bit taken aback but set to and laid out all the blocks in 13 rows of 9 or 10 blocks each.  He's done a good job of distributing the lighter value blocks. There are some juxtapositions that I might have changed if I were doing it, but I let it be as it is his design.  Now I've started sewing the rows together.

I sewed the buttons on my leaf yoke jumper but haven't worn it yet as the weather has stayed warm..  The last few weeks I've been knitting on a curious teddy bear pattern that someone at my machine knitting club gave me after I admired the example she was knitting.  It is knit all in one piece, with no seams to sew apart from the final gusset between the legs.  All the shaping is done as you knit, and you leave stitches on waste yarn for the limbs, picking them up and knitting onwards in turn.  The pattern is all written out with no pictures or diagrams, so it has been quite a challenge for me since I can't count.  For example I managed to get the short rows on one arm reversed so that his arm was curving to the back like a dolphin so that had to get unravelled. I also had to order another ball of yarn since he has come out much bigger than I expected and I had used up an entire 50g ball of DK yarn before finishing the second leg or arms.  But he is finally all knit now and I have started stuffing him last night.  I did his head first so that I could check the eye placement and embroider his nose/mouth.  Getting the facial features right on toys is so critical, the tiniest adjustments completely change their character.  I'm not unhappy so far although I wonder if I should have used dark brown instead of black yarn.  The eyes are safety eyes.  He is designed so that he will be in a sitting posture.  I plan to take lots of pictures to attach to the pattern in case I ever want to knit him again!  Whoever designed him is obviously a knitting genius.

I picked up my Christmas House cross stitch this week and made a push to get going on the final attic room.  It will be nice if I can get it all finished and into its house frame in time for christmas.  I was quite tempted by some attractive Advent panels at the fabric shop yesterday but I really do not need any more advent calendars as we already have at least five of them.  Are you doing any Christmas stitching?

The 1:1 house requiring attention

Haven't done anything on the Japanese dollshouse this week but we have spent a fair amount of time on the 1:1 real house this weekend.  Ever since we touched up the ground floor window sill paint earlier in the summer, I've had on my To-Do list to check the other windowsills that we can reach with our ladder, which is basically up to the floor above the garden.  The windows on the two floors above that are just going to have to fend for themselves as we are not acrobats.  We are having a belated spell of sunny weather now so yesterday morning we got out the ladder and started inspecting window frames.  As well as finding several that had flaking paint and dodgy sealant, we found two that had rot on the bottom bar.  One had just a little bit of rot, about the length and depth of a sausage.  The rot on the other window was pretty extensive, to the depth of about 1 inch and eroding the whole of the right corner profile of the bottom of that frame.  So lots of sanding and scraping and a trip to the DIY store to get some wood hardener and outdoor epoxy filler, building up the excavated and hardened rotten areas with the filler, sanding down the filler, and then spot priming everything.  Today we have made the circuit with the ladder again, applying the first coat of gloss.  DH moves and holds the ladder, I go up with the paintbrush (I only dripped a little on his head, he didn't complain although he did object when I stood on his fingers a couple of times).  One more coat of gloss tomorrow before work and then next weekend we can re-seal all the gaps we can reach.

I've called time on the One Block Wonder beach panel quilt.  I experimented with making some hexagons out of the sky-cloud border fabric to help break up the edge where the panel hexagons meet the border.  They didn't look good right next to the panel hexagons because the fabric is noticeably different.  So I've floated several of them off about an inch from the main panel hexagons.  I don't love it but it looks subtly better than having just the hard edge.  Then I pieced a backing and cut binding strips and moved it all to a hanger in the quilt hibernation corner where tops stay for a few years until the next time I get my quilt frame set up.

I've done some work on the London hexagon quilt.  I sewed a few test blocks to see how big I need to cut the corner triangles that create the secondary star pattern.

Then I cut what I hope is 246 LH triangles and 246 RH triangles, and today I chain pieced about 115 triangles on to one corner of most of the 123 hexagons I need for the quilt.  Not very interesting sewing but has to be done.  The fun part will be arranging the layout once all the blocks are done.

I've done several stints on hand quilting the 25 block applique quilt and have slowly made my way along one edge heading towards the opposite corner, just stitching from about as far as I can comfortably reach with my arm towards the bottom edge.

 I've tried several different thimbles underneath, currently my best bet seems to be a ceramic thimble like Yoko Saito uses in this video although I am still getting used to it.  I'm trying to get my stitches a more consistent size but it's difficult. For one thing, even with reading glasses on and all the light I can shine on the quilt, I still can't see the white thread on the white background nearly as clearly as it shows up in this photograph.

I've had a bit of an annoying and exasperating discovery this week.  I finished at long last my Leaf Yoke Sweater which I started almost three years ago, and I was sitting in front of the computer next to a sunny window while I darned the ends in.  That's when I realised that there were stripes of a different coloured yarn here and there in the jumper!  Somehow I seemed to have mixed in a few balls of a different red, I'm not sure whether it is a different dye lot (which seems unlikely because I always try to buy all the same dye lot).  I think what may have happened is that perhaps I bought some more of the same yarn Drops Karisma for a different project because I found some leftover balls that are a normal wool and and another ball band that says superwash.  Obviously over the three years as I ran out of yarn in the not well-lit living room where I do most of my knitting, I was running upstairs and grabbing what I thought was more balls of sweater yarn but wasn't.  So from a distance it looks okay, but a bit closer in a good light and you can see the stripes.

I tried to photograph the stripes but the camera can't really pick up the colour difference, you can see it barely in this photo, it's much more obvious in real life. Grrrrr.

I can't do any kind of repair job as part of one fat stripe runs through the lace yoke.  I think I'm going to have to try to view it as a design feature and a learning point to more clearly label my yarn bags in future.  I still need to sew the buttons on. It fits pretty well, as usual the knitting loosened up considerably when wet blocked and I put in some fabric conditioner to tone down the scratch factor which has helped. I would have liked to have the lace block a bit flatter but it's difficult when it's all part of a garment so you can't pin it out easily like you can with a lace shawl.

I went along to my lace group yesterday and did some more work on my Bucks Point edging.  I think I am going to park Floral Bucks lace until I retire.  I'm just not able to progress with the limited amount of time I have been giving it.  I will have to think if I keep the two pillows and bobbins tied up that long, or (more likely) if I cut the lace off to put in my sample book then try again in a few years.

Quilt time again

Suddenly it seems to be autumn, and last night I was so cold in bed that I got up and retrieved a quilt from the display stand in the hallway for some extra warmth.  It's not cold enough to put the heat on yet, but it's nice to have a handmade quilt back on the bed again.

I went through the leftover hexagons from my One Block Wonder quilt and decided to add one more row of hexagons where the beach path spills out onto the border.  So I've seamed the extra row together and today turned under the edges and glued it into place on the top ready for appliquing by machine.  It's a bit of a bodge as I am appliqueing it right next to the previous applique rather than trying to take everything apart and seam the hexagons to the prior hexagon rows, but it will look fine once it's done.  I would like to add some more hexagons to break up the 'sky' border but I don't have anything left that would suit.  I might see if I can cut six repeats out of the border fabric to see what hexagons made from it would look like.  I'd like to get the top done so I can move on to another project.  I've pulled out some London-themed fabrics I bought several years ago (when we lived closer to London) and cut one-piece hexagons out of those in preparation for a pattern I found on the internet.  It might be another quilt for DH if he likes it when it's done.  I'm still handquilting on the 25 block applique quilt, I've been experimenting with various Clover thimbles for my underneath finger without really finding anything that works as well as a bare finger, but my bare finger gets all torn up if I don't have some protection.  I'm not happy with some wobbly lines and badly spaced lines but I'm going to press on, on the theory that a finished not-that-great quilt on the bed is better than an unfinished top hanging in the basement for eternity.  Although it may be eternity before the handquilting is done anyway.  Perhaps I will win the lottery and I can pay someone to take out my dodgy handquilting then have the top beautifully quilted by someone who knows what they are doing.

This week I completed the final kits from the Japanese dollshouse so they are all made up now. I suppose technically the house is 'finished' but it needs a lot of accessorising and I need to build the garden in front of it still.

This is the ryokan sign:

and this is the 'stone' garden lantern which I finished with some homemade textured paint and various layers of paint colour:

Otherwise this week I've been knitting on several ongoing projects, including the long-hibernating Leaf Yoke Sweater which is now almost finished. I don't really like it any more and the yarn is a bit scratchy so I'm not sure it's going to get worn but perhaps it will block out a bit softer.  Someone at my machine knitting club has given me a copy of a seamless teddy bear pattern so I might have a go at that as well just to see how it is done.

We visited a couple of garden centres today to see if anything was on sale at the end of the season, and scored a couple of flowering perennials.  I also picked up a couple of  Group 3 clematis for some late summer colour, and some vinca for the deep dry shade under the trees where nothing wants to grow.  I've started picking the biggest apples from our apple tree and made my first pie.  Most of the apples look pretty scabby, I forgot to spray last winter so I've made a note in my diary for this coming winter. Hopefully the apples will still be ok for pies even if they look unsightly. We successfully got through this year's pear glut: I gave some away to friends and made several pies and puddings with the remainder, unlike last year when we lost a lot to rot.

It's the in-laws Diamond wedding anniversary next week, imagine being with the same person for 60 years!  We had trouble finding a good card, we looked in three different shops and there were loads of 50th Golden anniversary cards but only a couple of 60th in each shop, I guess not so many people make it that far (or live that long?).  I ordered and collected  an oasis bouquet for the occasion in colours that I hope m-i-l will like, it has pretty diamond sparklers in it and diamonds on the card.

119 kits later...

The final 120th kit for the Japanese dollshouse is now on my worktable ready to be opened.  It's hard to believe I've been building this house for a year and a half now. The final kit is for the ryokan's sign.  I still have one stone lantern to put together and paint but I'm waiting until I work on the garden to assemble and paint that. I did a big clean up and hoover in the workshop because there was grey dust everywhere left over from all the sanding I had to do on the resin roof shingles I was cutting to size.

This week I put together kits for three ceiling light fixtures which were three variations on the same theme and even included  tiny wooden lightbulbs, and the kit for the final television set.  I struggled with the rabbit ears antenna for the TV as the tiny wooden half-sphere they are meant to fit into split in half, so the antenna didn't turn out as well as the first two TVs but it looks ok.  I hung the three ceiling fixtures and am fairly pleased with them. I'm slightly concerned they may be hanging too low but then I'm 5'6" and found I was either the same height or taller than a lot of the Japanese people on the trains so it's probably fine.

The TV set above is the one I made this week.

I finished putting together the four knitted toy animals from the kit with Let's Knit magazine.  They were tricky to sew up and don't look exactly like the pictures but they are still cute. They aren't suitable for a very young child due to the bead eyes and multiple sewn-on parts.  Although I'm tempted to keep the red squirrel which reminds me of the ones we've seen on our two summer holidays in Cumbria.

DH got a new toy for his birthday which is a static grass applicator, a cool gadget for creating realistic grassy turf for his models.  There is a hopper of grass and it uses an electrical charge to basically stand the grass strands vertically into a glue base.  He's never had one before because they aren't particularly cheap so a birthday seemed a good time to get one.

I was quite impressed with his initial samples so I asked him to have a go at the lawn around my dollshouse shed that I built a few years ago.  I used green sawdust flock pressed into glue to simulate lawn but have never been very happy with it. These are the BEFORE pictures:

And these are some AFTER pictures with static grass applied, don't they look so much better? Great job!!

I will definitely enroll his help for any bits of lawn I want for my Japanese garden when I build it.

After seeing the antique Baltimore Album quilts at the Festival of Quilts, I reluctantly decided it was time to stop procrastinating and start hand quilting my 25-block applique quilt.  I pulled out the giant Q-snap-type frame and set it up in the living room, and dug out my copy of The Essential Quilter  by Barbara Chainey to remind myself how to hand quilt. It's not something I've ever been very good at and usually instead I do basic machine quilting on my quilts.  But the applique quilt isn't really suitable for machine quilting and I don't want to spoil it (although my hand quilting is nothing to write home about either).  So I've made a start, and it's only going to take me about three million years to finish it. My underneath finger is already getting torn up, I've tried all the thimbles I've got but can't get on with any of them on the underneath side so I'm using the stick on pads which never last very long.

Before I cluttered up the living room with the quilt frame, I pinned my One Block Wonder quilt to the floor with T-pins and squared up the frame before basting down the hexagon panel in preparation for appliqueing it on the machine.  The applique is done now and the borders are all on.  It appears to be hanging fairly flat so result, although I have spotted one dodgy hexagon where I accidentally twisted one of the wedges, so I will have to unpick that and fix it. I also want to experiment with floating a few more spare hexagons into the borders to break them up

Another week

Can't think of a headline today :)  It feels like a week where we were putting things back to where they should be.  I went out in the garden for a few hours yesterday morning before it got hot, and hacked back armful after armful of rampant growth and spent flowers, not to mention pulling up loads of weeds. It had all become very out of control after all the rain.

And we draped the study in plastic drop cloths and had a go at the ceiling.  A couple of coats of damp barrier paint hid the stain then we experimented with hiding the damp barrier paint with spot coats of emulsion.  Three coats later and it seems to have worked, so we don't have to paint the whole ceiling - whew!

I've also re-stuck down the ensuite vinyl floor that we had to pull up for the leak, and sealed around the edge with silicone.  It doesn't look as good as it used to but it's acceptable. So the only thing still remaining from the leak which needs remedying is the wallpaper that fell down above the bookshelves.  The wall still hasn't dried out fully so we will wait to do that.

I tried a free machine knit mitten pattern after finding it mentioned on Facebook.  I worked a sample just in 4-ply acrylic yarn to see how the pattern worked.  It's made from an outer mitten (the stripes) and an inner liner mitten worked on a tighter tension so it's a bit smaller.  You push the liner into the outer mitten and end up with two layers which I think would be quite warm in wool. The one I saw on Facebook had been worked in a fair isle pattern in sock yarn and looked really nice.  It's not exactly quick to knit as you have to do the manual increases by lifting 12 stitches across by one, many times.

I've now knit all the components for the four toy animals kit that I started last week, and I've started assembling them.  They are tricky to sew up attractively as they are so small and the directions are pretty skimpy.

I haven't done anything on the Japanese dollshouse this week but I did find an odd little thimble at an antiques fair we went to at Lamport Hall today.  It's got a tiny bell inside the pavilion and I thought it might work in my Japanese garden.  The bottom part isn't exactly Japanese but I can disguise the base.

I've done a fair bit of work on the One Block Wonder hexagon quilt this week, trying to get some borders on it.  I started out by measuring the centre and consulting a chart of bed sizes to see what size quilt I might make, but I soon found that wider borders just didn't look right.  I'm adding about a 12-inch border but will probably cut it down after quilting.  Adding the borders is quite tricky as the centre has to be appliqued onto the borders yet at the same time the 'ocean' horizon in the border has to stay in line with the horizon of the printed panel, the horizontal clouds had to stay parallel to the hexagons, there are no straight lines around the hexagon centre, and I want the transition to the beach fabric to be fairly blurred without a hard stop.  I've been doing a combination of applique and basting as I go along, and have got as far as seaming the top and bottom on, and then adding the two side pieces which are so far only seamed at the top.  I need to spread it out flat on the floor before I pin the hexagons to the side panels to a) try to keep it all flat and b) try to end up with a squarish quilt instead of a polygon. I had to do some invisible joins to get the top and bottom pieces wide enough.

This shows the top and bottom strips to which

I've appliqued the panel, but the top border needs trimming down.

This shows it on the bed, with side pieces roughly pinned in place. It's wider than it needs to be and not quite as long as it should be for this 60"x80" queen size mattress, but it looks better than I thought it would

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