Autumnal weather

 Ever since we got back from the last caravan holiday, the weather has remained autumnal and I have actually worn a knitted hat for a few walks in early morning or evening. Hard to believe it's still August, apart from the second flush of roses in the garden it is starting to feel more like autumn. Still, I would far rather have cooler temperatures than the awful heat wave some weeks ago.

This week I have been soldiering on with Block 3 of the Australian BOM.  As I re-drew the block, I had to substitute a couple of the kit fabrics since I couldn't wash off the pre-printed embroidery transfer on the provided fabric. I've also found that my normal go-to fusible web, Steam a Seam Lite 2, is not working well for hand embroidery.  The glue is gumming up the needle and the stiff layer is difficult to stitch through, so I'm not enjoying this block.  I've queried the supplier and they recommend Clover Wonderfuse which they say hardly adds any stiffness, so I've ordered some of that from Amazon and will try it on any subsequent applique block.  Block 4 hasn't shown up yet so I feel like I am catching up.

I have been amassing a small collection of different kinds of embroidery needles and felt that was getting out of control, and it was hard to get needles out of the various packets and baggies.  I looked online to see what others do, and one solution from America was to use a baseball trading card album.  The UK equivalent appears to be a Pokemon-type card album, so I ordered a cheap A5 one of those, then disguised its hideousness with a fabric slipcover and sewed on a crocheted doo-da I had in my stash.  I cut up some weird flannel/bump stuff that I inherited from another quilter to use for the needles, and labelled them in permanent marker although it was difficult to write on the flannel stuff.  Anyway,  it all feels a lot more organised now and easier to access.

DS was away for last weekend visiting the girlfriend, so I was able to move his computer stuff off the dining table and use it to lay out the crocheted insert that I bought several weeks ago for a few pounds, on top of the antique cotton tablecloth ditto. I soon realised that neither were square and the crochet in particular was quite distorted.  I dealt with the tablecloth by ironing central and horizontal creases into it for reference lines.  The crochet I had to wash and wetblock, making extensive measurements to try to stretch it into something that lay flat and was approximately square.  It really is an amazing piece of work, tiny stitches in cotton thread and so much work in it.  Once it dried, I pinned it to the tablecloth trying to keep it all square.  I attached the crochet to the cloth by zig-zagging around the edges, made more difficult by the wobbly crochet in places and some unwanted fullness.  So it's not perfect but at least both pieces have been rescued from neglect and will get used again.  Then I very carefully cut away the cloth from behind the crochet insert.  The result is an attractive Victorian look which we enjoyed for about 18 hours before having to reinstate the protective layers that keep the dining table from being ruined by DS using it as his office.

I've assembled a few more rows of the strip-pieced star quilt, started the final repeat on the Bucks point butterfly mat, and part assembled the knitted penguin from the magazine kit. 

My major achievement this week is that I have spent about 10-12 hours finally working on my pensions. It was difficult to overcome the procrastination (and black despair about my incompetence) but I worked through all the files, assembled a list of all my pots (10 of them!!) and started researching information about each pot or emailing providers for missing documents.  I also had a one hour session with a free government advice helpline yesterday called Pensionwise, which was useful, and I've been watching lots of Youtube videos while I'm in my sewing room.  So I feel a big sense of achievement even though technically I haven't really reached any conclusions or decisions yet :).

I hope your week has been similarly productive!

The shine is off the apple

 We were away for another caravan break of four nights to  the south Peak District.  Unfortunately we had a number of minor problems which collectively wore us out so we were glad to get home.  Just things like our water pump running on when it shouldn't, the fog light on the van is out, some minor issues with window blinds, a very dull campsite with no view but plenty of daytime noise from agricultural machinery and the nearby country lane (surprisingly busy in the daytime), the car conked out and we had to call AA who said it could die again at anytime during the holiday which made turning the key feel like spinning a roulette wheel, constant heavy overcast weather with frequent showers that was both muggy/too warm and too breezy so that you had to wear multiple layers and spent half your day taking them off or putting them on, and then on the way home the fuse to the caravan lights blew so we were abruptly illegal.  Luckily I had stocked up on some spare fuses AND remembered where the tow hitch installer man had pointed out the fuse, so we were able to pull over and replace the fuse.

We did do some nice things, like a amateur walk in The Roaches scenic area, another walk near the campsite, walks around the picturesque towns of Leek and Ashbourne, another walk around Ilam and to a very crowded Dovedale, and a visit to a lovely garden at Melbourne Hall in Melbourne.  We were impressed with how pretty Staffordshire was, we might try to go back there (to a different campsite) another year.  The car has been to the garage and had the two problem sensors replaced so it should be okay now.  

We visited a couple of antique shops in Leek, and in one I found a cabinet of vintage dollhouse bits where I picked up a little Buddha who is the perfect size for my Japanese house plus a Thai? god figurine which DH has since stripped and repainted for me to look more like stone.  It's a bit bigger but could pass as a garden ornament I think.

One of my holiday craft projects was to do more stitching on the little felt teapot mat.  I added some bits of tatting from the miscellaneous bag of bits I bought at a lace fair a few years ago. and blanket stitched around the edges.  Just need to tidy it up and perhaps do a bit of quilting of the layers then it's done.

We got home on Wednesday then I had the rest of the week off, so I made a big push on block 2 of the Australian BOM.  I'm beginning to wonder if I have too much of a 'get it done' mentality to really enjoy endless embroidery.  But after several more hours of work, I managed to finish it yesterday and although not as perfect as the pictures online from more experienced stitchers, it looks pretty good.  You wouldn't think there was such a huge amount of work in it now it's done.

Hopefully Block 3 will be quicker, although I've already had to redraw the applique shapes as I wasn't happy with the mangled perspective. I'm beginning to suspect the designers have stronger embroidery skills than their drawing skills - thus the teacup that doesn't sit quite right in block 2.  Block 3 is supposed to be a stack of ribbon reels but the perspective was completely hinky to my eye.

I picked up an interesting thing online, which was waiting for me when we got home.  It's a secondhand Clothkits blouse with the pattern and print stamped on the fabric, and includes the instructions and even the buttons.  It was never made up.  But it's my size so I thought I would give it a go. I've got English friends who fondly remember their mother dressing them in Clothkits kids clothing when they were little.

With all the warm weather, the garden had become a thicket of weeds and rampant growth while we were away.  We've just spent most of the morning hacking it back - I think a machete might have been helpful.  There are so many weeds and things needing pruning back or propping up, it's just overwhelming.  But I filled the brown garden waste bin and an enormous collapsible leaf bag with cuttings and DH strimmed then mowed the lawn, so it looks less like one of those houses where an elderly person lives whose garden has gotten out of their control.

The other thing I did on my day off yesterday was to finally sit down with my stack of pension paperwork and files and try to work through at least the ones that are coming due when I turned 60 in the autumn.  It took about 30 minutes before the black despair and procrastination subsided but I persevered and managed to put in 2.5 hours just working out what is what, emailing providers for more info, and setting up a free government Pensionwise appointment for next week to see what they have to say. It's a start.

DS has started commuting to London at long last, just two days a week currently.  He says the trains aren't too bad, not nearly as crowded as they were in the old days, which is just as well since there is no social distancing as such.  He's still a bit bitter because he doesn't see why he needs to be in the office when he can do his job from home.  But it feels like progression back to a new normal.   Are you still working from home?

Slow stitching

 I seem to have inadvertently joined the 'slow stitching' movement with this Australian embroidery BOM.  I am still slaving away on Block 2, and it is starting to feel a bit like slaving although the end of the embroidery part is in sight.  Even though the result is very pretty, it would be nice to hop off the treadmill and do different things, but I'm conscious that Block 4 is now on its way.  It doesn't really look any different from last week so I haven't taken a picture.

As a break, I have been slowly piecing the rows for my Strip Pieced Star quilt that I laid out some time ago.  It turns out piecing the rows is the most tedious exercise, I can only do about 4 rows in a session before I lose the will to sew. I think the Y-seams in the traditional block piecing would have been preferable.  But I've made it to row 20 (out of 36) so I will soldier on.  The cat is supervising my work.

I've done a few more rows on the Lenten Rose fair isle sock, I'm almost to the top of the chart then the toe decreases will start. I also started knitting a little penguin from a free magazine kit when we drove down to the in-laws last weekend, for something to do in the car, although it ended up making me feel car sick.  On the Bucks Point lace butterfly mat, I am just finishing the penultimate repeat, so in a few more months it will hopefully be done. I lost the plot a bit on the latest repeat and ended up bodging quite a bit.  I think when I show this to my lace group, I will be better off just waving it at them from the front of the room then pretending I've put it away if anyone wants a closer look :)

I had a few deliveries this week.  I picked up a few  teatowels from Ulster Weavers including this one because I thought the double ended design would make a really attractive tote bag (cut in half, sew in a toning solid bottom, add some straps):

And Facebook marketed me some  textured cotton fabric from China featuring Lucky Cats at a ridiculously low price, I thought I might try my hand at a 'haori' loose kimono jacket. I always think I am going to wear these things around the house, and then I never do because they are too 'good' for my slobbing around in leggings and t-shirts.  I think one of my goals in retirement will be to wear my damn clothes.

I've been enjoying working my way slowly through my mountain of secondhand books and magzines acquired on our recent caravan holiday.  I've ripped a few things out for my collection from the sewing magazines, but most of them will be making their way back to the charity shop for another cycle.  Fun to look though.  My m-i-l also gifted me a small stack of old Quilters Newsletter Magazines from the 80s so I look forward to reading those as well.

We are going through the annual bounty/ordeal of pears from the pear tree.  They were a bit weird this year, mostly small and a real mixture of already overripe, and very underripe.  I guess it's the weather.  I picked all the ones I could reach with a ladder from the front and they are all sitting in the basement.  They don't keep at all, they come ripe in a few days and then rot.  I took some down to the in-laws, and I've made a pear pudding but it is a real race to eat some before they all go off. I don't know what variety they are but obviously not good keepers. DH isn't that keen on pears and DS doesn't like them at all. We are probably not the best family to have inherited a pear tree. I have been given recipes in the past for pear chutney but it seems like too much work.

Not much

 Not much else has happened in the short week since my late post on Monday.  I've been working on the second block of the Australian BOM, starting with the background details which will lie behind the 3D elements - there will be a teacup sitting on the doiley and a few other bits and pieces.  Having my own typed bullet pointed instructions is so much easier.

I have excavated my 'nest' of hobby accretions from the corner of the livingroom because we are thinking we will replace our gateleg corner in the table (permanently buried in my hobby stuff) with an Arts and Crafts style bureau desk that I bought on our Cumbria holiday.  I got fairly ripped off on it due to my own stupidity, I was so impressed with how nice it looked in the shop that I didn't really look at it very closely.  On delivery it turned out to have a number of defects, missing pieces, warped top etc.  Having thought about it for a while, I've decided to keep it and have a go at making it look better. I've taken all the hardware off in preparation for giving it a good clean and wax and I may have a go at replacing some of the missing bits if I can find some matching oak.

Some signs of normality resuming this week - the bigger lace group that I belong to had its first physical meeting since the pandemic - on a weekday so I couldn't go - with 20 people turning up.  And DH's modelling club is going to restart meetings in September.  I also saw in the Lace guild magazine that the Makit lace fair in October in St Ives is planned to go ahead.  DS will be going in to the office for the first time in well over a year on this coming Friday, then after that he is expected to go in two days a week.  He overheard us talking about how we will redecorate his room once he eventually moves out, which I think shocked him a little  :)

My office in its wisdom has decided we all need laptops instead of the little desktop boxes we've been working on - I think because in theory we are all now doing hybrid working split between home and the office so you would take your laptop into the office.  Obviously I don't want a laptop since I will be retiring soon, but as they don't know that yet, I now have a box of laptop sitting on the floor of the study.  My colleague friend said she lost a day and a half trying to get hers connected and working properly so I am really not looking forward to it.  I'm tempted to just keep using the desktop box as long as I can and see if anyone notices.  I'm also very glad that I won't have to be lugging a laptop to and from the office on my former daily train commute, dodged a bullet there!

I will finish with my discovery that Youtube has videos specifically for cats.  I noticed our cat was apparently watching my sewing Youtube video with me one evening, so I idly searched on Youtube for cats and was surprised to find dozens.  She was then glued to the screen for about 20 minutes watching birds and mice - it felt a bit like corrupting a minor.  She did bat the screen a few times but otherwise seemed to be treating it like looking through a window at the birds in the garden.

Book town

 We were away for a three night/four day weekend with the caravan, staying near Hereford so that we could spend a day in Book Town - otherwise known as Hay on Wye.  This smallish little town  has over 20 secondhand bookstores and some of them are vast, one is in an old cinema which has had multiple floors inserted.  My car caddy had its first outing and worked very well - it's perhaps a little taller than it needs to be but otherwise kept me very organised on the journey and no longer was my water bottle crashing over onto its side (with subsequent potential leaking).

We took our new-to-us porch awning with us for this shorter trip (found on ebay), which is quicker to put up than our big awning but still gives us somewhere to stash the table and chairs, spare clothes etc.

We stayed on a medium-sized campsite which normally we aren't too fond of as we don't like the lack of privacy but this one was very well kept and situated on one side of a very pretty man-made fishing lake which we strolled around every evening. 

We had an enjoyable day in Hay on Wye pottering around the various bookstores and antique stores.  I had taken a list of urban fantasy authors I was hoping to find but the sci fi/fantasy sections of the various stores seemed pretty focused on older titles and vintage series.  I did find a few random craft book bargains and on a charity stall some sewing magazines.

This bookshop (above) had a miniature version of itself on display in its window - a bit dilapidated but still well done.

I got my craft fix with a trip to the Doughtys Fabric Warehouse on the outskirts of Hereford, which by UK standards was really huge - racks and racks of fabric bolts.  The prices are what passes for reasonable these days (£6-£16 per metre) but as an old fogey stuck in the past it still seems expensive to me.  I did pick up a selection of green solids to use in my Tilda Flower Wreath quilt, some white jersey with red hearts on it for a t-shirt, a fat quarter of sumo wrestlers, two excellent value scrap packs of solid fabric, and some lovely fabric with Victorian letterwriting printed on it (I would have bought a bigger piece but it was one of the more expensive fabrics).  Quite fun to look around and a well stocked haberdashery section where I got two quilts-worth of polyester lining, some thread and some more machine needles.  They have three smaller shops actually in Hereford but not open on Sunday so they will have to wait for another trip.

We also went to two model shops in Hereford for DH, one of which had a surprisingly large dollhouse section  - mostly all Dollshouse Emporium stuff so not the best quality, but still a lot to look at.  Then we stopped in at the Pedlars Tray, a somewhat chaotic dollshouse and craft shop inside a garden centre but they had some better quality stock such as McQueenie's, Warwick miniatures etc.  I picked up a few little things at both places: a patchwork sign and some 'rug wool' for my haberdashery, a bow maker, a British flag teapot, a resin hat, a fishing net for my seaside vignette and a cute casserole dish for one of my modern scenes.  I have to say it did make me feel a bit of a fraud since I haven't paid much attention to my own dollshouses for some time.

In the evenings I was knitting a bit on my Lenten Rose sock - I've turned the heel and concluded the patterned underheel gusset, so now I'm just working towards the toes.  I'm not convinced about the underheel gusset - I think if you were actually planning to wear these socks in a shoe, the decreases might be uncomfortable underfoot.  But I only use my handknit socks as bedsocks so I'll be fine and it does look nice - like a little surprise underfoot.

The patterned underheel gusset (above)

After the shopping, we drove over to a very pretty 'black and white' village called Weobley.  There is a town walking trail which takes you around some of the notable historic buildings and the old castle so we passed an enjoyable afternoon there. I can remember when I first came to the UK, how staggering it was that just normal people were living in medieval buildings, as opposed to the buildings being under glass in a museum somewhere.

This one has a bit of a 'lean' going on.

Most of my craft time this week was working away on Block one of the Australian BOM, trying to catch up.  I'm enjoying learning how to embroider but it is very labour intensive.  This is the finished embroidery before making up:

And this is the finished block featuring stem stitch, bullion roses, french knots, laisy daisy leaves and a blanket stitch flower.  The instructions have you fuse backing shapes cut from Matilda's Own Polyfuse stabiliser, then wrap the seam allowances around to the back before appliqueing to the background fabric.  It gives the hearts a bit of a 3-D effect. I think the finished quilt might be better as a wallhanging than actually in use on a bed (and then needing to be washed) due to all the embellishments, but it will be very pretty.

One lesson I learned is that the comprehensive instructions with each kit are too confusing for me in terms of their layout and ordering, jumping all over the place for process and what colours/how many strands of embroidery floss.  So before starting Month Two, I spent about an hour re-typing out all the instructions as numbered bullet points, and grouping all the points applying to each component together.  It is now much easier to complete one step at a time then cross off that bullet point, so I think I will keep doing that in future.  Less haste more speed.

Giving myself permission

 I don't know if you are like this as well, but I often feel like I don't have permission from myself to go and do something fun until I have cleared certain hurdles.  This can result in several days on the trot without getting more than a few hours of evening crafting in front of the telly in terms of fun.  Meanwhile I am trudging through the daily chores, crossing  longer term jobs off the job list, or clearing projects that are ahead in the craft queue.

This week I finally made it to the Australian BOM  month one instalment!  (this is at a point where month three will show up any day now).  First of all, I had to tidy up my sewing room from that last dressmaking project, and repair a few things and do a bunch of ironing that had piled up on my sewing room ironing surface. I even hoovered up the considerable debris that had accumulated on the floor from the last several projects.

Then I sewed a Block Keeper Album out of all my bigger scraps of wadding using an orphan Moda block as the cover, that I made from a Moda Tin Box Sampler tin many years ago.  A block keeper is a place to stash the blocks you are making for a quilt project - it keeps them flat and safe.  The wadding grips the block and holds it in place.  The few examples I could find online were a lot smaller, but I calculated that I needed about 14 doublesided pages for the Australian BOM quilt.  I was able to cut several 'pages' out of wadding scraps and then started piecing bigger scraps together to make pages, and ended up with 11 pages before I ran out of big scraps so that will have to be enough.  I stiffened the cover with some ancient heavy interfacing and bag liner that I had lying around.  The whole album is a bit of a frankenstein effort, but it does the job and used up a bunch of scraps.  Then I could fish out the project background fabrics and stabilisers I had precut, and store them safely  in the album  while I start the blocks.

I spent some time sorting out the supplied embroidery threads into colours/number groups, and assembled my supplies to tackle the first month's instalment.  I have rarely tried embroidery in the past and know little about it, so I also included some scrap fabric  hooped up and scrap threads, for practicing with.  It's all gone into the handsewing basket I made a few months ago.  So I settled down in front of the telly and put Youtube onto the Firestick to watch video tutorials for the various stitches.  So far I have learned stem stitch, french knots (properly) and bullion roses. It feels quite exciting to finally be started on this project although I now realise it is going to be much more of an embroidery project than a quilting project.  Each month is mostly hand work so it will take a lot of time. 

Another project I tackled this week was to make a caddy for the passenger car door of our car.  We've had several long drives lately related to the caravan, and I was getting very tired of my water bottle constantly toppling over and not being able to find things in the door cubby.  I stiffened the caddy with Bosal foam interfacing, added an inner gusset to hold the water bottle upright, and an external little pocket to hold a pen and in future spare knitting needles perhaps. The main part of the caddy is open for holding snacks, maps etc.  I made the pattern by pressing lining paper into the bottom of the door cubby and running my fingernail around the edge to crease a line, as the door cubby is an oddly shaped cavity that is fat at the front and tapering towards the back.

I had some more stash turn up this week:  the Singer site that I bought the sewing-machine-shaped pincushion from was having a sale on Tilda fabrics, so I bought a pack of Woodland fat eighths. Then I bought some Tilda blue solid fabric from Empress Mills for background.  Tilda have a bunch of free patterns on their website and I am going to see if I can eke out my fabric enough to make the Flower Wreath quilt.  I will have to have a trawl through my stash for some toning solids to use for the leaves. Aren't they pretty?

One of the best things that happened this week was the heat wave finally breaking on Thursday night.  Friday was literally 10 or 12 degrees cooler and I actually put on a half-remembered object called a 'cardigan' for a while.  Last night I was finally able to sleep without having to have all the windows open (street noise) and my door open (cat invasion) and actually get some sleep.  Hurrah!

I forgot to mention last week that I had intended on returning from the caravan holiday to pick all the numerous cherries on our little edible cherry tree, as they were just about ready before we set off.  I think I posted a few weeks ago that the tree is too big to net properly now, but I was willing to let the birds have a few.  Well, on our return when I headed out to have a look, the bluddy birds had eaten every single cherry off the tree apart from one very low-hanging lone cherry - nothing but pips left.  So no cherry pie for us this year. 

Hot stuff

 We're just back from a week away in the caravan to Cumbria where it was quite rainy earlier in the week. But suddenly Cumbria jumped onto the UK heatwave bandwagon and Friday was so hot that we spent most of the afternoon sitting in the shade of the awning.  Nice airconditioned car ride back to the roasting caravan storage yard yesterday (30 degrees C) and the high is going to be the same again today.  I hate hot weather, I just feel like I can't do anything and I don't sleep well either.  But we did have a lovely relaxing holiday, still really enjoying caravan life. It was our fourth visit to the Eden Valley and we enjoyed re-visiting our favourite secondhand bookstores, doing some lovely short walks, delicious fish and chips from the Shap Chippy and visits to two country houses: Blackwell Arts & Crafts House overlooking Windermere, and Hutton-in-the-Forest near Penrith with a gorgeous walled garden. We tried out our new caravan awning, which had a steep learning curve and required a do-over the next day, but it doubles our space and was so useful to have.

The little campsite, which we had mostly to ourselves all week.

A view in Morland Gardens

Lake Windermere seen through the window of the White Drawing Room

in Blackwell Arts and Crafts House

High Force waterfall in County Durham

A view in the lovely gardens at Hutton-in-the-Forest

Trying out the panorama function on my phone camera, in the 

hills above the village of Dent (with DH)

I picked up a fairly random selection of cheap craft books in the secondhand book stores, including two books of embroidery stitches which I am hoping will help me with the Australian BOM embellished blocks.

We visited the village of Dent, as in the "terrible knitters of Dent" fame and toured the little heritage centre which was interesting but didn't really include much information about the local handknitting industry.  Apparently Blue-faced Leicester sheep were common in the area and I picked up two luscious balls of BFL DK-weight yarn in the shop, actually from Yorkshire but I couldn't resist as they are so soft and have that lovely woolly smell. Two 50g balls should be enough for some socks or a hat or mitts.

We re-visited Farfield Mill in Sedbergh for lunch and to tour the artists galleries and workspaces, many of which are textile related: knitting, weaving, proddy rugs, tapestries etc..  There was also a display of lace by the South Lakeland Lace Makers, and quite an assortment of spinning wheels and weaving looms used by workshop participants, as well as a huge industrial historic warping loom and two commercial weaving looms in the basement. I picked up two sample pieces of hand-woven tweed about 7 inches square, in lovely soft colours, one for me and one for m-i-l, which I thought would make a nice small item such as a needlebook cover.

I didn't get to any craft shops this trip, but I took along some projects of my own:

I'm almost finished the felt teapot mat - the pattern suggests a laisy daisy flower embellishment on each pot but I'm not sure I could do them all the same size and it will bug me if they are untidy. There is a matching blue backing to sew on to hide the messy reverse side of the stitching.

Also almost finished the cross stitch birthday card, just need to finish the word 'Happy'.

I turned the heel of the Lenten Rose socks and picked up for the patterned gusset.  I immediately had to pull back one row because I was automatically making the decrease at the top of the heel flap like every other pair of socks I've ever knitted.  But unusually, this pattern seems to keep the decreases at the bottom of the heel flap. I decided that would be better tackled at home in front of the telly rather than in a moving car so did not progress any further yesterday.

Now that we're back, I'm hoping to clear the decks in my sewing room and make a start on the Australian BOM blocks.  Tomorrow is the ridiculously named Freedom Day in the UK, which is sharing the news with all the alarming rises in infection rates.  We continued to be as careful as we could while we were on holiday, avoiding other people, sanitising after touching most things, wearing masks etc, and we aren't planning on reducing our precautions any time soon.  It doesn't look like I will make it to France for the pre-retirement visit to the Quiltmania show in Nantes, as the government is changing the requirements for overseas travel almost daily.  Hopefully next year.