Bathroom, making dolls and other things.

The last week has been busy in our house. It all started with a brief conversation and turned into a full revamp of our bathroom. John, with the help of my father, moved our bathroom from upstairs to downstairs. We needed to do this as the original bathroom when we moved in was quite dated and since that date our family had grown to three children. The upstairs bathroom was repurposed as a bedroom but also we had space for an upstairs toilet with washbasin. The kitchen was enormous and had a step right across the room, so we used this line to divide the room and created a bathroom. We also had space for a hall area between the two with storage. The kitchen had a revamp a few year ago but the bathroom has needed an update for a while now. The brief conversation has turned into a full renovate and our son has spent last week taking up the floor tiles. removing wood and taking the bathroom back to the bones. The bathroom is still functional and won't take too long to complete but he needs some rest days and we need to decide on colour, accessories (taps etc). We are also sorting out the storage as we all have our favourite shampoos and body washes. I am enjoying the father and son working together. When John worked on the bathroom with my father he had never done any woodwork, tiling or even decorating and so my dad was teaching and helping as they worked. Our son has been helping and making things all his life and has excellent skills so he is taking the major role. It won't be a quick finish but I know it will be good.

Over the weekend I have been working on the crocheted blanket. I'm still hoping to have this finished by the end of the week.

Yesterday I made a start on my Chookshed challenge for May. This is to make the dolls for my doll house. These dolls are to scale 1 - 12. The biggest doll is 6 inches tall, i.e. 6 foot. The pattern instructions are very clear and easy to follow so I would recommend it to anyone mad enough to want to make their own dolls. As some of you commented I will have tiny clothes to make once the dolls are finished. I'll worry about that when I've made the dolls. Question to self, why did you start this project. The answer is simple, because I can and I like to try everything, however challenging, when it comes to crafts. I'd already stitched the body shapes, cut them out and used fabric glue on the edges to stop them fraying.

Next I needed to make the armature for the female and male dolls, the child one is already completed. This starts with a length of wire and a pattern showing how to fold it. The wire then gets covered with florist tape. Florist tape is fun as it sticks to itself as you stretch it a little.

Soon I had three stick men on the table in front of me. 

If you look at the picture of the three pieces of fabric /doll shapes you will see there is a slit in the back. Again fabric glue was used to stabilise the fabric around the opening. At this point I needed to turn the body to the right side. This was very tedious and took some time. I then put the armature into the empty doll body The body looks saggy on the 'skeleton' but once I start filling the body it will start to look normal and the right size. I was worried that it would be very difficult to get the armature into the body, but it worked very well and quickly. Let the stuffing begin!

By this time it was time to make dinner and so I packed away until later this week. I also need to find the stuffing before I can start the next stage. I am very happy I got this far. I enjoyed making the baby doll, it was very fiddly but doable. I'm hoping I won't have too many problems with mom dad and child.

After dinner John and I decided to work on a 1000 piece jigsaw puzzle we started doing last week. The pieces we had left were all very similar colours but it went together fairly quickly.

This week is a little busy as I'm teaching for the next three days and on Friday I have to take Twiglet to the vet for his annual vaccinations. He was well behaved with injections when he was a puppy so hopefully he will be no problem.  John and I will then be heading out to the Kempton Park quilt show. We have never been before even though it is only a short drive from us. It should be a fun day out and older daughter lives quite close to the venue and has invited us over for dinner.

Today I am working from home but once work is all finished for the day I will be working on the sashiko on the Japanese quilt. For the moment I've put my knitting to one side. I feel I got a little traumatised by the rigmarole of picking up all 364 stitches, not my favourite knitting task. The knitting is also quite heavy now and my shoulder has been a little painful for the last 24 hours. The rest from knitting will do it good.

Take care

Lyndsey

Not finished yet but almost.

When I got home from work on Thursday I found I had the house to myself, no family members and no dogs. This was a perfect time to sandwich the 'happy quilt' This is a large quilt so first I needed to join the backing fabric to make it big enough. Once that was done I found it would have been useful to have one person at home as my new pack of wadding was very large and it was a bit of a struggle on my own. However I eventually got it done.  I pin basted the quilt and folded it to be quilted later. Unusually I already know how I want to quilt it but I have some other things to do first. I haven't got a photo of the sandwiched quilt as I forgot. The backing is a pale yellow chosen as it was the right size, suitable colour and in my stash. As far as possible this year I'm using what I have rather than buying but I will probably buy a little fabric when I visit my favourite quilt shop later this month.

In the evening I did some knitting and finished the second sleeve of my cardigan. 

I stitched the fronts to the back at the shoulder seams and read the instructions for the front band. To knit it I needed a 100 cm circular needle. I don't generally knit on circular needles and so I'd bought this in May in preparation. I needed to pick up stitches around the front edge, 364 in total. I decided to leave this for Friday. I started picking up the stitches, having marked each side in sections. It didn't go well and in the end I pulled out what I'd done and put my knitting aside. Today, Saturday, I marked out the right and left fronts very carefully, dividing them into sections. In each section I would need to pick up 20 stitches. This took quite a lot of time but made it much easier and I finally got all the stitches on the needle(s) and I have now knitted a couple of rows of the border. It is knitted in rib so this is not something I will be doing while watching TV. Full concentration is required. The pattern requires 14 cm of border to be knitted and when finished it will fold back in half. There are no buttons and therefore no buttonholes. The cardigan is all the same colour but the light changed between the two photos.

This evening instead of Knitting I'll be working on my crocheted blanket. I've joined all the squares in one direction and tonight I'll start joining them in the opposite direction. This is something I can work on while watching TV or listening to an audio book or pod cast.  No fancy stitching required.

I'm linking this post with Finished or not finished Friday I wonder if I can get at least one of these to a finish for next week?

Take care

Lyndsey

Back to work, and prepping for sashiko.

On Monday I went back to work after 10 weeks sick leave and 1 week annual leave. I had forgotten the Monday morning commute but the traffic was fairly light. I was surprised that after that number of weeks I still woke up before the alarm so I could turn it off without disturbing anyone. I had a good day and slowly got back into the swing of the work day. It was interesting catching up with the office gossip.  I have promised myself I will not be working in the evening and so last night I started work on the stitching on my Japanese quilt. 

The navy blocks on this quilt will have some sashiko pattern on them. I'm not adding the next round until I'll finished the sashiko. 

Sashiko is a Japanese style of needlework that was used for mending, reinforcing or decorating clothes. The sashiko also helped to make the garment thicker and therefore warmer. The work itself uses a running stitch and the stitches can be used to create fabulous geometric designs. I have a source book with lots of designs and there are so many that I want to try!

I got interested in sashiko several years ago but it is only recently that I have started to try the patterns and this is the first time I have tried to incorporate it into a quilt. The needles used are long and narrow and this helps to take a lot of running stitches before the need to pull the thread through the fabric which means you can't use an embroidery hoop. For this reason I will complete the sashiko panels before moving onto the next round as the fabric will be easier to manipulate.

Before I could start stitching I needed to mark the pattern I'd chosen onto the fabric. There are different ways to do this. The choices I have to hand were my Hera fabric marker, a white ink marking pen and a white marking pencil.

I gave the three of them a try to see what would work best for me. The Hera marker was good but not so easy if I use one of the stencils as it won't fit into some of th small gaps. The marks it makes do last well.

The white ink pen gave a really good, clear line but needs to be washed out with soapy water. The white pencil gave a more restrained line but just required a little water to wash it out. I also tried tailors chalk which worked well but got brushed off easily whilst holding the fabric for stitching.  I therefore decided to use the white pencil.  At this point I made a mental note that I should use the Hera marker more when marking quilting lines.

Having sorted out how to mark the fabric and the patterns I would use it was time to collect my threads and needles. Sashiko thread is a strong non divisible thread that comes in a large variety of colours. Below are the colours I have at present but I want to buy some of the variegated thread as it looks so pretty. You can use pearl cotton or embroidery floss. If using embroidery floss 4 strands are usually recommended. The white cotton on the left is a skein I've been using. The information I read and watched on YouTube before trying sashiko told me that when you open the skein it easier to cut the skein and then plait the thread to keep it together. When you need a new thread you pull it from the top of the loop and rest stays neat in the plait. This also gives a long length of thread.

I know I'm going to use white thread for some of the stitches but I'm hoping to use some of the coloured thread a well. So the markings are ready for stitching and I've made a start. For now I'm putting this project away so I can watch Silent Witness. We are currently rewatching all the series and have got to session 24. To do the stitching I need to concentrate on the marking and where to stitch next. This is not conducive to watching something that you need to concentrate on, therefore for the rest of the evening I will be knitting and if I'm lucky I will finish the second sleeve of my cardigan. 

Take care

Lyndsey 

June Chookshed challenge and slow Sunday stitching

The beginning of a new month and the chance to reassess the projects that need some love, care and attention. The main problem with having a lot of projects on the go at the same time is that you can't work on everything each month. I couldn't even work on all my projects in one month when I was on sick leave even though I tried. Maybe there will be a miracle when I eventually retire and I'll have unlimited time to do what I want. A girl can dream!

So the Chookshed challenge this month is number 5 and my number 5 is to make the dolls for the doll house. I have everything I need,

I've already sewn the doll patterns together, so now I need to turn them right out out. I have also already made the baby although there a still one or two stitches to add to give more shape.

For each of the dolls I need to use the wire to make a shape to go inside the doll so that the dolls limbs can be manipulated to sit, stand or hold the baby. The baby only has stuffing inside. I've already made the wire shape for the child. Two more to make.

Once the dolls have been stuffed there is a lot of stitching to add structure to them. My aim is to complete all 3 dolls by the end of the month. They will then be able to move into their new home. Of course there will also be clothes to make for them.

Today I'm not working on the dolls , Instead I picking up my embroidered tablecloth that I started a while back. 

I haven't worked on it for some time as my concentration has been poor and I didn't want to make any mistakes. I enjoy stitching on this piece as it reminds me of my mother. She really enjoyed embroider and taught me many of the stitches. I have several tablecloths that she embroidered and I love using them so it was time to stitch one for myself. This evening I'm going to try and finish the yellow flowers and the bells next to them. I also can't wait to embroider the butterfly but I'm saving that until I finish the side. Each side of the cloth has a butterfly and these will be the last thing I stitch on each side.

I'm linking this post with Kathy's Quilts for her Slow Sunday Stitching link up party. It's been a while since I last linked up or visited to see what everyone has been stitching. I have no idea why I stopped linking up and I miss the pleasure of enjoying the slow stitching eye candy. Everyone does such beautiful work. I wonder how much of this tablecloth will get finished during June if I spend my slow Sunday stitching time working on it? I'll find out at the end of the month.

Take care

Lyndsey

may round up

Gracious me, where did May go?  It really has whizzed by so quickly. Before I start the new month I like to spend a little time thinking about what happened during the month, what went well and what, not so well. 

Let's start with the thing that made me very happy over the month. This has to be the weather. May has been very warm in London and I have enjoyed spending time in our small garden, knitting, stitching, reading or just enjoying listening to the sounds of the birds and the gently buzz of the bees. 

The Chookshed challenge for May was my Star Trek cross stitch. I have made progress on this but not as much as I would have liked. I can't complain as I often prioritised other projects over this one. This is for my son and he knows it will take a long time to be completed and he is happy about that. Unfortunately I went off cross stitch after completing my millennium sampler. The good news is that I am starting to enjoy stitching it, so it should move along more quickly in future.

Early in the month I started a scrappy quilt as part of my 'use what you have, scrap management challenge'.  I finished this donation quilt on the 30 May.

I made some decisions about the Japanese quilt and made a start on it. I'm currently planning the sashiko designs I will be adding. Today I was testing which system to use to mark the pattern I want to stitch onto the fabric. I'll tell you more next month when I work on this project again.

I've almost finished the second sleeve of my pink cardigan but haven't taken a photo. I also started to think about and plan out a quilt for my brother for Christmas. I know the colours and the blocks I want to make but I need to think about the fabric.

Yesterday evening I managed to finish connecting all 10 rows of squares together for the crocheted blanket. I now need to join them going in the other direction. I will then have loads of ends to sew in before I add a border all the way round.

Over the month we had several outings which were fun. Terry and Yvonne's 60th wedding anniversary.

  

A visit to the London Transport Museum.

A visit to Liberty of London for their 150 anniversary exhibition. Here we saw the large house made out of 1000 quilt blocks.

The trip to Barnes wetland centre where we saw the Canada goose family. They were very attentive parents.

My surgery wounds are healing well ( some are completely healed already.) My brain is less foggy and I'm nowhere near as tired as I was at the beginning of May. I'm looking forward to returning to work on Monday but with a little trepidation as I will be driving there and back as well as no nap during the day. 

For now I need to find out what number was chosen for the Chookshed challenge for June and check what that means I will be working on. Then I'll head to bed and maybe read a little before I go to sleep.

Take care

Lyndsey

Finished, not finished.

As we near the end of the week and month I have been trying to finish some of my projects or at least to ensure I have moved them forward. I have no problem with having lots of projects in progress but they all need to move forward over time. On the 11 May I shared a photo of a quilt top I had made from my scraps. This has since been quilted with diagonal lines using the walking foot. Today I finished sewing on the binding.

All the fabric in this quilt is from my scraps bins or stash. The quilt is a donation quilt for Little Village, a children's charity, which has a branch in my local area.

Not finished, is my crocheted blanket. I haven't got any further with this since I posted earlier this month. I have joined four rows so far but once all 10 rows are attached I will need to join the squares going across. Normally I would have worked on this whilst we watched a film but instead I sat and gave the film my full attention. This should be a finish by next week.

Also not a finish is the second sleeve of my cardigan. I am about half way up the sleeve. My plan was to finish this cardigan by the end of May but that will not happen as once the sleeve is complete and all the pieces sewn together I still have to knit the front edge.

I'm linking this post with Alycia Quilts - Quiltygirl for her Finished or not finished Friday link up. Now what shall I work on for the rest of the afternoon?

Take care

Lyndsey

Thomas, plus the Japanese quilt.

Last Sunday our Grandson was 3 and for his birthday my son paid for tickets for the family (all 7 of us) to go to Buckinghamshire Railway Centre to see Thomas. Our grandson is totally obsessed with trains and for his previous 2 birthdays my son has bought a set of the little railway stories by Rev Wilbert Awdry, and a brio railway set. If you know the little railway stories you will know that they are about Thomas, the tank engine and his friends on the railway. The railway centre had a special event on Sunday and Monday aimed at younger children and Thomas was going to be there. Grandson was very excited! it was decided we would take a picnic, so older daughter organised that and told us what she needed us to take. She provided the birthday cake. The journey there was good and we arrived within 10 minutes of each other.

The only photo I took of Thomas had Sir Topham Hatt in front of it. He really looked like The Fat Controller in the books.

We all enjoyed a ride behind Thomas. Grandson thought it was great fun.

Percy the small engine was also at the event and we had to travel on his train. At this event you paid for the admission tickets and then all rides were free and you could go on as often as you liked. Always good when you have a train obsessed child with you. There was A lovely old bus to explore. I remember travelling on one like this.

Trevor the tractor was also there. Trevor from the original stories is a traction engine. There was also a traction engine giving rides.

The railway centre is a heritage centre and so to walk to the miniature railways you had to walk past a lot of old trains. Many of these were very interesting to the older members of the party.

The walk to the miniature railway was well worth it and we all enjoyed the ride on the train. The route it took was much longer than expected and included a bridge and a tunnel and a lot of things to spot along the way. 

It was a fun day and son and grandson  happily headed back to the car park having spent a lot of time watching the G scale trains.

The journey home was quite quick and uneventful. We were told that little one was fast asleep in his car seat within minutes of leaving the centre. 

On Monday I had a sewing day. I thought I would get more done than I did but this is because the maths got in the way. I decided to work on the Japanese quilt. This was the starting point.

By the end of the day I had increased the size of the quilt. I wanted to keep the quilt square but with the pieces I am using that was impossible unless I rearranged my ideas. That made my brain ache so I continued as I'd planned. 

Now I need to go through my stash to find some fabric for the next round. If possible I don't want to buy any new fabric. So far I am happy with how this is progressing.

Take care

Lyndsey

A little sewing, knitting, bird watching.

Over the last few days I've been doing a little of everything... and at times doing nothing. over my life I have come to realise the importance of being busy but also of slowing down and at times stopping. Recently I've been enjoying spending time sitting in the garden. Usually I take some knitting or sewing with me but sometimes I just like to sit, sometimes close my eyes and to feel the warmth of the sun on my skin, to listen to the birds and the gentle hum of the bees, to breathe in and smell the scent from the roses. Due to the fabulous weather we have had in London over the last few weeks I have enjoyed these simple pleasures often. I'm due to go back to work at the beginning of June and between now and then I need to set up some systems to ensure I allow myself these pleasures. It is unfortunately so easy to let work take over time in your life that it has no right to. My other pleasure over my sick leave has been having time to work on my projects and finish some of them.

So what have I been working on recently? I've been playing with the design of the Japanese quilt. I have plotted out on squared paper how I want it to look and it will finish at 60 x 60 inches.  I started with the sashiko block I had already sewn and gave it a border. I need to press this block.

From here I did a lot of measuring (and scratching of my head) to decide how to place the blocks from the panels, the sashiko I plan to do and also considered whether to make some fan blocks to include in the quilt. The ideas just kept on jumping into my brain and so I made a cup of tea and retired to the garden to quieten my over excited brain. Over a cup of tea I remembered I needed to buy some more sashiko fabric. That was easy and it will be delivered on Tuesday. I had decided to make the quilt as a medallion quilt with the sashiko block as the medallion in the middle. The next round will include some of the Japanese panel blocks and sashiko blocks. I have already chosen the patterns I will use. I made detailed notes of the ideas in my quilters planning notebook. Unfortunately if I don't write it out or do a sketch of my ideas I will forget them and have to start all over a again.

I haven't done any knitting for a while so I cast on the second sleeve of my cardigan and made a start. A slow start I have to say but this will be quick to do. I also got out all the crocheted squares I hadn't used in the blanket I made recently. I had 102 squares so I sorted them into a 10 by 10 square and fasten each row together in the order I wanted. This time I am joining the squares with yellow yarn. 4 rows attached the one way so far. I hope to finish this by the end of the week.

On Friday John and I went bird watching at Barnes Wetland centre, The centre is well used and there was a primary school group in enjoying pond dipping and other activities. As we walked to the entrance past the Peter Scott statue I spotted a swan settled nearby.

I only had my phone with me so I knew any photos I took would be of the flowers. I loved the poppies in the slate garden. 

Walking between hides there were several water iris flowering.

I think this flower is a southern marsh orchid.

On the lagoons several water lilies were almost open.

At the feeders for the small birds a squirrel was perched on the roof.

Whilst in the water nearby  a mother coot and chick were busy.

My favourite photos of the day were of the Canada goose family.

It was a good birdwatching trip with us spotting 43 different species of birds. I really enjoyed this outing as I hadn't been to Barnes for several months.

Today (Monday) I want to do some more quilting on the dinosaur quilt. This is going rather slowly as it is a big and heavy quilt.

Take care

Lyndsey