Pages

Thursday 28 March 2024

Partial Miracle

They came to finish the bathroom today, nearly two years after they started. They didn't actually finish the bathroom but it's a lot further on. Walls and ceiling edges have been finished off, the bathroom plug has been fixed and we have a new floor. All we need to do next is to get the edges of the bath properly sealed. Allegedly, they're back on Tuesday. 

Gladys is waking up. 


I reminded bear of what he did last year and told him to go and do it again. He seemed happy with that idea. 

Speaking of bear, he's had all of his results back and he's happy with them. He also got a book about Quantum Mechanics as part of some sort of reward thing. He's happy with that and I'm baffled but happy that he's happy.

I sold something on eBay but the envelope I had didn't fit so I raced to The Range. There are a lot of pretty things there but I only bought the envelopes that I went for.


I consider it a miracle. 

Mind you, part of it was because I couldn't walk properly so I just about managed to get to the envelopes, the till and then back to the car. I'm trying to get myself sorted but I'm not saying anything until things are in place. 

I've been watching a lot of YouTube videos that involve quilting. I'm not starting until I've cleared my knitting stash. 

Hugs and good health to all. 


Wednesday 27 March 2024

All Going Well

Thank you for all your good wishes. I don't deserve them but my relative definitely does. They are awesome and finally picking up. I've not been on the front line for this. Other people have taken the burden, but I've been worried and I'm glad things are picking up.

I've not really been keeping up with anything at all for the last month or so. I've decided, and I'm risking putting it here, I'm going to make a start in April. I don't care how I'm going to do it, I just am!

I haven't hemmed the curtains yet. I'm going to wait until the men are around, then take down one curtain at a time, trim as necessary, turn up a double hem and hand hemstitch. I know that I will effectively be hemstitching 460cm each curtain (181 inches, or 15 feet, or five yards), but I've done that sort of thing in the past and it's surprisingly quick. Until then, the curtains are bunched up to keep the heat from the radiator in the room.


By the way, that's full sunlight in the middle of the day. They're not bad at blocking light and I think that they'll do well. If push comes to shove, I'll pin a fleece blanket on the back. 

The magpie's nest is still there and it's huge. I managed this pic.


but it doesn't do justice. Either they're planning a big family or want to rent out a room - it looks massive. 

Bear is being very bear. He was on his way to bed and then paused and said, 'oh, by the way, I got my results back and I got A+ in pure maths and statistics'. I'm sure I don't know all of the good stuff he's done. Apparently tomorrow is some sort of award day and bear said he wasn't looking forward to it. Sigh. From what he let slip, he may get some sort of 'this lad done well' recognition but the chances of me finding out are very small.

Ruth - I've been looking into the reasons why thread snaps and I suspect that the tension is wrong. I've been a bit concerned and I dialled the tension down to 0. I've been thinking, and I think it's worth persevering.

Hugs and good health to all. 

Monday 25 March 2024

That Monday Feeling

I'm feeling less organised than usual, which is epically unorganised. Worries about relative continue.

There is nothing so helpless as sitting on the sidelines when someone who you love dearly is poorly when you are really only a connection. Their family is awesome and navigating tricky waters so all I can do is add prayers and worry. 

When I first moved to Yorkshire in 1988, I found it very hard to make connections. It took me years to feel at home here. Yorkshire isn't your average English county. It has an international football (or soccer) team - the sort of team that is part of a region that has a strong identity, like Tibet or Cascadia. The rules are here if you are interested. The point is, Yorkshire is very much its own place and there is even a (fairly small) Yorkshire Independence movement. Moving a hundred miles to be here felt almost like moving to another country. I'm sitting and waiting on news of someone who made me welcome, like a stranger in a strange land. That wonderful human being that talked to me like I was worthy of conversation is in hospital and I'm still worried. 

In other news, here is a poor pic of the magpie nest.



DH spotted two magpies working together to pluck the poor rabbit. The tail is now completely detached.



The pic that I managed didn't really do the nest justice - it's big! It's like they're building it big enough to rent out an extra room!

I need to get working in the garden, but at the moment I feel like I'm dithering and not getting much done. 

Hugs and good health to all.

Friday 22 March 2024

A Little More Distracted Than Usual

It's not really mine to tell, but someone in DH's family is now in hospital, so I'm worrying about them at the moment. 

I try and limit what I write about others on here, and that relative, who is awesome and who has always been incredibly kind to me, deserves privacy. But I'm thinking about them and I know I'll want to do some more running around over the next few days.

And I haven't finished the conversion from pillow cases to bags. The thread on the sewing machine keeps breaking. I think that there's a problem with the tension but the thread may also be weak. I don't feel like pushing a sharp needle through stiff ribbon on half a dozen pillow cases. I haven't shortened the curtains either. I have been prodding around them, and the only solution that I think I could plausibly manage is to take the curtains down, trim the bottom and then fold over a double hem and hemstitch by hand. I've done that before, but it's a daunting task. 

On the bright side, we've spotted a nest where a lot of the fibre may be going - it's a magpie nest, it's large and it's at the top of the laurels across the way. I'll try and get a pic. 

Hugs and good health to all. 

Tuesday 19 March 2024

Sew Far, Sew Good

I've been very hit and miss over the last few days. I think the rabbit on the front step has been plucked.


It's nesting season, a lot of small birds are used to coming in the garden even without the bird feeder and the fibres seem very tempting. All I know is that it's getting more and more ragged every day. 

The curtains in the living room have been hung.


That was taken at midday and they are doing an okay job of blocking out the light. I tried to line the study curtains but realised that was was just not up to wrestling with a total of eight square metres per curtain plus interlining and that it would be okay if I gave up. I checked on the label, it turns out that the king sized duvets are longer than standard so they over hung the radiators when DH and bear put them up.


The window is 90 inches by 76 inches, which needs a fair amount of fabric. I plan to try to turn them up tomorrow. 

I've had a go turning one of the pillowcases into a bag. I know that there are all sorts of fancy things that I could have done, but I didn't do them. Instead I got some ribbon and cord and aimed for the basics. I sewed a strip of ribbon each side of the pillowcase opening.


But the cord that I have is too thick. I'm going to have to replace it. I had a mare of a time trying to thread it through. In the end, I taped one end to a dinner knife and pushed it through that way. Elegant it wasn't!


Hopefully I'll get some better pics when I return to the sewing machine tomorrow. 

Writing stuff - the latest instalment from the White Hart is here

Hugs and good health to all. 

Saturday 16 March 2024

The Sewing Machine is Winning

Ages and ages ago, I bought a sewing machine. It was one of those bargains where it was a return, and there was a voucher, and another offer stacked on top. I think that it cost around £20. I wrote about it ages ago, but I can't remember when so I can't check. I know that it wasn't a lot, which is fair enough for a discontinued Amazon own brand discount machine.



It has 42 stitches, apparently, but no instruction videos on YouTube and the manual is somewhat sparsely written. I had a few issues threading the machine up. First off I couldn't thread the needle and broke the needle threader.


The presser foot was loose, but I didn't realise so I bent the needle before the presser foot fell off. 

When I finally got the dratted thing threaded up with a new needle (and after a lot of help from DH) and did a few test runs, it was okay. 


I should have done a lot more,but instead got started. Because an even longer time ago I picked up some duvet covers to turn into curtains. As I have mentioned, my windows are an inconvenient size and standard ready made curtains won't fit, but duvet covers with heading tape work fine. However I've got a little over confident and I also bought some curtain interlining. As I clicked 'pay' I thought, I can just... And we all know how that goes. 


The inexpensive curtains that I bought from Aldi were in either double or king sized. I want to have the same colour curtains in both the main rooms - study and living room. The study window is 90 inches wide, the living room window is 46 inches wide. Double duvets are 200cm wide and king sized are 220cm. I bought two of each. I checked my order history and the interlining is 6 metres long and 54 inches wide (yes, I know!). I am going to have to do a lot of sums, and they aren't really the sort that I can rope bear into. 

By the time I'd messed around, I managed to get one double duvet attached to heading tape. I did not do a good job but I'm hoping that 'crushed' fabric, fullness and gathers will be kind to my skill.


Using a sewing machine is supposed to be quicker than hand sewing, but it was a close call with this machine as it ambles gently along. I called it a day at dinner time and went to hang out with the men. However now that it's all set up, I should be able to add heading tape to three duvet covers easily enough tomorrow. I'm not sure about the interlining. I'll share how I get on. 

I would also mention that I'm glad that I'm using these for curtains as the fabric is quite scratchy and I wouldn't like them on my bed. I was going to use the pillow cases that came with the duvets as cushion covers for the study and living room but I really don't fancy them now. I'll see if I can think of other uses as I don't feel it's fair to donate such uncomfortable things...

...but I could use some bags for yarn...

Anyway, I'll share how I survive with the sewing machine tomorrow. 

(and thinking about it, I don't think that I've bought enough lining...)

Hugs and good health to all. 

Tuesday 12 March 2024

I Was Tempted and Did Not Resist

I'm just passing through quickly before I forget to post again. I called in at Aldi and saw this...

So I spent £10.32 and came home with this...


I need an intervention. Though I think it will make a cute blanket. As it was, when I was rearranging some of the yarn from the current blanket that I'm working on, I found that the extension lead to my laptop and the fire was red hot, as was the lead to the electric fire. I've replaced it and got a new extension now, but it was worrying. 

I was thinking on Sunday night about Across a Misty Bridge. It's a series of stories from some writing prompts around 2013 which laid the foundations for Tales from the White Hart. It's been tacked onto the White Hart books in the past and has even been around on Story Origin at one point, but I felt that it could do with a brush up and a little extra care to make it's own story. It's been at the back of my mind for a while and I have been tinkering around with the punctuation and spacing but hasn't really got anywhere. On Sunday I decided to forget the fancy stuff and just put it back on the blog as I was never going to get around to it. Today I'm over 18,500 words into the re-write and still going. I think that not only do I need an intervention but also possibly a diagnosis. 

Hopefully back tomorrow with something sensible. Hugs and good health to all.