Abandon Ship!

Despite my Q-matic system being a bit temperamental since it needs a new cable, I managed to keep it going and completed some customer quilts. I had to watch it more closely than usual so I was not able to go away and work on anything else, although I did manage to put a few stitches onto the quilted coat back. I have 2 front pieces still to go, depending on how much embellishment I feel it needs.

I decided to take my caravan on a Last Hurrah for the year to head north to Moray for a Scottie Dog meet up. The weather was not forecast to be great but there were signs that it would improve. I am fine with towing but not happy about stopping. I stupidly missed my turn and ended up making a huge detour via Fraserburgh and lots of coastal villages in some scary high winds. As I approached the camping field where I had booked to stay the road was closed so I went on another mystery tour, finally arriving hours after I had planned. It was raining heavily, rained hard all night and was still raining the next morning. 

By now there was an Amber rain warning and water was starting to run off the fields onto the roads. Nessie and I had a walk on the beach at Nairn where we saw intrepid paddle-boarders and we got soaked. 

The Scottie Dog event was cancelled and the weather was worsening so I decided we might as well head home. The caravan had sunk into the field so I was not able to hitch up and I phoned the farmer in a bit of a panic to be told that everyone was too busy to come to my rescue. Eventually, I realised that I could crank the legs up a bit more to raise the tow hitch and we were able to make our escape! The journey home was uneventful and I am glad that we got out when we did because it just continued to lash with rain. There was quite a lot of flooding in Scotland and at home we had to dig a trench outside my workshop to divert the water running off the field. Nessie has decided that she won’t be going out until it dries up a bit which suits me fine as I will enjoy a cosy, lazy Sunday at home:)

Off Grid in the Peak District

I have been “off-grid” in the Peak District for a few days. Earlier this year I agreed to meet up with cousins who are hard-core caravaners. I was looking forward to it but also dreading it. Nella and I took 6 hours to get as far as Lockerbie, partly because I took an unnecessary detour. We stayed overnight in a farmer’s field and I was relieved that I did not have to unhitch. One of the most stressful aspects of towing a caravan is stopping – whether it is for fuel or the loo because you don’t know how tight the parking area will be unless you have been before. It took another 6 hours the next day to reach our hill top field  without electricity in Ilam. I do not drive above 50 mph when towing, the traffic was slow and the satnav took me on the most convoluted cross-country route up steep hills and around twisty bends on single-track roads. 

The Peak District is beautiful! The landscape is hilly and green because it seems to rain a lot. We had a lovely time with our cousins and went on a big walk around Hartington with them plus Freya, her boyfriend, George, and his family who are from the area. 

We visited a National Trust property called Quarrybank which is an 18th century cotton mill. It was a vast site and grimly fascinating. Two thirds of the workforce were unpaid children from the age of 8-21. They were recruited from far away workhouses (so they could not run away easily) and were fed and clothed minimally. The “apprentices” could earn a penny an hour if they worked beyond their 12 hour day. 60 girls slept in one dormitory and they bathed once a year. The factory owners were considered to be fairer than most from that time but really those children were treated like slaves. Of course, another reason that the factory owner was one of the richest men in England was that he was a slave owner with cotton and sugar plantations in the Caribbean. It was such an interesting place to visit and we spent the whole day immersed in the factory and its surrounding landscaped gardens. 

We decided to make for home in one long day as we needed a whole day to unpack and repack the car before driving down to Norfolk for Nella to start her 2nd year at Uni. Twelve hours towing a caravan is not ideal but I’m glad I did it before doing another 500 miles only 36 hours later!

Has Spring Even Happened?

I took Nessie to the beach at Stonehaven on Bank Holiday Monday. It was busy with volunteers doing a beach clean-up operation. The tide was out but it was pouring with rain and pretty breezy. I had decided to leave Nessie’s raincoat at home so we both got soaked. At home the wild cherry trees are already dropping their blossom. Because it has been so damp and grey I had not even noticed that they actually had any flowers. In Norwich Nella has been experiencing thunderstorms and heavy rain and so far does not believe that Norfolk is one of the driest parts of the country. 

I have unwrapped any caravan in readiness for a weekend trip to Perthshire to meet Freya. It seems to be dry with only a couple of cobwebs and the fake ivy has come unstuck from the bathroom walls. Nella is not keen to go on a caravan road trip with me this summer so I will just have to go on short trips instead. In theory I would like to drive it down to Norfolk and beyond but that seems like a daunting solo undertaking.

I have been busy all week with customer quilts and an enthusiastic new longarm pupil. While all that was going on I worked on my small rainbow/lamé squares. After I sewed in all of the ends from the machine blanket stitching I stitched around the rings kantha-style. My fingers ache because they are not used to so much hand sewing! There are 150+ squares still to do then I need to decide how much more machine sewing will be added. The deadline for FoQ entries is June 12th and the fee has gone up since I last entered as it is now £18.00 for non members of the Quilters Guild, plus postage each way. 

This week I am presenting a talk to the Aberdeen Patchwork and Quilting Group. I hope they have forgotten what I spoke about previously. It has been marketed as an evening that will be funny – at the very least I need to make sure that my USB stick slideshow is working and that I have the correct quilts. 

Some Like it Hot (and Sticky)

For most of this week it has been scorching hot weather again and I don’t really like it! However, I bought an ice cream maker and had a go at making vegan ice cream. So far I have tried strawberry, cherry and blueberry. I am still working on the perfect recipe without dairy but I think the most successful one used vegan condensed milk. 

Nella was away in Orkney with her friend so I pretended I was on holiday and just pottered around. I filmed a couple of short overlocker demos and with my Editor in Chief away, I had to figure out how to edit the videos in iMovie myself. They are not fancy but I managed to cobble them together, cutting out the bloopers. 

I decided to do all sorts of things I think I never have time for and I discovered that the second-hand backup overlocker can do a fancy wave stitch which I think could look cool on quilt binding. 

The most time consuming activity was cutting out more caravan stickers on my Scan-n-Cut machine. I did not paint the caravan because I thought it would take too long but sticking o hundreds of flowers onto the caravan with vinyl transfer tape has taken forever and I have no idea what will happen the next time I decide to wash it!

Alongside churning ice cream and cutting out stickers, I did one customer quilt and won’t attempt to do any more until Festival of Quilts which is next week:)

Cousin Capers

This week I had visitors which is very unusual. My favourite cousins from The New Forest were on an epic caravan tour of Scotland and spent a couple of days with us before starting their journey back south. We had a lovely time eating together, playing board games and visiting Crathes Castle. We visited them last year when Nella was still unwell so this time was so much more fun. We decided that we would love to meet up with our caravans some time, maybe in the Lake District. 

Speaking of caravans, I have been adorning mine with hundreds of vinyl stickers. It has taken ages and I am still not sure if it looks rather like a child’s exercise book cover. I have not yet finished and have no idea how they will wear but I think they look fun. 

I finished quilting the pink whole cloth quilt and got things lined up fairly well. In my opinion it was far more time consuming than doing it freehand but I did learn lots about computerised quilting. I just need to bind it to finish it off then decide what to do with it…

Sparkly and Sticky

Yet again I started a job that I had not planned – it was just meant to be a minor try-out but I got carried away. I decided to paint some of the trims on the caravan a dusky pink then glaze with a sparkly varnish. The glitter did not seem to spread evenly and it just looked dirty. The trouble is that even clear varnish dries yellowish. I decided to sand that off and go back to pink! I have a huge collection of flower-power stickers to attach but I think I may need some help to apply them.

I felt like I was on TV’s “Repair Shop” when I fixed the damaged tow hitch cover. I attached pieces of a plastic box to an area that was broken, splinted that with sticky fibre glass then squished in some plastic filler. I wish I could garner up the same enthusiasm to fix things in my house;)

I spent much of the week working on a Q-Matic whole-cloth quilt just as a practice exercise. I matched up most of the elements accurately and now I feel confident that I could teach those techniques to pupils. 

I can’t believe that August starts on Monday. This year is certainly moving at some pace!

Peanut Butter vs. Petrol

We had one of the hottest days on record on Tuesday – 30C in Scotland is very unusual and I tried to hide out in my workshop, which is always significantly cooler. I made 2 little bags for my dji Pocket cameras and pieced a whole cloth practice quilt that I will experiment with using Q-Matic.

I got sidetracked seeing if I could use a heat-gun to remove tatty stripes from the side of my caravan. This became a whole-day project, followed by trying to remove 25 year old sticky residue. Peanut butter was suggested as a household remedy but I can attest that it does not work at all – the only thing that would shift it was a cloth soaked in petrol. I have decided not to paint the caravan but cover it in hippy stickers instead. 

I filmed another Gopro clip of using the L890 to add a sparkly chain-stitch down the edge of a quilt binding but when I played the footage back it was in weird slo-mo. Luckily, when it got imported into iMovie it seemed to sort itself out! I have so much to learn with all this film-making malarkey…

Festival Fun – Finally!

Nella, Nessie and I spent the weekend at a music festival called Doune the Rabbit Hole near Stirling. The last time we went to a festival was just after Nella was first diagnosed with anorexia in 2019 and we really should not have gone because it was a pretty miserable experience. 

We had a great time in 2022 and it felt like we had turned back the clock on life. Camping in the caravan was a superior experience, particularly as I also put up a gazebo with fairy lights. I enjoyed trundling my trolley around with jumpers, chairs, drinks and just plonking myself somewhere to listen to live music. The weather was good, everyone was friendly and the People-Watching was marvellous as there were so many crazy outfits. It was a truly happy, hippy kind of event:)

Inspector Gadget

I have been busy figuring out how things work. I felt that the time was right to go back to posting my silly short daily news videos and I have been attempting to film demos on the Bernina L890 that are aimed at quilters rather than garment makers. Because I have not used all of this techie stuff for a while, I am a bit rusty and had forgotten that I could use a wireless mic with my phone. My Gopro was annoying me because it seemed to drain the battery in just a few minutes. Hopefully I will see an improvement after giving it an update and by using a separate remote control, rather than my phone. 

I was amazed to discover that my caravan fridge can have 3 different methods of power – gas, battery and mains electricity. Since I always intend to stay in places with power this means I can take more fresh food, even ice-lollies:)

I got 2 customer quilts done using Q-matic for a customer who likes wool wadding because it really shows off the texture. The bright quilt was also backed in purple Minky which gave it a most luxurious feel on the back.

I almost fell out with the L890 when I tried to get it to do a decorative chain-stitch. I thought that I carefully followed all of the video demos for correct set-up but after almost an entire afternoon I could not get it to stitch. Eventually I realised that I was not using the correct needle position – there are 5 of them after all! I managed to get a heavy, sparkly thread (Razzle-Dazzle) to run through the looper. I turned my small Warli quilts over and sewed along the straight line of the binding’s blanket stitch so the sparkly chain showed on the correct side of the quilt. To stop it from unravelling I later secured it with a tiny zig-zag. The 4 complementary quilts are almost complete, apart from the hanging sleeves – unless I start any further embellishment which I promised myself I would not…

Full Steam Ahead

I seem to have had a very busy week! I completed the small Warli quilts, added some prairie points then blocked them all ready to be bound. At first I could not figure out how 4 quilts that all started off at 30” x 40” ended up at different sizes until I remembered that the quilting would make a difference, Doh! Hopefully the differences of up to 1” won’t be too obvious when they are hanging.

I had a hexie customer quilt with a too small back so I bought a large, flat sheet and dyed it bright yellow. Another odd job was to cut down and overlock a king-sized duvet for someone. Never let it be said that I am not an accommodating quilter;)

On my inaugural caravan trip I decided that my morning tea did not taste nice from melamine mugs so I ordered some jolly Cornishware ones. Obviously, they all needed a cute travelling bag so they do not get damaged in transit.

Nella helped me to screen-print a cheapo parasol that I bought in case it is ever scorching when we eat breakfast outside the caravan. It was a slightly tricky job, trying to hold the brolly flat on an ironing board outside.

A job that I kept shelving finally got done this week – after a Zoom lesson on Qmatic with a pupil I like to make a video summary of the lesson with screenshots and notes. Nella does the editing for me but the notes always seem to take me a while to get around to finishing.

I have been trying to get back into making videos, particularly showing off the Bernina L890 overlocker / coverstitch machine. Not only do I need to know what I am doing with the new machine but I also have to remember to charge the relevant camera batteries and use a wireless mic. I am thinking it may be time to resurrect my “Here’s the News from The Quilt Quine” short vlogs.

St Andrews Graduation at last!

After a delay of 2 years due to the pandemic, it was finally Freya’s graduation from St Andrews University, postponed since the summer of 2020. She and her friends caught up for a week of festivities in glorious summer weather. They had all just left quietly in March 2020 without a chance to say goodbye to each other or to the town where they had spent 4 years. 

With intrepidation, Nella and I set off on the caravan’s maiden voyage, hoping that the town centres would not be too busy. We made it in one piece and managed to park reasonably tidily on a slope at a campsite just outside of the town, overlooking the beach. Nessie felt obliged to bark at passers-by as she guarded our spot. 

Graduation day was lovely – the students all showed off in their academic dress and posed for photos at iconic landmarks. There was a parade afterwards and a garden party. Freya found a random student to dog-sit and Nessie trotted off without a backward glance to spend the afternoon with some undergrads. The evening was spent on the beach and for once, the summer solstice was celebrated without cold, Scottish rain. 

I was relieved that the caravan experience was positive – comfortable and not too stressful and we are looking forward to our next expedition in July to a music festival near Stirling.

This week 2 overlocker / coverlocker  machines were delivered for me to become familiar with. There is the top-of-the-range Bernina L890 which is super advanced and amazing. It will take me a while to get used to its capabilities and thankfully it has on-board help videos and automatic settings. The other one was purchased as a backup for my old Babylock which is apparently now scrap. I will probably just keep it set up for trimming the edges of quilts and do fancy stuff with the Bernina. 

I have now finished hand-sewing the binding onto Nella’s puff quilt which looks fab but weighs a ton – it feels more like a mattress than a quilt. It is a great quilt but I can’t see me making another one any time soon;)

Nella had a few days to make up at the Crathes Castle cafe so I got on with quilting the small Warli quilts using Qmatic. They all have some background quilting in silvery grey then there are a few Warli figures stitched on top here and there. The idea was to keep things simple-ish and not get involved in too many embellishments or add hand sewing kantha stitches. I hope to add a few prairie points and see if the coverstitch machine can add a decorative triple line of stitches along the bindings. 

Smart Sleepover

I have caught up with all of my customer quilts for now so I had time to finish a few things off in the caravan. The dead battery finally got recharged and I was able to get the water pump going at last. I now know how to get the gas going so I practised making toast in the grill. I thought it would be fun to be able to lie in bed and get Alexa to turn gadgets on so I invested in a couple of smart plugs. I can now command Alexa to switch the kettle, heater and lights on! I am not sure if she will be able to do that when I am on a campsite and have to use a different wifi connection without too much jiggery-pokery;)

Nella, Nessie and I had a very comfortable sleepover in the caravan followed by breakfast and agreed that it was far nicer than camping in a tent. 

Since Spring is in full swing I have more eggs than I can get through myself so I made a batch of delicious lemon curd. I got some spare blankets out of a cupboard-of-doom in the house, thought I should reorganise it, scrub the damp patches and repaint but then just shut the door and walked away.

It was good to have some “spare” time this week to catch up and do some experimenting with Qmatic before a session with my Zoom pupil. I will type out some notes and make a video summary before I forget. 

I have not yet had compensation from KLM for my cancelled flight and the ensuing expenses of around £500.00  I am not at all impressed by how difficult it has been to get in touch with customer services so that will be my top priority this week. 

I did have a look at a an unfinished patchwork project, found that I had cut out the pattern pieces and gathered some fabric but that has not yet progressed further.

Just Pootling

I have to remind myself that I have been away from home for the past 3 weekends and psychologically that is busy, even if there is no major project going on. I worked slowly on a couple of customer quilts, had a half-hearted attempt at making pleated facemarks (Nella’s request), and had a lovely, overdue catch-up with Mo who has wire-haired dachshund puppies. 

There was a full day without electricity for some sort of maintenance and I really wondered what I was going to do all day without power and wifi. I determined that I would learn how to operate the water supply and loo in the caravan. I cleaned all of the tanks, filled them back up with water and attached the basic pump. Despite all that there was no water supply, even though everything had been working fine when the Caravan Man was here. What I had not realised was that many of the functions in the caravan rely on a 12v battery supply, even when it is plugged into the mains. This includes the water pump and loo flush. I would rather it was a manual pump because then I would not have to remember to charge the battery. Needless to say, the battery was flat because someone (probably me) had left something on that drained it. Eventually, I will make a Youtube video aimed at idiot caravan beginners like me that explain these basic procedures. Honestly, I read the owner’s manual but I could not find a clear explanation about what runs off mains and what only runs off the battery! 

I did a very basic project with my Cricut Joy cutting machine. I used scraps of vinyl and cut out circles to stick onto the caravan taps to indicate hot and cold water. I wished I had come up with a more exciting design, maybe with additional flowers but for now I just need to see if they will stay stuck on even if they get wet. 

I realised that I do actually have 2 sewing projects that I started and forgot about. There is my quilted coat and also a funky bird wall hanging. I need to work out whether I have all of the pieces and see if I can get back to them. 

Time to Get Filthy

I have been catching up with my recent trip to Norfolk, making myself do jobs that I have been putting off! Despite my best intentions, I had not filed any paperwork since Christmas so that took AGES! Nella has been enjoying her new part-time job in the Crathes Castle cafe over a busy Easter weekend. I took Nessie for a walk in the grounds and called in for a coffee. She was not at all impressed by the scary Easter bunny – a security guard in a dubious costume.

Since nobody here had miraculously shinned up a ladder and cleaned the caravan roof, I decided to tackle it myself. I should have put on a boiler suit or even a hazmat outfit. I don’t suppose it has been cleaned in 25 years as I was faced with an entire roof populated by moss, lichen and black fungus of some sort. I did not especially enjoy being up a ladder and my arms were not long enough to reach into the middle but I gave it a jolly good scrub, using Pink Stuff, a pot scrubber and elbow grease. The consequences of this were that the entire caravan body is now covered in filthy streaks and I had to soak my clothes in a bucket of washing powder. I discovered that the sealant along the rear seam of the roof had almost entirely disintegrated so I remedied that with a couple of strips of Duck Tape to prevent any more leaks. Having seen the extent of the roof from the top of my ladder, I am now not so enthusiastic about painting it;)

The Caravan Man told me that the spare wheel was rusted to the underneath of the chassis and was impossible to remove. I took that as a challenge, so with the aid of WD40 and Fergus’ brute strength, we got it off, ready to have a new tyre fitted. In fact, I will be getting 3 new tyres since none of them have been changed for at least 10 years. I have come to realise that the previous owner was economical with the truth of its upkeep. It has all been a learning curve. Soon it will be time to have a practice camp-out at home then I will have to think about planning an actual trip:)

Norwich Visit

(Beach Huts near Lowestoft)

My only mission last week was to complete a customer quilt and get the caravan serviced. I accomplished both:) The quilt is for a friend’s grandson in New Zealand and I am sure he will love all of the different feature fabrics. 

I was nervous about the caravan inspection but it went surprisingly well. There were signs of damp but it is not really a problem for me unless I get rained on in bed. The Caravan Man did not say a word about the interior decoration and he said it was entirely roadworthy but could do with new tyres. He even got the gas working so I should be able to try it out soon, even if it is just for a sleepover in the garden.

Nella and I drove to Norfolk on Thursday and completed the trip within 10-ish hours. We had a great day at Norwich University of the Arts on Friday. The tours were amazing and I went into buildings that I never knew existed. The equipment was all top-notch and the staff and student ambassadors were all very welcoming. Nella and I are both very excited by what her course and life in Norwich will offer. It really is “A Fine City” and we had a lovely wander around the lanes, checking out cafes and eclectic, independent shops. 

Nessie made herself at home with my parents while we were out and enjoyed walkies to the river in Loddon to watch the boats and ducks. She has not had to wear her raincoat at all and we have enjoyed not being wrapped up in thick jumpers as the weather was positively spring-like. 

We are planning another mooch around the city before heading back to Scotland and will look forward to planning Nella’s student life here.