Caravan = stash acquisition

 We went away this week to North Lincolnshire with the caravan, to a pretty little site on a farm near Louth.  The weather was fairly variable, and we actually ended up coming home a day early yesterday after waking up to rain and a forecast of it lasting all day. But it was very relaxing and we really feel we are starting to get the hang of caravan life.  We still haven't got our hands on an awning so I dug out our 25 year old tent (bought cheaply at Walmart in America on a quilting holiday and brought back on the plane, much to the amusement of my fellow tour members) and we used that for storage.  It did leak a little.

We had two visits to the antiques mecca which is Hemswell Antiques Centre, sprawling across an old RAF airbase; and also spent a day trawling the many antique and junk shops of the town of Horncastle.  We weren't familiar with Horncastle, and were a bit put off by the first 'shop' that we visited which felt like an episode of Hoarders, room after room after courtyard piled high with complete junk.  

Happily most of the other shops were much better, some of them fairly interesting.  There was this one in a converted church for example, where I bought a damask tablecloth for our dining table.

We had a lot of fun looking.  There weren't any big ticket items that jumped out at me, but I did manage to come away with a ragtag accumulation of stash acquisition.

A decoration for the caravan (DH insists this is 'tat')

A vintage needlework storage box

From a stall of vintage textiles, three groupings of someone's bobbin lace samples - only £3 each for hundreds of hours of work.

some random fabric purchases from two different fabric/craft shops

various packets of laces and ribbons (many from the same vintage stall as the lace above)

and a 'kit' of coordinating remnants and ribbons for doing collages or scrapbooking

A beautiful crochet edging, finely worked, just needs a fabric centre.  Again, hundreds of hours of work for a few pounds.

some bag clasps, some big needles that looked useful, some stitch markers

A random 3-D scene of Venice which is crying out for some paint effects and improvements

A pretty little teapot, which the stamp on the base says is a reproduction of a creamware pot in the Victoria and Albert museum

Between the two of us, we somehow also managed to acquire a large crate's worth of secondhand books.  I am very much enjoying reading through this compendium of antique needlework tools and coveting almost everything in the illustrations.  Why can't anyone make such wonderfully clever sewing tool kits today? I'm sure there would be a market for them.

We saw a lot of different birds and other wildlife during the week, including a peacock who was determined that he was going to share DH's sandwich.

We passed this adorable little cottage several times going to and from various places.

We saw some yarn bombing here and there, including this postbox-top seaside scene, in the seaside town of Sutton-on-Sea.

I took a few craft projects to work on: a cross-stitch birthday card, my fairisle socks and the felt teapot mat. The teapot mat was a good caravan project because it's just blanket stitch so you don't need particularly good light to do it with.

All in all, a very relaxing week.  We did some walks, drank a lot of tea, had good fish & chips by the seaside, some icecreams, and were pretty comfortable in our little box on wheels.  When we got back, I had a bit more stash acquisition waiting for me: three enamelled metal needlekeepers from a FB bobbin lace supplier. Very cute.