Too Many Hobbies, Not Enough Time: Eleven trips later

Last night was our final caravan night for the season. People do camp all winter but for us it doesn't seem worth it to go away camping when the weather is cold and wet. We like to be able to go out and about, and on walks, and to sit outside. It's not much fun in lashing rain or freezing temperatures. We were away last weekend and again this weekend, taking advantage of the autumn sunshine, for a single night to a small site not far from our storage yard. We had some lovely walks along the Grand Union Canal seeing lots of Victorian industrial heritage and randomly came across a steam-engine narrowboat that doubles up as a travelling sweet shop.

DH worked out that we've had eleven trips away in the caravan since we bought it in May. We feel it was a really positive decision to get the van, especially during a pandemic. It's got us out of the house, out into the countryside and the fresh air, we've had several excellent rambles, seen some really pretty parts of the country and had some very relaxing times. It's not all been perfect - there was a steep learning curve, some mechanical issues and the weather has been British. But we feel that we have become much more competent at it now and worked out how to do the kind of holiday we like. It's certainly been very convenient also to have DS at home to both house-sit and cat-sit. Next year if he has moved out then we will have to find a cattery. I've already pre-booked a few sites for next year, just in case the great British staycation madness continues and demand is still exceeding supply. We loaded up the car to come home this time and will make more trips back to the van to empty it all out for the winter then give it a really good clean out. Then we'll have to visit it once a month to rotate the tyres, check it's all staying dry etc.

I had some more green fabric turn up this week so I feel like I have a better representation of green in my stash now.

My sewing machine came back from its spa holiday apparently none the worse for wear for the courier trip. In the meantime I had tidied up my sewing room a bit and gone through a pile of magazine tear-outs. I found a pattern I had saved from Simply Vintage magazine Winter 2019 for unusual christmas tree ornaments designed by Megumi Mizuno, and decided to have a go at her cupcake threadholder. My first attempt was an abject failure as the instructions were not only poor and containing errors, but the pattern given for the 'cup' part was completely wrong and did not produce a shape anything like the pictures. I wonder if this pattern was translated from Japanese, to French, and then to English for the English edition of this French magazine. I looked online and found there was published Errata with a different and better pattern shape for the 'cup'. I took my first attempt apart and salvaged the icing portion, and remade the cupcake over again. It turned out a lot better this time although the cake part is still not the same shape as in the magazine photos. It's sort of cute. I kind of regret choosing pink for the main cake part, for a while it was looking like a little boob.

I'm getting on alright with Block 5 of the Australian BOM. All three of these will get the 3-D treatment and be appliqued to the background fabric. I'm still working on the embroidery for the pink flowery pincushion.