The holiday with more 'excitement' than we expected

 We were away again this week with the caravan, this time up to a gorgeous campsite outside Buxton - hidden away in an old quarry right next to a country park. The journey up went fine.

Unfortunately, this is how we made the return journey:

It seems to be an unfortunate holiday tradition for the car to go wrong while we're away - it happened three times last year and this holiday the clutch started playing up during the week. By Thursday afternoon, the car decided that we didn't really need reverse gear.  DH was freaking out but managed to nurse the car (forwards) home to the campsite where we called out the AA (again.  We're certainly getting our money's worth out of our AA membership).  With just a few attempts at changing gears, the engineer pronounced the clutch to be deceased and that the car wasn't going anywhere.  He arranged the recovery truck for the last day of our holiday, Saturday, which meant that we were stranded for the remainder of the week.  Luckily the campsite is within a reasonable walking distance of Buxton so we wandered down there again on Friday and mooched about and had a couple of leisurely meals, before returning to do a full pack up on Friday night. The truck arrival was scheduled for a two hour window 8am to 10am, so we had to get up at 7am and finish getting the unit ready for towing (all the services disconnected etc.).  Also poor DH had to climb up the hill from the quarry to get a mobile signal to get their updates, so since they didn't actually come until 11am, he was stuck up in the windy grassland for three hours with sheep for company.  It was a long trip back because we had to detour to drop the caravan off to the storage yard, and en route the driver had to take a mandatory 15 minute break and subsequently a mandatory 45 minute break at a services due to the amount of driving time.  Then when we finally dropped the car at the dealer's at 4pm on Saturday, we had to make several trips back and forth to the house on foot to transport our belongings that were in the car.  Needless to say we were pretty exhausted by the end of it all. The dealer said there were no courtesy cars available so I had to call the head office and express my displeasure about being sold a lemon and being carless for possibly some weeks until they can fix the car under warranty. So now we are getting a courtesy car sometime this week. But it won't have a tow hitch, so no more caravan holidays until we get our own car back.

Meanwhile, as all of this personal drama was playing out, the BBC were filming a camping episode for a new series right next to our unit. So while we were packing up, and waiting around, there were about six vans, several cameramen, sound engineers, three 'celebrities' (I've never heard of them) pretending to camp in tents, and loads of filming going on right next to us.  They did a 'talking head' interview with the lead celebrity Mark Wright virtually outside my caravan window, which has now completely disillusioned me for watching any kind of reality TV even ones like the Sewing Bee where people are apparently revealing their innermost hearts on camera.  Because the producer was completely feeding him all the content while the cameraman filmed Mark in close up.  Producer: "so Mark, tell us about what it's like for you and your Dad to be here, when you're not really outdoorsy people, it must feel strange fish out of water?"  and Mark would bellow out in his blokey voice  to camera, "It's really something different for my Dad and I to be here. I have to say we're not really the outdoors types, so it's a bit of a fish out of water experience for us, but hey it's been great". and so on line by line.  I was impressed with Mark's memory and ability to parrot back the messaging anyway.  Luckily it was quite a windy and rainy night, as we were afraid that all the celebrities and crew were going to be guffawing around the firepit into the night but they were huddled in their little pop up tents instead.  When our recovery truck arrived Saturday morning, they had to pause filming and also clear some room so the truck could get turned around to be able to load our car.

Oh, and on our first full day, DH managed to crack a tooth while chewing on a toffee, so he had to eat on one size of his mouth all week while increasingly larger bits of filling fell out.  So he's off to the dentist on Tuesday which is going to cost a fortune because he's joining my dentist who is no longer accepting NHS patients.

Apart from all that (!) we did actually have a nice holiday.  We had a couple of really nice walks near the Peak District National Park, and explored the historic towns of Buxton and Bakewell.  We found some good secondhand bookshops, ate lots of good meals, and relaxed in the hot late afternoons in our awning as it was much cooler up in the quarry than down in the towns.  There were still lots of Jubilee decorations up, including some yarn bombing.

And it was the right time of year for the historic custom of Well Dressing, which I think is only still a tradition in Derbyshire and Staffordshire.  These days the dressing is mostly applied directly to large plaques covered in clay, with incredibly intricate designs created by sticking on a variety of natural materials such as lichen, stones, seeds, flower petals, greenery, moss and even yarn or wool.  This week we were able to see examples of well dressing in Tideswell, Upper Haddon and Litton.  The Upper Haddon example was spectactular.

Other highlights of the week were a tour through Poole's Caverns (a large underground cave near the campsite) and a visit to the ancient fortified manor house of Haddon Hall.

I worked on a few crafts  while we were relaxing at the caravan.  I finished the stamped embroidered tea towel that I bought in Paducah, and it looks very nice in the van although I wasn't able to iron it yet after rinsing out the embroidery lines at the campsite.

I was also doing some more knitting on the Aldi boucle mint green t-shirt because I had to pull all the previous knitting out and start over again.  When I seamed the original pieces together, it turned out to be absolutely huge on me.  Obviously a total fail on the tension sample.  I'm reknitting using the measurements for two sizes smaller which hopefully is going to be right this time. At least it gave me something to do during the drive up to Buxton: I was unravelling all the knitting and balling the yarn up again.

I took along the two books on needle tatting for beginners that I bought at the Makit fair a while back, and my tatting needles, and started working through some of the beginning samples. I'm finding it hard to achieve consistent spacing and picot lengths so far.

A while ago, I think when I retired, a friend gave me a little cross stitch bookmark kit.  I did start it, but became quickly fed up with the very floppy canvas which made it virtually impossible to achieve neat stitches, plus the narrow shape was hard to hold in the hand.  After spotting a custom frame online that someone's husband had knocked up for stitching bookmarks, I improvised something similar using a bit of scrap wood. so I was stitching on that during the holiday as well and it's going much better now.

I did a bit of shopping.   I found an older secondhand book by Janet Granger, a superb stitcher whose blog I look at occasionally. And in another bookstore, I was astonished to see a modern book on netting lace, and it was remaindered for less than £5 so that came home with me.  I have some netted doilies in my vintage textile collection but I didn't know anyone was still doing this craft.  I'll have to look into getting some tools and having a go (because I need another hobby....)

When we visited Tideswell to see their well dressing, completely by chance we parked very near the fine shop of Peak District Yarns. They weren't even open, but as I peered disconsolately through the window, the owner spotted me and came to let me in quite happily. She dyes most of the yarn herself on the premises, and also runs subscription clubs such as the intriguingly named 'Socks and Chocs'.  She was so friendly so of course I really had to buy something, didn't I?

 I was able to find three treasures at an antiques store in Bakewell - that is to say, I bought three treasures, there were probably another 10 things I would have happily taken home also.  This is a little thread spool, not sure whether it is bone, ivory or bakelite.  And a Tunbridge ware needlebook, and a gorgeous little Victorian pincushion described as Mauchline Ware but I'm not sure as it is polychrome and those were normally black and white.

As the 'icing on the cake' fpr this week of adventure, when we got home I found that my computer refused to boot up. I'd been getting warnings of imminent drive failure on my SSD drive, and had even ordered a replacement drive. But I didn't have time to fit it before we left, and the computer was still grudgingly booting up before we left...  So I've spent literally 8 hours today working on the PC in between watching Youtube videos on my phone looking for solutions to try.  Thanks to the university of Youtube, I managed to create an Install Media flash drive using DH's laptop, hook up the replacement SSD drive, re-install a new copy of Windows 10 and boot the machine off the new drive, and then spent some hours trying various solutions to access the kaput drive but no luck. In the end I've just taken the broken drive out completely and fitted the new drive in its place.  Then I spent a few more hours trying to remember what operating software was on the kaput drive and looking for replacements.  Surprisingly my 2016 download link for Office worked again, so I was able to download that suite.  My OneNote files were in the cloud (the only cloud storage I use as I don't like my data floating around). So far the computer refuses to connect to my admittedly very old printer which is too old to have a Windows 10 compatible driver - yet it was happily using the printer prior to the breakdown so I will have to keep working on that one. I've got one more thing to try on the kaput drive: I've ordered a SSD-to-USB converter cable off Amazon which apparently in some cases will let the data be accessed. We'll see.  Luckily the vast majority of my personal data was kept on the other larger drive.

So hopefully the coming week will be calm with no more mishaps.  There's certainly a lot of gardening to be done, it all went a bit to heck while we were away.

Heat wave

 We've been experiencing a mini heatwave, I think it went up to 30 degrees C yesterday.  So I have mostly been hiding inside the last few days.  The house doesn't get too warm in the day but my bedroom was about 25 degrees Thursday night which felt too hot (I have a thermometer in the room because it's often hard to tell if it is me or the air temperature that is hot!).    The machine quilting room (formerly known as the dining room) gets blasted with the sun in the mornings so gets quite warm.  I finished the quilting on the first scrappy top. It doesn't look too bad, not great but not awful either.

I have belatedly realised that there is going to be a lot of quilt binding in my future.  I've loaded the next quilt which is the double-sized London quilt I made for DH.  Looking at it now, I wish I had got it out for the Jubilee weekend, it would have been so appropriate.  This one will also be quilted in a meander pattern. I'm using a variegated dark thread in the border, and a light grey thread for the middle part. So I'll turn the quilt after the middle is finished, so that I can quilt the two side borders in a couple of passes. In the meantime I just baste across them every time I start a new pass, to keep the quilt rolling evenly.

After a bit of investigation, I determined that most of the machine noise was coming from my hopping foot going up and down, and its spring.  I guess the foot had just dried out over five years.  So some careful oiling has eliminated virtually all the noise and the machine sounds much smoother now. I feel like I am getting back into the swing of things in terms of the logistics of movement, bobbin replacement, rolling on etc.

I've been sewing together the Aldi boucle t-shirt, I just need to put the sleeves in. A preliminary try-on shows that it fits around me but the armholes seem a bit long, we'll see.  Also very annoyingly, apparently when the pieces were pinned out to dry in my sewing room, I managed to splash some droplets of tea onto the back piece which of course have now permanently dyed the cotton-mix yarn.  The stains are all near seams so I can hide some and I've pulled away some of the yarn fibre to minimise the others. So stupid of me.

I finally finished Month 12 of the Australian BOM, what a slog.  It isn't perfect but doesn't look too bad.  So much work in this one. I corrected the perspective on the darning mushroom and on the shoe, as the original drafting from the designer seemed a bit off to me. So I've still got a couple of faint transfer lines showing on the darning mushroom but they are unobtrusive and will likely fade with time.  There will be buttons sewn onto the 'button card' in the top left after quilting is done.

I've started Month 13 a few weeks late, but it seems much more straightforward so hopefully I can catch up some.

My main Janome machine came back from its warranty work.  Apparently with my bag making where I've been sewing relatively bulky seams and had some fatal stops when crossing zippers, I managed to put out the timing, damage the needleplate and damage the bobbin case.  Go me.  They say they've fixed/replaced all that and so far it definitely seems to be running a lot smoother.  I haven't actually tried out all the situations where it was skipping stitches before, but the piecing seeems to be working fine and I've pieced a few blocks for the next row of the Tannenbaum quilt. The Featherweight meanwhile has moved up to the machine quilting room where I use it to wind bobbins for the Pfaff - the Pfaff itself doesn't seem to like winding Bottom Line thread and winds far too tightly but the Featherweight does a great job.

I had a squishy arrive in the post yesterday:

What's in the bag?????

It's the 2022 hat pattern for the Shetland Wool Week and I bought the Jamieson kit to knit the grey/denim colourway.  I've knit some of these hats before - there is a different free pattern every year - and they are fun to knit. The end result isn't overly warm even with the double stranding of wool as the wool isn't thick, but they look so attractive.

The service engineers have temporarily released the caravan to us. They have made an approved warranty claim to replace the thermocouple in the grill (which is why it keeps going out) and have additionally submitted a pending warranty claim to replace the water pressure switch (which seems to be faulty as our pump randomly runs by itself, sometimes in the middle of the night).  Once the second warranty claim is either approved or rejected, we'll have to take the van back to them to have the warranty work done. If done under warranty then I think it won't cost us anything, which would be good.

The garden is full of flowers, although I think the hot weather has been challenging for it - I've been watering off an on.  The roses have been going strong although some were damaged by all the rain earlier in the month, delphiniums, foxgloves, verbena, salvias are all blooming away, even the sedums are throwing up flower stems.  The borders have descended into more of a cottage jungle as opposed to cottage garden, but at least it mostly stifles the weeds.

The eyesight ain't what it used to be

 I finished setting up the quilting frame this week, loaded a practice sandwich and had at it.  Things seem to be working okay although the machine sounds quite rough, I don't remember it being that noisy before so I'm crossing my fingers.  I did oil the machine as per the manual when I cleaned it but perhaps there are internal bits that need some oil?  Then there was a pause while I waited for my thread to turn up, which arrived yesterday.

So then I loaded my first quilt onto the frame, which is a low-risk disappearing 4-patch made entirely from scraps.  It's probably destined for charity, so the pressure feels low.  I still felt a bit nervous about it, also it took me a little while to remember how to load the rollers with the top/wadding/backing so that they fed correctly in the right order.  I have vivid memories of this machine sewing right through my finger tip with no effort the first time I used this frame combo many years ago, so am being overly careful when I set up the initial basting lines.

I'm not much of a machine quilter, I'm very impressed with the people who can 'draw' with their needle in perfect geometry.  I know from the previous two times I've had the frame up that I will improve as time moves on.  This first top I am just doing a medium-size meander.  My absolute maximum sewing space is six inches deep at the beginning of the quilt - by the end of a queen size quilt this may have shrunk to as little as three inches due to the circumference of the roll of finished quilt passing through the throat of the machine.  So I can't do anything complicated on each pass apart from narrow pantos later on once I am more accustomed to the movement.  I'm slowly getting back into the rhythm but there are some pretty big stitches in the first pass, a few tension niggles that needed sorting, and I needed to fractionally raise up the backing roller as the foot was getting hung up on the seam allowances a bit. This quilt is only a lap size so won't take too many 5-6 inch passes to complete.

A big difference I am noticing this time around is that I can't see what I'm doing without glasses.  I need reading glasses for threading the needle, aligning the top to the initial basting line etc.  but they don't work for the actual quilting as I am then too far from the needle. But I'm not far enough for my distance glasses either.  It's not too bad during the daytime with the light from the two windows, but I tried doing some quilting at night and found the white thread lines virtually invisible against the white fabric even with the task light I have clamped on the machine carriage.  

I sewed together the next row of the Tannenbaum quilt.  Accuracy not being my strong point, some of the points on the small square-in-a-square blocks are floating but there you go.

And I've cut out the next row.  Cutting out is surprisingly time consuming, as the directions are written as if you are only using one background fabric, one green fabric, one red etc. even though the picture clearly shows a scrappy quilt.  So I have to break the quantities down in order to work out how many squares I need for a single whole block or half block and then cut that amount out of all the different fabrics I am using.  And of course I lost one of the light triangles altogether which turned out (after much searching) to be stuck on the back of one of the red squares.

Claudia of Colorway Arts released another free cartonnage workshop.  This one included a fabric-covered thread/ribbon holder, and a scissors case.  So I had a go and  used the glue she recommends, Elmers Glue-All, which I successfully acquired in Paducah on my trip. I found the Elmers disappointingly watery compared to the bookbinding glue I had been using, and didn't grab as well.  Perhaps I need practice. I used my Scan N Cut to cut out the shapes.

I've had a couple of bobbin lace get togethers this week - with friends on Monday and to an organised little lace day today.  I've started the next sampler of Bruge Lace from the book by Edna Sutton that I am following.  I've bodged together two different samples into one pattern so the result is not going to be pretty. But the point is to practice the techniques and stitch patterns so it seems inefficient to do an enormous sample of just one filling, one edging etc.  I started the new pattern on Monday and am getting on well so far.

I finished knitting the second sleeve of the Aldi mint green boucle t-shirt and am wet-blocking the four pieces now.  I wasn't really surprised that my pieces seemed a lot bigger than the measurements as I'm a loose knitter, hopefully the cotton/acrylic yarn is going to shrink up as it dries.

For a few weeks now I've actually been working on another Chinese dollshouse miniatures kit, for a little house that fits in a dome.  These kits come with everything but most of it is raw material: wire, beads, scraps of fabric etc, so there is a lot of assembly from scratch.  The fabric is mostly synthetic and I was having a lot of trouble glueing it. I usually use Aileen's Tacky Glue for almost everything but it wasn't holding the tiny bits of springy fabric even with Decorator strength thick glue.  UHU glue was ok for the beads and things but hard to apply in tiny quantities and of course just stained the fabric.  So I tried a new-to-me glue I had bought for scrapbooking: Beacon 3-in-1 Advanced Craft Glue.  It's a clear glue with the grab of UHU but dries clear like tacky glue and doesn't seem to stain the fabric if I'm careful. It also has a narrow applicator tip and is runnier than UHU, so easier to apply in tiny drops.

The scale of this kit seems a bit all over the place so I don't know if I am going to be happy with the finished result.  Like my friend Anita, my eye is offended by gross inaccuracies in scale when it comes to miniatures.  According to the instructions, the house structure will be built last, after all the furniture and decorations have been constructed.

And other than the above, I have been plodding on with the Month 12 Australian BOM which I am totally sick of now and not enjoying at all.  There has just been too many elements and too much stitching, leading to me getting confused a few times and I'm not happy with some of my work.  But the end is finally in sight, I should finish the block this week so I can get set up to do the next one which looks more straightforward.

Jubilee jaunt

 We were able to get away this week in the caravan for our first proper outing of the year.  It was very pleasant, we headed down to a big-but-quiet site near Hereford that we visited on a short break last year.  A few teething problems with the van: a cracked cap on our water butt, the grill wouldn't stay lit etc.  So the van is going back to the service engineers on Monday to have the grill and the water pump pressure switch looked at. Hopefully that's not going to be too expensive but apparently to replace the thermostat on the grill, you have to remove the entire oven which at £70 an hour labour costs is going to hurt. The weather was pretty variable: cold most nights and alternating between showers and hot sun during the days. Luckily we had both overpacked so were well equipped for the various climates.

We had some nice countryside walks, including one around the perimeter of the Malvern Hill that the Worcester Beacon sits on.  This walk was labelled 'Moderate, 1.5 hours' but turned out to be both confusing (lots of backtracking) and much more strenuous than we expected, especially the long haul back uphill at the end.  So it took us an hour longer but was probably very good for burning off some of the excess calories I always seem to consume on holiday. I can walk a fair way on the relative level but I'm no good at all going uphill. 

I dropped into Doughty's Fabric Warehouse in Hereford and also their haberdashery shop, but didn't buy anything. I think I'm a bit sated after going to Paducah. We revisited Hay-on-Wye, famous for its secondhand bookshops, and where we found the Hay Festival Week in full swing so we had a walk around the pavilions.  DH did well in the bookshops but I didn't find much this year.  We walked around the historic town centres of both Hereford and Ledbury, full of quintessentially British architecture particularly lots of wonky half-timbered black and white houses.  We saw some lovely gardens at Brobury House, and at Little Malvern Court. 

Ledbury

The ancient church in Ledbury was furnished with dozens of beautifully handstitched

tapestry kneelers, many featuring local scenes.

Hay on Wye from the castle viewing platform

The Black & White Museum in Hereford

Hereford street

Little Malvern Court

We had dinner here but disappointingly the dining room is

in the modern extension to the rear

Little Malvern Court seen across the extent of the medieval fish pond.

In the caravan, I was knitting on my Aldi boucle mint green t-shirt and finished one sleeve and made a good start on the second. I was also knitting on the shawl that I bought the pattern and cotton yarn for in Paducah, plus I made a start on the stamped caravan design tea towel embroidery.

So not a lot of crafts at home this week.  I am still plugging away on Month 12 of the Australian BOM which has so much stitching required. Meanwhile Month 13 has shown up and is sitting on my desk as a visible reminder. 

DS is home for a visit and we took him over to Coleman's Craft Warehouse, the only decent craft / art shop for many miles which is unfortunately closing down due to losing ground to online sales during the pandemic. They are having a 33% off sale so DS bought some art supplies. I got a few scrapbooking supplies and also a half metre of this cute upholstery weight tapestry fabric which will be good for bag making.

The beast (machine quilting frame) has not progressed much further since we were away this week.  I've got two of the poles mounted and am just trying to get the brackets onto the ends of the other two poles.  Then I will be able to load a fabric sandwich and have a practice.  I've ordered some cones of Superior Threads King Tut which is what I used successfully last time on top, with Bottom Line in the bobbin.

DS was pleasingly impressed with the transformation of his room, likening it to an Air BnB level of comfort which is praise from him. He half jokingly asked why we hadn't done it while he was living with us, inspiring me to try to whack him since he had always flatly refused to let us. He doesn't seem to mind that all his remaining stuff is packed into our attic. I think he feels that he left that stuff behind because he didn't want it (so why are we keeping it in our attic I ask myself...).  Eventually if he gets his own home, not rented, then he will be able to go through the boxes and see what he wants to take.

I am spending time this weekend emptying out and shredding the paper files from many of my past jobs and past pensions, now that several are consolidated into the new pension provider.  As a hoarder, I am finding this job quite difficult because my brain keeps shrieking "but what if?????" but realistically the jobs are all more than six years ago and the pensions are all transferred.  I'm keeping a couple of papers from each just with scheme numbers and so on. It's odd to revisit the hiring letters, notes from interviews, records of performance reviews, samples of work - things that at the time felt incredibly important and now are just dusty memories.   It all feels like a very long time ago.