Wagons roll…

And we’re off.

Yesterday was our last day in Nambucca Heads. We’re packed up and pointing our reluctant faces north again. While it will be lovely to sleep in a full sized bed again rather than a bunk, and to have my full range of kitchen equipment, I’ve really enjoyed our break in the more temperate weather, the familiar and beloved mid-north NSW coast of my single life and the company of friends I wished were closer.

So I leave you with a taste of the beauty, since I can’t give you the food, the friendship or the soft sea air.

It does the soul good to ‘take darshan’ or view something or some one with reverence. I viewed the landscape, the beauty of nature, the light, the air and the boundless horizon, and I was refreshed. I wish I could open the whole experience to you, but hopefully the picture at least pleases your eye 😊 As always, click to enlarge.

We took Higgins to the beach for the last time. He adores it here. The sand is silica here and squeaks underfoot, a phenomenon he’s not known up to now. The surf is a lot ‘chonkier’ than he’s used to, and a large volume of rubbery olive green kelp had washed up after a storm at sea. Lots of intensive sniffing was required. Less heat in the sun also meant the sand was cooler under his paws. If we’d let him off the leash he’d have bounced around like Tigger for a bit and then probably disappeared into the dim blue yonder for who knows how long. I’m glad the leash and collar I made for him are good and sturdy, because he was pulling like a train. Never mind. Back home he’ll be able to zoom around the back yard loose once more.

I won’t miss the appallingly bad internet and phone signal, the sandy floor, the early morning March flies or having to dodge past large Husband and large dog in the caravan. I’ll miss all of the rest of it.

Until next year.

Airing my Clean Laundry

And now for something completely different.

If you’ve been here for a while, you know we have a caravan (travel trailer if you’re reading this in the US) called VanEssa. And that we go away in her fairly often. I’ve realised over the several years we’ve been doing this that laundry is not the funnest, cheapest or simplest thing to do while you’re staying in a holiday park – or indeed, anywhere other than home. You have to haul the dirty clothes over to the camp laundry. You have to fork out actual cash in actual coinage, something that’s becoming increasingly rare in this era of smartphones and bits of plastic, and has to be carefully hoarded in the right denominations. You have to either sit around and wait while the machines do their thing, or come back later, hoping that some rude and impatient person hasn’t interfered with your clean togs at the end of the cycle. Then you have to haul the clean damp clothes back to the caravan to hang out. Because I’m cheap, and refuse to pay for a drier when there’s ample sunshine (because Australia).

All this to say, I was over it. I could of course pack enough clean clothes for the entire trip but that’s a LOT of clean shirts and undies. And an even LOTTER pile of laundry to be done when I get home. The solution was a camping washing machine. I researched. I read reviews. I took the plunge. Behold:

If machines have faces, this one’s aghast

It washes, quite well, actually. It spins…. very feebly. It weighs only 9 kilos (20 pounds) and can wash half its own weight. We took it for a test run on the back deck in case there was catastrophic leakage. There was not. It was inexpensive, at AU$160 (less that US$100) and it will pay for itself within 10 trips. You fill it with either the supplied hose or with a bucket. It froths up nicely and swishes in a very satisfactory way, so best not to overdo the laundry soap or you’ll need to do endless rinses. It’s fantastically simple and has no electronic parts, only mechanical, so breakdowns are far less likely. There are two knobs. That’s it. The stuff I washed came out clean and undamaged. But the spin cycle is hopeless. There’s a basket that clips into the bottom of the drum, but the spin speed is pathetic and I could still wring a load of water out of everything at the end of it.

Wring…. hmm… I went down the rabbit hole of Google searches for manual wringers (or mangles if you’re from the Old Country and born pre-1970). There are some beauties out there for those of the off-grid or Amish persuasion, but I’m not spending the price of a full-sized brand new washing machine for some sleek galvanised or cast iron beast that weighs 50kg and needs to be clamped to a sturdy table. And then I thought of what else needed wringing out, and I realised that a mop bucket was what I needed. It’s small. It’s light. Its water-catcher is built in. It’s dual purpose. Plop your still rather wet clothes into the bucket, feed a bit up through the rollers on the top, press the pedal and pull moderately. Still not quite up to 1200rpm standards, but adequate and not too drippy.

The machine’s light and small enough to stow under a bunk, or it can travel in the shower if not fully dried out after use. It’ll come in handy if the home machine ever breaks down, or if I just need to wash a few bits quickly. What’s not to love (apart from the feeble spin, of course)? And no, I’m not being paid to endorse it. You’ll notice I have not named the brand or the place I bought it from. I just thought it might be fun to share the adventure of researching, buying and testing a handy piece of travel kit in case anyone ever found it useful. Details available if you want them.

So that’s the holiday wash taken care of…

Going round in ovals

Not a typing error.

I could have done circles, but I doubt the effect would have been satisfactory!

Pattern booklet

This is a jelly roll rug. I bought the pattern years ago with the best intentions, but once I’d read the first three pages of it, I was much too lazy a bit intimidated and put it and the jelly roll aside. For years…

Finished size of mine is 48 x 27 inches but may vary. It was easy to make, but the preparation is pretty tedious and took twice as long as the actual assembly. None of it is hard, though. I do think the pattern instructions about the assembly are unnecessarily complicated, as they involve shifting furniture about. You do need an L-shaped return of some sort on your sewing table to hold the growing size of the mat as you stitch, but that’s about it.

You need a jelly roll. You join it end to end with neat diagonal seams until it’s all one strip. You cut batting strips a fraction narrower (the pattern says the same size, but I found that resulted in making it hard to fold the strips), and I cut them at 2¼ inches wide. You can join these strips too, with batting tape, but I didn’t bother.

Finished rug

You lay the batting on the wrong side of the jelly roll strip. You fold both edges towards the middle and fold the whole thing in half lengthwise. Pin together. Repeat this for the whole endless length. You taper one end down to half an inch, over a distance of about 6 inches. Stitch the strip down along its length, about ¼ inch from the open edge.  You end up with a sort of flat, chubby ‘yarn’. Roll it into a ball, secure with a pin. Start the rug with a straight length (1 used 16 inches) and spiral out, securing with zigzag stitch. You need to ‘feed’ the free yard actively towards the stitching or it’ll get tighter and tighter and end up as a bowl, edges curving upwards. End up with the tapered end tucked neatly under. It’ll need steaming and pressing and possible a night spent under your heaviest books. Total time: 2 days.

This rug is going into the caravan, between the bunks, and will be cosy under foot instead of the vinyl planks.

VanEssa: the shakedown trip

Well, it’s been great.

We’ve just spent 4 days at Airlie Beach in the Whitsundays. We took our caravan VanEssa up for her maiden voyage with us, and because Airlie is only 150km/90ish miles away, it was the perfect spot: beautiful, warm, but close enough to home to head back easily in a couple of hours if anything went wrong. But nothing (much) did. With one or two notable exceptions, of course. I mean, it wouldn’t be us if there weren’t at least two issues. Since they relate to the, ahem, sanitary facilities, I’m going to gloss over that bit hastily as no-one wants to hear about things like that. However, on the plus side, VanEssa is amazingly well insulated for both heat and sound, the reverse-cycle aircon is a dream for both heating and cooling, the beds were even comfier than I thought, the fridge/freezer was fantastic, the stovetop worked beautifully, the range hood was efficient. I could go on…

Airlie Beach has always been a bit too close for our holiday trips, and it’s a major tourist centre, but off-season we found it was perfect for the Husband’s 4-day off shift, so we’ll definitely be going back. Because of this, we hadn’t done much exploring in the area, and one of the places I wanted to visit was in Proserpine, about 30km from where we were staying. It’s a small, busy sugar town, not the sort of place you’d expect to find a shop like Colour Me Crazy. From the name and the look of the website, you expect a certain degree of kookiness, but believe me, there’s nothing kooky about this place. It’s crammed floor to ceiling in multiple rooms with utter fabulousness. I can’t describe it, so I’ll let the pictures do the talking.

The Husband and doggo decided that it was not their kind of thing, and sat outside in the sunshine while I drifted about inside, coveting and fingering the merch. It’s not cheap (although worth every penny, I’d say), and I just couldn’t justify spending the sort of money my acquisitive little heart pined to… Gorgeous clothing, jewellery, bags, shoes, homewares, candles, pictures. aaaargh…

So after I tore myself away we went and investigated Prossy Pies, because it was lunchtime, and you know what I’m like about pies. Nice, but not as good as some we’ve had recently (although Doggo did appreciate his share). Not something I can say about Fish D’vine, where the fish and chips were indeed Divine. The coral trout was off the boat that day, the batter was light and crispy, as were the chips, and we got a generous side order of aioli. Worth going back to Airlie just for that, and the place is very dog friendly, having a large outdoor seating area overlooking the sea and out to the reef.

We did other stuff too, including a short visit to the Peter Faust Dam, which is beautiful, has a very nice unpowered camping area, several pristine picnic huts and is extremely peaceful and beautiful, with an open horizon, distant hills and a remarkable volcanic plug visible on the other side of the water. I’ve been unable to find a name for this very distinctive bit of geology.

Panoramic photo, do click for a larger image

I’d have loved to stay longer, but 4 days is all we had. Doggo, however, is delighted to be home and have his own backyard to zoom around and a wide choice of places to snooze. And now that we’re back, it’s time to fix up those issues, give her a clean and get her ready for our next trip to Cairns in August.

Oh, and I have sewing projects calling my name!

Quilts for Vanessa: the weather forecast!

They’re done.

Both quilts are finished and installed on the caravan bunks. So, without further ado, here are Sunny Intervals and Scattered Showers. The weather inside is looking good!

The backing and sashing are the same on both quilts, but the binding is different. Mine is solid grey with large white polka dots. The Husband’s has a small shades-of-grey geometric print.

I got them both out of two fat quarters, with a little leftover from mine and just a skinny strip from the Husband’s. Both scraps will find a home eventually, of course. This blog is the home of ScrapHappy, after all.

So that’s it for the moment for VanEssa sewing. More soon, possibly a mat for the floor…

Quilts for VanEssa 4: Scattered Showers half done

I have the top half done.

It’s another 3-4 hours to finish it up and cut the binding, another hour to sew the binding on, and then several leisurely hours to hand-stitch it down. I went right down to the wire with the yellow sashing on the back, retaining only a few tiny slivers of fabric from the length I bought. Which is as it should be, of course, but it’s a bit strange not to have generated any scraps!

I do have a few bits of the fruit pigeon print and the backing print, both of which are gorgeous. I’m sure I’ll think of something to do with them.

This quilt is a nice complement to Sunny Intervals. It’s quieter, plainer and less exuberant, although the backing is the same fabric,  bright and joyful.

Not long to go now.

Quilts for VanEssa 3: mine’s done

Well, we chose the quilt names!

We’ve been looking at the Bureau of Meteorology radar map a lot recently, and having said that putting this quilt on the bunk was like bringing in the sun, it came to me. Mine’s Sunny Intervals and his is Scattered Showers.

Yes, there definitely ARE too many pillows on this bunk. But it looks so pretty…

I asked the Husband if he wanted quiet grey sashing on his, or the same colourful stuff as on mine. To my considerable surprise, he wants the colourful sashing, wanted to be sure he was getting the colourful backing, and had some very useful opinions to offer on updating the layout of the blocks for his quilt. I’m so proud!  The Husband has become a proper Quilter’s Husband! Anyway, with mine finished, I decided I couldn’t wait to instal it in VanEssa, and I’m so glad I did. The sun is definitely shining in there now! I found the two pillowcases that went with the original duvet cover, a little faded from all the washing but still vivid.

And His Lordship the Mouse-dog has finally condescended to check out his new quarters. Initially he was a little fazed by the height of the steps, since she’s parked on a downward slope, but once up, he went straight to his floof and lay down. And then refused to come out. So I guess VanEssa has received the seal of approval. He certainly likes his grey and black ombre fluffly rugs.

Tomorrow I have to cut batting squares for the Husband’s quilt (the backing squares are done already), and then I can start quilting again.

I still can’t believe he wants the bright sashing… Fantastic!

Quilts for VanEssa 2

This one’s mine, and it’s nearly done.

I originally planned to sash both of the VanEssa quilts with a solid colour, either grey or a sort of absinthe yellow, but I was short of the yellow. However, I had enough scrappage left of the fabric I used for the backing to sash the front, and therefore I was able to sash the back with the yellow solid. And we all know how much I like a good scrap…

The quilt front, well on the way to completion. Top half is quilted and sashed, bottom half just quilted. I’ve gone for very simple and sparse quilting: a 4 inch central square and then two more concentric squares outside that. It works to hold the layers together but is still very supple and quiet to look at. So quiet, in fact, that it seems to be invisible in this photo…

And the backing, which I think works epically well! Who knew that a gigantic brightly-coloured floral print cut from a duvet cover at least 12 years old would unify all the different blocks and colours through sheer exuberance. Well, I suppose I had an idea it would work, but it was a tiny bit of a gamble. It’s rare that a quilt back is so much flashier than the front, but that’s certainly true here.

I think I’ll bind it with grey, either a solid or a grey and white print.

I should be able to finish this quilt in the next couple of days, and then onwards with the other one. 

ScrapHappy March

Welcome once again to ScrapHappy Day!

It’s the day my friend Gun in Sweden and I host ScrapHappy, a day for showing something made from scraps.

Well, this month it was something both pretty and useful. VanEssa, the new caravan, has a door with a window in the top half. Great for letting in light, not so great at night when anyone can see in. It needed a curtain, or blind, or something.

So I made a Something. A quilty Something, of course. Very simple piecing, and very simple cross-hatch quilting. It’s all about the colour and the scrappiness.

All scraps. The oldest one there (a scrap of green Katie Jump Rope fabric by Denyse Schmidt) is 15 years old, from my early days in Melbourne when I first arrived in Australia. You can still get it, but they’re calling it a ‘legacy print’, available in special short runs only. That doesn’t make me feel old at all… Some of the others may look more familiar from recent projects.

The backing is from the remnant bin and is from the end of a bolt. I had to cut around holes, ink stamps and pen marks. The batting was a very thin wadding used as packing material on something I bought ages ago. The binding is all scrap. It’s fixed in place with recycled hook & loop tape, and when rolled up, is held up with a hook & loop tie I rescued from somewhere. So, very scrappy indeed, then. Also, cheerful, colourful and a nice antidote to all the extremely pristine black and white caravan interior.

ScrapHappy is open to anyone using up scraps of anything – no new materials. It can be a quilt block, pincushion, bag or hat, socks or a sculpture. Anything made of genuine scraps is eligible. If your scrap collection is out of control and you’d like to turn them into something beautiful or useful instead of leaving them to collect dust in the cupboard, why not join us on the 15th of each month? Either email me at the address on my Contact Me page, or leave a comment below. You can also contact Gun via her blog to join. We welcome new members. You don’t have to worry about making a long term commitment or even join in every month, just let either of us know a day or so in advance if you’re new and you’ll have something to show, so we can add your link. Regular contributors will receive an email reminder three days before the event.

Here are the links for everyone who joins ScrapHappy from time to time (they may not post every time, but their blogs are still worth looking at). The list below is the most current one I have, so if you’d like me to update something, let me know in the Comments.  This month, we’re welcoming Amo and Alissa, two new members. Be sure to drop by and say hello!

Kate, Gun, Eva, Sue, Lynda,
Birthe, Turid, Susan, Cathy,  Tracy, 
Jan, Moira, Sandra, Chris, Alys,
Claire, Jean, Jon, Dawn, Jule, Gwen,
Sunny, Kjerstin, Sue L, Vera, Edith
Nanette, Ann, Dawn 2, Carol, Preeti,
Debbierose, Nóilin, Viv, Karrin,
Amo and Alissa

Quilts for VanEssa

I know, I know, it’s been quiet round here.

I’ve had a lot of vertigo. It’s… unpleasant. I’ve been busy, but haven’t been doing anything worth showing. Lots of hand-stitching on the Delft quilt (two and a half sides stitched down onto the border with teeny weeny hemstitches). Lots of long-overdue tidying up that I can just put down quickly if I start to feel weird. Mending. Loading stuff into VanEssa and finding homes for everything.

Anyhow, today I felt OK, so I thought it was time to start something new. And that something is the bunk quilts for VanEssa. First I had to separate the existing quilt blocks into his’n’hers.

Hers are the loud, vivid, fancy blocks. Well, you didn’t really expect anything else, did you?

His are the simpler, plainer, less vivid blocks. Calm, pale, formal, but still colourful. And the eagle-eyed will notice that this quilt is a extra row taller. Because the Husband is a head taller than me, so he needs the extra cover 😊

As there were only 30 blocks originally, I needed fillers to make reasonably-sized quilts for the two bunks. So I used a really pretty Jocelyn Proust ‘fruit dove’ print which picks out some of the colours already in the blocks.

For the backing, I’m going to use an old cotton doona (duvet for non-Aussies) cover, in the Natalie Engdahl Sunset Frangipani print. It’s huge, splashy, colourful and fun. And I don’t use it any more (not big enough for our bed), so it’s an excellent use for it. It won’t be too eye-searing as a backing for the quilt, but it will be a flash of unexpected colour if the quilt top gets folded over.

I’m going to keep the quilting simple and supple, so probably cross-hatching. Now I have to do some more cutting and decide whether to use a quiet warm grey or a bright greeny-yellow for the sashing. Or maybe both: his and hers.

That’s a job for tomorrow.