Oh! I forgot to tell you.....

all about our little weekend away!

It was AGES ago...back in September.

Sadly it's been the only opportunity we've had this year to go away in the old girl....but boy was it nice!

Remember us cleaning Flossie-van here, that was back in June!  The summer was very busy with work and our family Holiday, and of course, all the excitement of the Jubilee and Olympics.

So finally, early in September, I rang a local Caravan Park called Honeybridge Park and booked us in....then I told The Hubs!  I think he was quite relieved as work (at our local hospital) was getting to him (very busy but with the threat of redundancy hanging over him!) and if we're not at home, we can't be bothered by business calls either.....or be tempted to log on to email!

I planned meals, so there was nothing to think about there.

Hitched her up and off we went!

Friday night we were exhausted from setting her up and basically went to bed as soon as it got dark!

The weather was grim ALL weekend....but it didn't dampen our spirits!

This is our set up on day one and it sort of developed from there......

 

....this is Teenage Daughter prepping dinner........

 

This was breakfast inside...easy to do with the girls on the sofa and us in the awning as no clearing away of a double bed in a confined space before you can eat!  It also meant we could pop all of the girls bedding in the inner tent, zip it up and hide it away and have the rest of the awning and the whole caravan to 'live' in.

 

Tiddly Toes took her trike and Bouncer....and then enticed her big sister into racing her!

 

There were, of course, treats......

...and alot of showing off and acting (mostly with a filthy face!)

 

and playtime with the kids in the van next door and at the play park on site.

 

Teenage Daughter met some friends who also happened to be there!

 

The Hubs enjoyed a good read, playing and the opportunity to sit around.

 

I got the opportunity on Saturday morning to escape to Chichester ALONE where I browsed, quietly and By Myself amongst the gorgeous-ness that is Clothkits and also the utterly amazing and completely enormous Eternal Maker.

 

On Sunday The Hubs and I (with Tiddly Toes ridding in her seat on the back of my bike) braved the drizzle for a 7 mile round trip to the local pub The Fountain Inn at Ashurst where there is a delightful garden and deck over the pond where we sat and watched the fish whilst we supped real ale!

 

It was a lovely break from the hurley-burley of usual life.

 

Can't wait to do it again next year....and hopefully more than once!

 

Back soon with a walk, some cooking and a playdoh experiment!

 

See you then,

Nora xx

 

A Yarn-y Venture.....

This was the shot I showed on my teasy post about things to come....but this is halfway through the journey really.

It all started with......yes, you've guessed it.... Pinterest!

What doesn't really start with Pinterest in my world!

I found these.....

....on Studio SOIL, aren't they just adorable?

They are children's hangers, not quite my colours though......

I also saw some in a mag decorated with flowers and chickens, can't find the mag, so I@m guessing it was in a waiting room somewhere!  Anyhow, I didn't memorise the pattern just the nuber of chain to start you off.....odd thing to remember really!

But neither is quite my style.  Or is it?

I had decided that I didn't really want hangers....but then our caravan - Miss Flossie Vanroyce - came out of storage and I thought....hmmmmm!  A little bit of luxury on Weekend Escapes would be rather nice.

I whipped off to Amazon for some beech crescent hangers and got out my stash of Rico Creative Cotton. 

Remember it?  I used it for the post about  the Crochet Rainbow Stained Glass Tealight.

I picked the colours that appealed to me....the first photo up there ^ ^ shows 6 colours but I also added pale blue too, looking at it now they remind me of the beach, the cold colours of the sea contrasted against the warm colours of the sun......... mmmmm..... smell that sea air...

It also all came to me on a night when I needed some Peace & Quiet....I rather oddly decided that this could be achieved by decanting myself, the project and some homely things into Flossie-van, like this.......

My lovely 'bucket' of green tea in it's little cabled sweater (a birthday present from Tiny Angel Mummy), a homemade Banana & White Chocolate Chip Muffin (thanks Mum) and rather crumpled table cloth (hand embroidered by either my Aunt or my Nan...it could have done with an iron....but I just couldn't waste time ironing!) and my colourful Stylecraft Special Double Knit bag inspired by this from, yes, you've guessed it!  Lovely Lucy at Attic24.

Here it is open and ready for action.....

I used the pattern sizing I had remembered from the magazine I read and used 17 chain to start, 16 for the foundation row and 1 for turning.  Also that I would use a Half Treble (UK term) stitch for a fairly quick but nice thick finish.

Then I cast on in the orange and randomly worked my way through the colours crocheting anything from 1-5 rows of each.  I finished in turquoise and left the ball of yarn attached ready for the next bit!

I can't say how long the finished piece should be as I just kept going and measured it up against the hanger.  Size depends on your yarn, tension, hook size, hanger size......!

When I'd finished it looked like this......

And outside Flossie-van looked like this.....!

Too little light to carry on, so I went back indoors, to bed, to return to my hanger another day!

When I did return it was to.......

 ....sew in all the ends......next time I shall do larger stripes (fewer ends to darn!) and see if I can find a way to crochet over the ends with the next row to save myself this rather tedious but necessary job. 

Don't forget....don't cut off your ball of yarn and sew that in!

Next, I slip stitched about 7 stitches to the centre of the short side, folded it in half and crocheted the two sides together through the loops (through the two loops, yarn round, pull back through the 2 loops (2 loops on your hook), yarn round and back through the 2 loops on your hook, then same through the next pair of loops)

I chose to crochet together as I don't like sewing up and it is a prettier and neater edge!

Like this......

I found some wadding (left over from my Mini Quilt projects, cut it roughly to size and using an ordinary needle and thread (and not very prettily as it won't be seen) oversewed the two open edges of the wadding together to cover the hanger like this.........

I passed the hanger hook through the centre (of the long and short sides) through the nearest gap in the crochet and slid the padded hanger into the end that had been crocheted together like this..........

I then carried on joining the two sides with my simple but pretty crochet edge.

At the other end, finish by pulling the yarn through your last loop and darning in the end!

And that's it really.

So are you ready for the BIG REVEAL?

Beachcomber Clothes Hanger...........

Ta-DaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaH!....

I really love it!  Soooo pleased with the result that I can't explain how smile-y it makes me to look at it.  I hope sharing this with me will make you smile too.

I am happy to pop up a tutorial on how to do any part of this process, just let me know.

I already have plans for one in a range of blues and greens for 'Boys' and pinks and purples for 'Girls'....I put it like that as these are adult hangers not childrens!

Got a quick post for you next time, so I'll see you for that very soon.

Nora xx

Caravan stuff....

...you know, bits and bobs happen on a rolling basis and I don't get the chance to tell you about them, so......

Last weekend, our friend (who stores our caravan) phoned to ask if someone she knew could borrow it to holiday with his 2 young children......no problem!

So we went and collected the caravan in order to give it a clean and a once over of all the appliances and clear out the water tubes....we don't want cases of Legionnaires on our hands!!!!

So....when we picked up Miss Flossie Vanroyce (Flossie-van for short), she looked a VERY sad specimen...look.....

We realised that we had put her into storage in the Autumn of 2010, we hadn't managed to even visit the old girl last year!

We were concerned that she would have burst pipes, maybe a frozen pump, damp spots...the horrors that may be lurking!!!

But as she was so embarassing filthy and we simply could not expose our poor neighbours to the shabbiness of Flossie-van, Hubs and I decided the first job was a good wash!

One of our lovely neighbours lent us a long reach brush for the roof, it was invaluable seeing as I'm the tallest at 5ft 5"!!!

We had some help from Teenage Daughter and Tiddly Toes.....

THAT is some serious scrubbing!!...

All 4 of us scrubbed for about an hour....boy was it HARD work!  But look how beautifully the old girl came up........

Fantastic isn't it?  Well, that was last weekend, this is this weekend........

Do you like the patriotic bunting?  It went up for the Jubilee and (as I love it soooooo much)....I thought I'd leave it up for the Olympics!! 

This weekend we were supposed to be having a romantic weekend away....it ended up being dinner out on Friday night and our girls returning to us Saturday lunchtime so we decided to crack on with the interior of Flossie-van.

Hubs flushed the water through, got the boiler to ignite and run, lit the oven, grill and all 4 gas rings and even managed to light the heater which at the flick of a switch becomes warm air heating!!  Very upmarket for a totally ancient van!

All week I've been opening her up and letting the air in, not that she smelled musty or anything.....I just thought it would do her good (and let the creepy crawlies escape!)

This is the LOVELY (!!!  HUR-HERM!!!) interior in attractive shades of peachy/pink, beige and brown!!...

There are two sofas like this either side of the table, a huge cupboard and a loo with shower and sink!!

We have a fridge (with freezer compartment, no less!), and the pic below is the oven, 4 ring hob and grill (under a glass top!), hot running water (now working!) and LOADS of storage....what more could you want!?

I do think she needs a bit of cheering up....look at the state of that blind....YUK!!!

I'd love to give her a bit of treatment similar to the caravans over on my Pinterest board called Makeovers for Miss Flossie Vanroyce.

I'm also greatly inspired by Lucy of Attic24, her family have Connievan, if you follow the link you will see that she has the same dire decor as us (Flossie-van is a 2 berth and I think Connievan is at least a 4 berth).  Take a look at Lucy's improvements....she also has a Pinterest board called Caravan Dreams.

So with all this inspiration in mind, the blanket photographed here, is a splash of colour destined to grace Flossie-van and I have been eyeing a new blind from Argos, I'd love red....but it won't go with the beige look and I can't change it ALL at the same time.....what to do?  Will the red look odd for now?

I also have some colourful fabric that I was going to turn into cushion covers for the 'attractive' peachy/pink ones!

Anyway...it is a work in progress.....clean and tidy and ready for action!

I think my next post is likely to be the Pinaddicts Challenge tomorrow.....please take a look at all the entries and join in the fun with an entry of your own!

Until then,

Nora xx

Something Completely Different

Well, after my recent Bake-a Thon....as the saying goes....'Now for Something Completely Different'...(I know...showing my age!!)

No baking...but still kitchen focused....hmmmm!  Intrigued?

I only had a short time and a particular project had been hanging around....

You know how it is... you buy a magazine...it happens to have a free gift...not something that is soooo bad you want to throw it away but.....

Well let's be honest, I do buy magazines (2 or at a push 3 a month, tops...really, 3 tops), quite often they have free gifts...how many do you actually get on and do from the fronts of magazines?

Well I'm BAD!  Very rarely do I do anything with them.  Some I can add to my stash of buttons, ribbons, beads or whatever, but whole projects...mmmm!

So breaking with tradition I pulled out a magazine from around Christmas 2010 (I think! Could be 2011, but I feel I've had this longer than that!), look.......this one.....

The free gift was a very colourful Tea Cosy that looked like a scrap-pieced Union Jack, see what I mean...?

I'm still not very confident with sewing anything that isn't easy and straight!  Roman blinds are easy but a little Tea Cosy *builder-style teeth-sucking*...well!

I must have read the instructions SEVERAL times, look they're only tiny...how much could you forget in a few minutes?

Well anyway, I went for it.

And I have discovered that Tea Cosies are suprisingly easy to make!

I even got to practice on my new Brother Innov-is 350 SE, zig-zag and straight stitch around shapes, very small shapes at that!  It's not perfect....but I haven't quite got the hang of a stop/start button instead of a foot pedal.

Not bad for a first attempt though.

So finally, the whole thing......ready.....

Ta-Dahhhhhhhhh!!

Sorry, should've given it a little iron after turning...but I was too excited and just had to share...NOW!

And there it is, small and perfectly formed - absolutely ideal to brighten up our little caravan!  The zing on that is enough to rouse anyone from their sleeping bag!

At long last a Sewing Ta-Dah....and not a spatula in sight!

Bye for now, hope to see you again soon.

Nora xx