No Rain

Sometimes the sound of raindrops on the Airstream roof can make you feel lucky to be indoors, cocooned. If you have nothing more pressing to do, those are the perfect days for a favourite film (I like something old and from a less complicated era for these occasions), gallons of tea, possibly some baking, and definitely some knitting or crochet. But if it's not Sunday, New Year's Day, or you're not on holiday it can be a smidgen inconvenient.

And after the soggy seasons we have all been dripping our way through, it can start to feel relentless, and like a bit of a trap. You can be all Cumbrian about it and just get out there in your appropriate clothing, but then you get back and steam up the place with the drying out process.

Anyway, when there's a gap of an hour or even a whole day, it's a relief to get out there and inhale the fragrance of damp soil and let the retinas rejoice in some autumnal jewel colours. I particularly like it when the sky is heavy and grey, but the sun has decided to come out in the afternoon and splash golden light on the yellowing foliage. If I look down, I love to see a tapestry of russet and gold leaves on glistening, black tarmac.

Mmm, Purple

The Cotswolds is incredibly popular and well known for its rolling countryside and quaint sandstone villages, but my new favourite spot in the area is the lavender fields at Cotswold Lavender. We had visited about a month ago when a visit by Pete's parents had put us into tourist mode. It was interesting then, but now is definitely the time to go.

The flowers are fully open and on the hot sunny day that we were there, the honey bees were droning loudly. As soon as you step out of the car you breathe in the fragrant air, and the different varieties growing there show you that lavender can be pink or white as well as many shades of purple. Each one you see becomes your new favourite, although it is hard to beat the bunny-eared lavandula stoechas.

There is the obligatory shop where you can stock up on all things lavender, and the tea room. Thank goodness, because we were in just the mood for a cream tea al fresco.

Airstreams Inspire

'Palm Springs Airstream' by Leah Giberson

One of my favourite shops on Etsy is Leah Giberson's. Many of her paintings are of Airstreams and other cool trailers, as well as iconic houses and objects. Her style, which saturates the image with colour while pairing back extraneous detail, is really suited to her trailer, suburban and urban structures, and pool-side subjects. In this one she has captured the sunlight so well, you almost need to squint to look at it. On her website she describes her subjects as ordinary. I find them anything but. I love urban and suburban images. We have known for some time that we will not be returning to live in the city, but urban landscapes are as much a part of my experience and inspiration as any pastoral scene.

Some Squares

The granny squares are accumulating. So far I have been adhering religiously to my plan to use up my stash, but I have got a point where I am left with a smidge too much pink that I don't want to use, and I feel a breathless craving for more shades of turquoisey-blues. So I am obviously going to have to cheat and supplement the spectrum with a trip to a yummy wool shop. The plan at the moment is to go around each square with a subtle and soft grey and then join them together with the same or similar colour, if I can find it. That way I think each square will stand out nicely rather than blurring into a painful cacophony of hues. Remember the snake in Disney's Jungle Book, hypnotising young Mowgli with his swirling eyes? Yeah well, that's not the effect I'm hoping for.

A note about the squares... Clearly, I have chosen to stick with the traditional granny square. I had bought a very funky-crazy pattern from Wonkey Donkey on Etsy, as seen on this post. But when it came to it, I could see myself spending years trying to learn each variation on the square theme and not getting very far with the blanket. As it is, this project is one to pick up and put down, according to mood or weather, so it's simple and comforting to just get into the rhythm of a familiar pattern. Then there are all those ends to sew in, but I'm not thinking about them today.

And So...

Right, that's that then. It's quite hard to pick up a blog when it's been left for a while, as many of the blog writers I read point out from time to time. Is there a bloggers' protocol out there, whereby we just type in a codeword and everyone understands the futility of trying to make up for the un-blogged weeks or months. That would be handy.

Plus, of course, there was that December festive stuff that seems to have been building up since about October, so let's not mention any of that. We survived. Nuff said.

So what's new, apart from the year? Well, we trundled around and up and down the country throughout December for friends' big-birthday and getting-hitched celebrations, as well as the family visits at the end of the month for you-know-what. Now we're happy to be tucked up once more in our Worcestershire hideaway.

And I just posted some Sock Critters from my Etsy shop to someone in Niagara Falls! I know that's probably exactly the whole point of being part of the Etsy handmade hyper venue, but it's still blooming marvelous to think that I can sit here in our Airstream in little old Blighty, knitting and sewing daft bits of loveliness, and someone in Canada (and Australia recently too) stumbles across my stuff and decides it's just what they need or want. Brilliant! Now the Little Tin Hut shop is looking a bit depleted so I have another Critter on the go and a tea cosy, of course.

Here's a cosy which I should have shown off proudly some weeks ago. It was made for Carl and Gaynor's 1959 Tradewind, with some of Gaynor's wool left over from her crocheted blanket. Her sister-in-law started her off this summer and I don't think she's stopped since. Dare I say she's hooked? No, I'd better not.

I've also been inspired to pick up the crochet hook again. I recently bought this pattern from Wonky Zebra's shop of vintage crochet and knitting patterns, and I have started working on the array of granny squares. The colours will be different of course, because I'll be wading through my stash as much as I can without making it fit-inducing.

From Wonky Zebra on Etsy

The Felt Revelation

One of my challenges at the moment, having filled a box with Sock Critters and listed them on Etsy, is what to focus on next? The Airstream has a finite amount of space, the Critters' box is full, time to work on little things. But my mind is in butterfly mode. Must grit teeth and focus.

I have made drawings for lots of smaller projects but I keep flitting from one to another. I've got some knitting on the go - a new tea cosy for the shop and another for my Mum-in-law, plus a couple which are knitted but not finished. As I've said before on this blog, I enjoy the repetitiveness of knitting rows and watching the form unfold slowly from the needles. I might also have one eye and half of my brain on a cheesy/classic film, or the ramblings of a DJ on the radio while I engage in this semi-autonomic activity. But, as soon as the time comes to sew up seams and sew in ends it starts to feel like a chore and I'm tempted to succumb to the thrill of a new project, abandoning my old one until I literally have NOTHING more interesting or pressing to do.

I'm dabbling with felt at the moment. It is a new material for me, and I'm enjoying getting the hang of how it behaves. It behaves very co-operatively in fact. You cut it into shapes and it doesn't fray, or stretch, or roll up at the edges. It comes in all kinds of vibrant colours. You can layer it, or stuff it. It lends itself to cute or funky designs. You can draw something, then make it in felt and it looks just like your drawing! Brilliant! I made this pin cushion to fit a specific space in my sewing box.

Eyes Open

During a day of chores and errands the supermarket car park presented this jewel. Some days it's a relief to realise my eyes are open and to catch a little bit of natural sparkle on a rainy day.


I never find the right bag. I assume there is one bag for every day, but I'm wrong. Sometimes I just need a little bag that will simply hold my point-and-shoot camera and the car keys, for those times when we hop out of the car to check out a bit of neolithic resilience, or the sun on the hay bales, or a rainy leaf! So I'm making one. I'm trying to make it quite tight and supportive, so I'm using cotton and double crochet (in English terms that is). The work feels a bit stiff, it doesn't glide like wool so I'm not really getting into a satisfying rhythm. And I'm making it up as I go along. How tricky can it be?


Getting up early has its rewards. Our Airstream is parked in a lovely wooded site this week. So we get dripped on long after the rain has stopped, sunlight is dappled, and there are acorns. Doesn't it already feel like summer is winding down? Or is it just here in the woods?

Henri Matisse

The BBC's Modern Masters series focused on Henri Matisse this week. Alastair Sooke highlighted how Matisse's bold use of colour and simple shapes has influenced art, design and fashion. It was interesting to see the extent to which his work, particularly from later in his life, has become part of our visual language, whether we are aware of it or not.

This postcard is one of my favourite things, on permanent display in the Airstream.



And here's some seaweed from Lligwy beach on Angelsey.

Shiny New Pins

I don't know if this features on the list of the signs of madness (first sign: Talking to yourself. Check), but I find myself rather enamoured with my new pins. I had no inkling that my old pins were lacking in any way but I have moved into a new league here.


They are just lovely to use. They have brilliant coloured glass heads so that you don't forget them and leave them in your work, and I think they must be made of superior steel to my old pins. These are sharper and shinier. Now, I know that it is a pin's job to be sharp, but these little gems positively glide into the fabric. The macro setting on my point and shoot camera loves them too.

Crocheter's Block

Oh dear, I am stuck. I can't seem to make a decision about colours.

I have been thinking about making a throw, or blanket for the Airstream. I like the cosiness and familiarity of retro or traditional afghans, but our trailer has a modern interior with a fairly monochromatic colour scheme. I am happy to mix up contemporary and retro styles but I think the colours need to be just right. The granny square blankets lend themselves to fun colours but in this interior it could dominate. So I thought about sticking with the monochromatic scheme, or would that be too boring? What about adding splashes and flashes of colour?

I tried a few sample squares. They were too awful to even show here on the blog. Pete said they were a bit pearly king and queen, which is definitely not the look I'm going for. Maybe squares are too grannyish after all. Perhaps stripes would be better, or one big square radiating out from the centre.

Ooh I don't know. My indecision is making my head hurt. When we had our 1973 VW campervan we could just put in anything red, orange, rainbow-coloured, stripey, spotted and it would add to the grooviness. Mind you we didn't have to live in it.

As a reaction against the black and white disappointment I started a new project with as many random colours as I could muster. This piece is going to be felted and then cut into petal shapes and sewn together to make a flower. At least that's the theory. I'm following instructions from a Nicky Epstein book, except her colours are more restrained. I clearly need to get something out of my system.


Meanwhile I also continue to add to the monster menagerie.


I can't post pics of the finished wonders yet because they are destined for new homes and I don't want to dilute that first encounter.

The Accidental Collector

I used to think that the world was divided into collectors and non-collectors. I also thought that I was part of the latter group. I was wrong.

I didn't wake up one day to find myself fascinated by stamps or Lord of the Rings miniatures but I do now have a stash. This is a legal kind of stash. It includes wool in as many colours as I can find, and lately a selection of buttons has been growing in a box of many compartments. And when you live in an Airstream the size of the stash soon reaches its limit. Some clothes had to go.


Most of these things are there just in case, just in case a future project demands them.

I was once the same way with stationery. I loved a good stationery shop. When I lived in London I could be tempted into an irresistible one in the Leicester Square area. It was like walking into a dream-like sweet shop. Everything was arranged in colours: gorgeous, edible, tropical fruit colours. It was impossible to browse and leave without purchasing at least a gel pen in bright orange, or some handmade cards to have 'just in case'.


Bead shops and wool shops can enchant me equally. I'm like a magpie, stimulated by colour as well as sparkles. Time and currency can melt away in these places.

Recently we relinquished quantities of both in the amazing Mandy Wools in Wells in Somerset. This shop fits the 'Alladin's cave' cliche very snuggly. They have all kinds of yarns, in all the colours. I like a shop you can get lost in.