A Year in Devon

 

It is exactly a year since I ran away from home to Devon and lived in an old caravan until I found my wee cottage. I have now experienced all of the seasons, including what seems to be an early, wet autumn. The conkers on the trees in the park are huge. Nessie and I are now familiar with the regulars in the park, including the 2 resident geese. I was glad that I invested in a decent second hand raincoat and have now added some reflective heat-press flowers so cars can see me in the dark. 

I have done lots of DIY such as repainting the entire cottage interior, putting up shelves, fixing the shed and got quite into container gardening. The summer pots look past it now so I need some autumn/winter plants to fill the gaps. I decided to paint the shed floor with a donated tin of red floor paint but it is taking forever to dry in the cool, damp weather so I have not finished it yet. All of the chores are of my own making so if I don’t feel like dusting I really don’t have to;)

It was a crazy busy week at work with 2 days devoted to giving one-to-one lessons to a retired couple who knew absolutely nothing about sewing. I got them to make a zipped, piped cushion and put button holes on a jacket. By the end of the week I had done zilch quilts so went in on Friday to get cracking on 2 customer quilts as I now have a backlog of a dozen!

Despite already having several hand-sewing projects on the go, I decided to have a go at making “Bubble Pods”. They have loads of minuscule darts and are an absolute scutter so I can’t see myself churning them out as Christmas gifts.

Shortbread and Shenanigans

Matt Wilding visited Quilt Direct to discuss his bag making class and brought amazing patchwork shortbread.

I finished an autumnal customer quilt and started 2 Halloween quilts.

I made a silly video about some fairly useless clip-on lenses for your specs.

I had a play with some Aurifil spools to consider what colours I might put in a Quilt Quine collection.

My friend at work had completed an amazing Ethereal embroidered quilt so I did some stitch in the ditch to hold it together then added the binding.

Nessie and I had a lovely walk on Dartmoor and was amazed at how many berries all of the Hawthorn trees have which made the trees look red.

I went on an IKEA trip and bought a couple of shelves to reorganise my shed:)

House Leeks and Leaks

Top of my weekend job list was to paint over the water damage in my bedroom, having had a nice long hot summer to dry out. However, we have had some “proper” rain bursts this week and the wall was wet again. I have not really encountered horribly wet weather since living here, unlike the relentlessly wet winter the year before. Everything is so dry that the trees are dropping their leaves very early and when it rains it dries up almost straight away. I have ordered a waterproof raincoat (second-hand from Vinted), not just a shower Mac. I have loads of coats but they are all designed for cold weather. The Mac I bought is a sludge colour, not my taste but less than a third of the cost of a new one!

I wondered how my house leeks would fare in their sheltered “theatre”. They are definitely not soggy which is a good thing as they should be given minimal water according to the RHS website. I am still amazed at what can be grown outside here. When I repotted them all from their tin cans the soil was hot. The tins have all been re-planted with hardy violas and I would like to put in some autumn flowering plants in my pots as the summer ones seem to have given up. 

At work I have been taking photos of traded-in Bernina machines and checking that they are in good working order.

In between all of my other work tasks I decided to bind the Bloom and Grow L890 quilt using the binder attachment. I previously made a Youtube video about this contraption but I was frustrated with it for a while as it did not co-operate to begin with. There are quite a few sewing gadgets that are fiddly to operate that are supposed to make life easier but end up taking longer. I got it working nicely in the end and will make a new video on how it works. I have decided that the point of the binding attachment which attaches the binding to both sides at once is SPEED and I don’t have to work out how to turn neatly mitred corners as this is best done on a sewing machine. Instead the binding will be attached as 4 separate sides, like an Amish quilt and the corners of the outer strips can just be folded under and secured. 

Inspired by TV’s “Sewing Bee”, I shortened a pair of flowery dungarees by removing a 4” strip of wide leg then rejoining them with French seams. The spare fabric was repurposed into patch pockets since I can’t abide pocketless garments. I am doing the same with a jersey dress that I could have sold for £1.00 on Vinted or improved so I will actually wear it. 

Late Summer Reset

Taking photos of sewing machines is not as easy as you might imagine. Quilt Direct had a media and marketing apprentice for a while and she did most of the social media posts but I am now responsible for the “on the fly” studio posts. I had to take pictures of the new Bernina 7 Series Pro machines but they looked grey or had glare because I was not getting the lighting right. There is a bit of a weird phenomenon where videos of the machines can be flickery so I had to turn off their LED lights. I am getting there and will use additional soft box lights if necessary. I had a bit of a crash course in posting on Instagram from Nella who is a YOUNG person. I have been posting on IG for ages as myself without much preparation but for the Quilt Direct posts I need to post a mixture of Stories, Posts and Reels, without being tempted to add weird special effects. I was thrilled when I learned how to add a hyperlink ( a simple, short phrase that redirects you to a website.)

All of this meant that I only did a superficial tidy up at work but at least I can get into the walk-in cupboard now. I also managed to get a customer quilt done in between practising my photography. It was a Pam and Nicky Lintott jelly roll quilt with an unusual large hexagon block. As requested by the customer, I did an all-over swallows and loops design.

Nella left on Friday so the house was quiet after 2 weeks of visitors. Since I had been to Birmingham, Glasgow and was hosting I had not stuck to my usual routine of chores. Over the weekend I have been tidying, weeding and catching up with laundry. I seem to invent trivial chores for myself like reorganising the camera gear in my sideboard and painting a dresser top that I found to be a herb and houseleek display shelf beside the shed. I also made a long pair of dungarees into shorts. No wonder I never do any patchwork these days! Mind you, I did skive off on Saturday to catch up with Mel and watch the annual duck race.

August Adventures

While I was working this week Fergus, Nella and Nessie had several adventures to the beach, moors, Totnes and Exeter. He really enjoyed negotiating the narrow lanes in my Mini. We also had a couple of evening outings, including driving across Dartmoor to Holne where 2 companies of Morris dancers put on a spectacle outside a 14th century inn. 

At work, I quilted a machine embroidered class sample. It was quite different to a pieced quilt because some areas were bulkier than others according to how much stabiliser was used. The instructions for the quilting were almost non existent and I found that I needed to add some freehand background quilting to make it more consistently quilted.

At the weekend we drove down to St Just in Roseland (South Cornwall) and met my cousin who was caravanning in the area. The meeting point was a medieval church with a tropical garden graveyard. We walked around the headland via St Mawes which was around 8 miles in a fairly stiff breeze. Nessie’s little legs must have done many more miles than that so when we got back she had her tea then took herself off to bed! It was lovely to have 2 of my children staying for the week. Nella has stayed on and hopes to get some of her Uni dissertation done while I am at work. 

I plan to sort through some cupboards at work if I get a chance as not everything has gone back to its proper place since coming back from FoQ;)

Headlining King Tut's!

I had one quiet, lazy day at home in Tavistock, not even watering my plants since it was raining then drove to Glasgow to see all 3 of my children. I stayed with Freya and Fergus which was all a bit of a student experience since Nella also had 2 Uni friends visiting and Fergus’s flat does not have a hoover. 

We did not “do” much, no sightseeing, just our typical mooching around in charity shops and coffee shops. I dragged the girls along to a Mossarium making workshop at Tramway Arts Centre. I had imagined artsy little glass domes filled with moss and tiny plants but it was actually a children’s workshop involving plastic cups decorated with plasticine snails. It passed the time and made a change.

Glasgow is such a fun and diverse city. Friendly drunks outside Freya’s flat spoke to Nessie. I visited a World food supermarket, enjoyed Irn Bru, got a square sausage and tattie scone in a Glasgow roll, and met Ellen for a lovely Tapas supper.

On Friday night I went to King Tut’s to see Fergus’s band, “Amplehouse” play as the headliners. It was the best performance they have ever given. There were 5 new songs on the set list, it was packed out and the energy of the crowd was amazing. The boys clearly loved every minute, grinning as they shredded their guitars. 

Everyone was a bit jaded the next day, not hungover, just tired and suffering from colds so we just loafed around, occasionally tramping up and down multiple flights of stairs to take Nessie outside. 

Fergus and Nella came back down to Devon in my Mini on Sunday and will entertain themselves during the day when I am back at work. It feels like summer is coming to an end as the brambles are ready to pick and the hawthorn trees are laden with berries. My summer pots are looking a bit scruffy so I might think about some autumnal plants. 

FoQ 2025

I can’t believe that I am already back from FoQ! The journey from Devon is only around 4 hours including stops, rather than a 2-day marathon to NE Scotland. One minute we were setting up the full range of Bernina longarms and a few short days later we were packing everything up again. 

I felt that this year the show was buzzing again with more international visitors, great quilts and enthusiastic traders. It seemed as almost as busy as it was pre-Covid. With 2 large halls in use, there was plenty of space and places to stop and reflect.

As an exhibitor, you have to get in by 8am if you want to see the quilts before the crowds arrive. I still felt rushed, like I was not looking properly and appreciating the work. Quilts would pop up on social media that I did not remember seeing. I did not do a video tour, only taking a few photos of quilts that caught my attention. I hope I have correctly matched labels with makers. The QGBI does a pretty good job of showing the winners online so it should be easy to see everything virtually if you did not make it to the show. 

The other aspects of the Festival that I enjoy are the gallery areas and there were some superb pieces.

As per, I did not completely agree with some winners but I was delighted for Matt Wilding, who took first place with “Wear your Wings with Pride”. I had watched the progress of the project unfold on Instagram and discussed some structural ideas when he visited Quilt Direct. I love the often wacky 3D Creations category. In my opinion there were quite a few quilts placed in the “wrong” category so I think the entry brief could be revamped. 

Of course, one of the best things is catching up with quilting friends and inspiring visitors to try longarm quilting machines. 

My garden has survived due to damp weather, the grass needs cutting, the laundry is on full spin and Nessie and I set off for Glasgow on Tuesday! She had a great time ordering her foster parents around and is now exhausted. She will love reuniting with all of her favourite people in Scotland:)