Not an Actual Mummified Squirrel

Last week was hot - it got up to the mid 30’s C and was just as warm inside at work which is not ideal for making quilts. I even missed my old workshop which rarely went above 10 degrees C and was always colder inside than out. All I wanted to do after work was sit very still in my cool cottage with a cup of tea.

Apart from watering my plants every day, trying to keep the tomatoes alive, I planted some flowers and seeds in an old paddling pool. Slightly foolishly - I climbed down a ladder to the river at the edge of the derelict garden to collect some stones to line the bottom. I was mightily freaked out to see the glassy eyes of what I assumed was a mummified squirrel meet mine as I scrambled down. It was a while until I realised that it was actually a weird, plastic chipmunk that had somehow wedged itself into the riverbank. 

Hopefully, apart from a few more tomatoes, I have finished planting since I have already spent a small fortune on compost. 

 

I have a couple of projects going on in the background, one of which is the patchwork coat which I cannot seem to decide might be nearing completion, apart from its construction. The other thing was randomly patching some scraps together to make an iPad cover as requested by Nella. I have not yet started the punk-rock inspired cover for the heavy-duty Singer, despite having all of the studs and mohican wig. However, I have thought about the quilting that I might do on a 2-person FoQ entry. It needs to be simple, classy and do-able apart from the 800+ French knots that I would love to add…

 

Real Life Animal Crossing

I used to be somewhat addicted to a Nintendo game called “Animal Crossing” where I would run around planting, watering and weeding on my virtual island. That was ME in real life this weekend, planting up a veritable farm in containers, taking over any unclaimed patch of ground. If it was my own garden I would probably put in lots of raised beds but Nessie crashes around on the grass playing footie and when I eventually move on I will have to shift an awful lot of plants in pots!

Last week when I had visitors it was unseasonably cool but now it is so hot that I am mostly inside my cool cottage since I overheat easily, even in the shade. It looks set to be a sticky week at work ahead (25-30 degrees C) which I am not looking forward to.

I had a jaunt to Cowslip Studios near Launceston on Saturday with work colleague / gardening guru, Karen to see the Kaffe Fasset quilt exhibition but really it was an excuse to swing by the lovely, Homeleigh Garden Centre and B&M which had wilting tomato plants on sale for £1.00!

I spent ages on Sunday preparing pots for planting. The pots that were donated to me by a friend are deep and use up too much compost so I put sticks, bits of turf and cardboard scraps at the bottom to take up some of the volume. I have now had to order yet more compost because I still have some flowers, baby tomatoes, chillies and rocket to plant. 

My mini farm is growing raspberries, beans, tomatoes, strawberries and tatties! Hopefully, it will survive the heat if I water everything nice and early in the morning. 

Since it is too hot to be outside I might go and have a rummage amongst my scraps. Nella has requested an ipad pouch so I will see what I can do without buying any more fabric. 

Family Hols 2026

 

I had a lovely week with all 3 of my children coming to stay in my tiny Tavistock cottage. We love being with each other, doing outings and just hanging out together. It is a pity we are all so far away but at least none of them lives in Australia!

We visited Cotele and Killerton House National Trust houses, had a day out in Falmouth and Totnes then an evening watching Beltane Morris dancers. 

We cooked, had many cups of tea, sat around a bonfire and laughed a lot. Nessie and I will really miss them when they all leave but at least it won’t be too long until we meet again at Nella’s Graduation.

A Screwdriver and a Spoon

It was a short, quick week at work and varied with an overlocker lesson, a videography tutorial, customer quilts and everything in between. 

In my garden a naughty dog made a wee hole in the greenhouse playing footie and I planted a row of hollyhocks on the other side of my rotting fence. My trowel broke in the stony ground so I had to resort to using a screwdriver and a spoon. I was advised that slugs might enjoy my new plants so I put pot scourers around them to put them off. Hopefully my neighbourhood hedgehog will eat all of the slugs anyway.

I have 3 beds made up in anticipation of my children visiting. I could really do with a bigger house or shorter visitors!

I considered making a start on the iPad cover that Nella requested then decided I did not have space for that right now as Freya’s tortoise will be taking up residence on my sewing table.

Fed up with how long it was taking me to paint Jo’s wall with a brush, I bought a sprayer which was definitely the way to go. I made an executive decision and got some paint mixed in Farrow & Ball’s brassica colour. I was worried that it would look too grey but there is a violet tinge to it so I think it looks rather nice:)

How Many Tomato Plants are too Many?

I only managed one small customer quilt this week as I was busy doing other jobs, including stock taking many varieties of calico…

It was a bank holiday weekend! I have been helping Jo to jazz up her back yard and we started on painting the walls and fence which always takes far more paint than you can imagine. I watered down the pale lilac masonry paint to get a base on the roughcast walls. There should be a law against those, particularly ones done in black granite. I am hoping that Jo might be able to find a sprayer in the back of her shed because using a brush takes ages.

I did a bit of garden “pot-tering” and have had to relocate some things to the derelict garden next door. I bought a bag of bargain seed potatoes for £1.00 so put some in boxes, some in rough ground and still had some left which I gave to my neighbour. 

I replaced the dead pansies in my baked bean tin garden with marigolds, planted tomatoes, strawberries and runner beans. I still have raspberries, hollyhocks, dwarf beans and tomatoes coming mail order plus the tomato seeds I sowed in my greenhouse have all germinated! If they all grow I will just have to preserve them.

My last chore of the long weekend will be to scrub all of the soil and paint off my hands.

Bloomin' Hectic Week

After driving from Norfolk last Sunday, I attended the welcome reception for Nicholas Ball’s retreaters prior to their week at Quilt Direct. They worked on their improv fish all week, ending up making them twice the normal size in their enthusiasm. 

As well as making sure the retreaters were fed, watered and happy I had a customer quilt and lots of teaching. There was a day of 1:1 overlocker, another day of 1:1 Bernini Aurora and 770QE, a B990 zoom session, then my new Friday job. 

My evenings were also busy - Nicholas came round for tea, we went out for pizza and had a gala dinner to attend!

My house could do with a jolly good hoover, Nessie needs a brush, and I have not even taken the new heavy duty Singer out of its box.

On Saturday my work colleague, Sue, and I turned up at Jo’s house to do a “Groundforce” special on her back yard which had not been completely cleared since she had a new kitchen installed. In addition, a previous owner had painted the concrete green and it was a victim of Devon winter slime. We made 3 trips to the dump then pressure-washed everything. Jo was delighted and keen to repaint fences and walls, purple of course:)

Family Funeral

I was in Norfolk last week to attend my dad‘s funeral. He died rather unexpectedly, but it was not a shock since he was 89 frail and had dementia. 

The funeral was actually quite a happy affair with many friends and family travelling from all over the country to honour his life. There were some great photos on the slideshow and many anecdotes about how he would buy livestock from a man in the pub or decide to dig a really deep well in the garden and about his times as a deep sea diver. 

All three of my children came down to stay and reconnected with their cousins which was lovely. 

I made it back to Tavistock in “just” seven hours which is less than a drive to Scotland but a reminder that we’re all so far apart. It won’t be too long before we do get to have our family summer holiday altogether here in Devon. We were going to go and stay somewhere but decided it was just too jolly expensive and it’s perfectly nice just being together.

What Day Is It?

After a long Bank Holiday weekend it is easy to get confused about what day of the week it is. Nella is still staying and I only worked for 2 days before going to Cardiff on a 2 day training course for a new job working remotely on Fridays. I will be answering emails for the Singer sewing machine helpline and trouble-shooting problems. Singer and Bernina are actually part of one UK distribution company so it is not that weird for me to have a side hustle involving a different brand. 

I brought home a “heavy duty” model to familiarise myself with a popular model. I had secretly hoped it was going to be one of the black ones and I was going to make a rockstar style cover for it. However, I think it will be called “Sid” and I plan to make it a punk inspired cover instead.

Nella and Nessie were home alone in Tavistock but survived without me so I took them on a road trip to Totnes and the Make SW gallery in Bovey Tracey. We mooched in many charity shops, enjoyed vegan drinks and lunch, then kept our fingers crossed that I did not run out of diesel on the way back over Dartmoor. 

Sunday has been a sort of reset day, doing chores and hoping to get outside and repot my struggling new rhubarb plant, while Nella works on her sketchbook and Nessie snoozes. 

Easter 2026

I had quite a varied week at work with some teaching, some quilting and making a movie about a new Accuquilt die with Karen. 

Nella came to stay and we had a super 4 day weekend. Plenty of chocolate was consumed, we went to see Mel in Looe and visited Lydford Gorge with its stunning White Lady waterfall. 

The sun came out at last so I could cut my grass. I was glad of an assistant to put my pop-up budget greenhouse from Lidl together. I was sorely tempted to purchase a hanging egg chair from Tesco but common sense prevailed. 

Nella is staying on and will be getting on with some written work for Uni so Nessie will be glad of the company this week:)

Let There Be (more) Light!

I am hopeful that with an extra hour of light in the evening I will feel more inspired to do more. Every night this week I came home from work, went for a dog-walk, cooked, washed up, watched maybe an hour of telly then bed - on repeat! I continually come up with excuses as to why I am not doing more with my evenings - not enough light, not enough space, not enough motivation;) 

If the weather improves I will put up my pop-up greenhouse and plant some seeds. Before too long I will probably be complaining how long it takes to do the garden’s evening watering!

At least I finished the dolly bed project. I spent a very enjoyable hour at the weekend starting my Lego orchid (Mother’s Day pressie). 

I visited the “Craft for Crafters Show” in Exeter with 2 work pals. I had not planned to buy anything but was encouraged to buy materials to make a small overnight bag from “Country Cow Designs”. It should be quite fun as we plan on doing the bags together and this might hold us accountable to finish;)

I had a bit of a hoover, dust and mop session on Friday since I thought Nella was coming on Monday but it turns out she is coming on Thursday so I will probably have to do it again before that. I even went shopping to get in some vegan food and an Easter egg.

Nessie and I have done our Sunday chores and been for a walk on the moors so we intend to veg out for the rest of the day. At least, that is her intention - I have a Lego project to complete.

Spring Spruce Up

 

I have been enjoying lovely spring weather this weekend and got stuck into some serious garden tidying. I borrowed a more powerful pressure washer and got rid of the winter slime. It was a messy job but worth it. I had to stop when the old flaky paint looked like it might wash off the walls. I repainted the front of my shed which had gone green and most of the fence which is pretty rotten. After mowing the grass and buying Nessie a new basketball, I felt very satisfied. I even cut down a sycamore tree that was growing through the fence.

I finished the dolly quilt which ended up at 12” square with 196 pieces then went on to make two tiny housewife pillowcases. I did all that while listening to an audio book from the library so it was quite a nice wee project. I am beginning to feel like completing the patchwork coat next;)

Fergus and his band, Amplehouse, released a beautiful single this week and got a rave review from Indie Music Magazine. It just needs to be spotted by the right person to get it some radio airplay!

Nessie and I are having a slow day and meeting a friend for a walk on the edge of Dartmoor later. I might just tidy up the mess I made in the back bedroom / sewing room first…