I did it!

I finally did it! One sweet night of camping with my Van! It was a "trial run" and all in all, I did pretty good.

I've named her BERTHA! She is old but very sturdy.

I had my trial run at my sister's house about 30 miles from me. She lives on a beautiful 5 acres, with some trees and views of the mountains in the Cascade Range of Oregon. She even has a hookup for electricity! It was perfect for my test run.

I haven't really touched the Van since my  husband passed last September. I still have a dream to do some camping with her... so I decided it was time to get her cleaned out, fixed up, freshened up and reorganized. I found my curtains and put them back up, made up my bed (to make it as cozy as possible), and packed a new tub with stuff I thought I might need, even if for only one night!

I moved in an old sewing cabinet with two drawers, and put it at the head of my bed, to place a little lamp on, my phone, etc. The drawers were to come in very handy!

Once I started the cleanup, I was more enthused about taking a little trip... but I first wanted to do a test run! I HAD driven it a few times over the last year, just to make sure it was mechanically sound, and it did well on the highway.

Here I am at my sister's, the last weekend of August, and the weather was perfect! It was the ONE day that wasn't 100 degrees or more! And the night temperature went down to a nice cool 48!

See that little step stool? Sure makes it easier to get in and out!

Since it was too dry to have a fire, my sister and I sat out by the firepit in the evening, and gazed into my candle!!! 

Next time I will bring more candles, as it's just not the same not being able to have a little fire for roasting marshmellows.  I'm looking into buying  a small propane firepit.. never knew they existed until recently!

And now I know what needs to be tweaked.... most especially, my bed was WAY TOO HARD. It's a new 4" foam mattress but was as hard as a brick. I'll need to remedy that before the next trip! And I couldn't find a few things, so need to get more organized. I would love to put in another little set of drawers to use.

Until next time Bertha!

~Marilyn~

ALL CONTENT © PINK PAPER COTTAGE.

PLEASE DO NOT COPY MY PHOTOS AND IMAGES INTO YOUR OWN POSTS WITHOUT FIRST LINKING TO THIS BLOG AND MY NAME.

A little sewing

Hello friends and followers.........

Even with all the yardwork this summer, I've been in the mood for sewing. I  finally dragged out my machines that had been gathering dust on a shelf in my craft room. 

I have a Singer and a Riccar (old from the 90's). I love the Riccar! It is SO heavy duty.... but it had quit working when I tried to use it earlier last year. A friend of mine cleaned and adjusted it for me, and then it worked.. but I could not find the feet to go with it! So I had to order some from Amazon.  

You see... I wanted to do some sewing on my paper crafts, like around tags, and the pages of my little albums, etc. But I didn't want to use my "good" Singer (although I think the old Riccar is better!).

I was able to use the Riccar a few times to sew on my papers and I was so happy!....but it was short lived...........  as then the bobbin ran out, and I could not remember how to thread a new bobbin! And I tried using one that was already wound, but in doing so, unthreaded the top thread to the needle, so tried rethreading the needle, but then I would sew a few stitches and the thread would break! Over and over again it broke. Very frustrating!

I tried rethreading, adjusting and rethreading again many times... and watched some Youtube videos, but it still breaks. I can't figure out what I did, as when I first got the new feet, it worked fine.

Oh well, time to move on from that fiasco......... so I decided to use my Singer for some fabric projects. And guess what? I used it a little, and when I went to wind a new bobbin, the bobbin rewinder kept stopping and not winding the bobbin!  It would beep and stop....over and over and over......... So again, I went to YouTube, and found a video for my specific machine.. and it said I would have to open up the top case, dig in to the "clutch" and clean it or adjust it. Oh no.. I didn't want to do that! So I found another video that said the tension may be wrong on the little arm where you wind the bobbin, so I tried loosening that.. and low and behold, it worked! (..........for awhile anyway).

So I proceeded to make 7 pillowcases and about 10 fabric gift sacks, plus did some mending.

I was on a roll with the pillowcases! I had laid out several from my stash fabrics 2 years ago, to make pillowcases! I guess it's better late than never right? 

I made 2 pillowcases to match my new(ish) quilt that I bought last Fall to brighten up my bedroom (the first two shown above). They look so pretty on my bed. The rest I put in the little gift shop here where I sell my papercrafts.

And the gift sacks I also wanted to make for the little gift shop here in town (Hummingbird Junction), so I went through my older fabrics and pulled from those.  I found a good video on YouTube on how to make them with the sleeve for the cording of a different color. I loved that look.

  

I used some of my novelty fabrics for the gift sacks. Loved these owls and my retro style cowboy ladies.

I decided to make some pillow covers for some of my throw pillows that were Christmas designs, and from doing that, got 3 "new" pillows for my bed. 

The "Wildflower" pillow I bought from the little shop here in town.

I "shoppped my house" for a picture to put above my bed (had been a blank wall for months........) and got a cute little birdhouse and plaque to match, so I'm very happy with how it looks now. Both the birdhouse and plaque I bought at the Hummingbird Junction), where I display my papercrafts for sale. 

Love this sign!

That's about as far as I got on my sewing projects, this time anyway. My Singer bobbin winder pooped out on me again quit working again, so I had to wind the last couple of bobbins by hand to finish my last two gift sacks!

I had company last weekend, so put my piles of fabric (yet to be made gift sacks) away, and the sewing machine away..... and those will come out again on another day..... when I'm on a sewing roll again.

HAPPY SEPTEMBER!!

~Marilyn~

ALL CONTENT © PINK PAPER COTTAGE.

PLEASE DO NOT COPY MY PHOTOS AND IMAGES INTO YOUR OWN POSTS WITHOUT FIRST LINKING TO THIS BLOG AND MY NAME.