Girly Stuff - Talk to Marg (Caravan, Shopping, Knitting etc)

[jessdogster]

Never, ever, ever used one of these gizmos but found it in an advertising email just received.

http://www.oo.com.au/Singer_Sewing_Mach ... _P8587.cfm

Posted in the interest that its lightweight, a very reasonable price, along the lines of recent posts and thought it may help - no product or Co affiliation
cheers
Jdog

[Food&Fish]

Hi Marg heres a few

[rainy]

oh my goodness your quilts are gorgeous ,they really are

geez wish I was clever enough to do something like that ,one for home then a scrumptious one for the caravan


well done

[Rob & Marg]

Wow, those quilts are fabulous!!! Do you have to kick all your husband's tools out of the car/van so you have room to store your quilts?

Do you make quilts/squares to represent the places you've been to?

Marg

[Food&Fish]

Hi its milne here margaret [the quilter cant even turn a computer on ]
You say tools why do you think we pull the van with a ute
We are just getting into vanning again just got our second overseas van
We lived in a van for 3 years in 1968 taree caravan park

[dsbooth]

Hi Marg

I notice that you have individual seats rather than those normally standard in a van.

They seem to fit in well and look comfortable also.

Can you give me any details about them, are they fastened down etc..

Thanks

[Rob & Marg]

Hi Marg I notice that you have individual seats rather than those normally standard in a van. They seem to fit in well and look comfortable also. Can you give me any details about them, are they fastened down etc.. Thanks

Hi there,

Yes, Rob and I like the comfort of recliners. We first specified recliner chairs for our own van and then we were also able to have them in the Crusader van for our C&M trip around Australia. They were an option at the Crusader factory. They are slightly different in style to the ones we have in our current van, but both are smaller recliners that fit well in 5th wheelers or caravans. (But not too small... they were plenty big enough for comfort for Rob too.)

Details: hmmm... they recline and swivel, so you can turn them around easily to sit at the table. DO make sure that your table is lower than cafe seating height, or it will be a bit high to sit at and eat etc. I'm not sure where the caravan manufacturers got them, but I have seen similar smaller recliners at Harvey Norman, Domayne and Freedom furniture. (Just shop around.) It might also be worth having a look at online sites like Deals Direct.

In our own van we had small fixtures fitted to the floor so we could hook an occy strap around the legs of the chair so it wouldn't move during travel, but we didn't bother when we were going around Australia and the chairs hardly moved at all - maybe a little bit going over rough roads, but not enough to worry about. I've heard others say that they just put rubber matting underneath the chairs and they don't move. We probably won't bother attaching straps from now on.

Just one tip (depending on the configuration of your van): in our own van the recliners are at the end of the van. We found this gave us more foot room and worked better than having the chairs in the middle of the van, where sometimes I had to climb over Rob's feet to get to the bathroom!

E.g. here's where they are in our current van (there's actually more space than there seems to be when you're looking straight at them - that's why I added the pic of Rob, so you can see the position of the door):



Cheers
Marg

[wandering star]

Hi all you lovely ladies who inspire, quilts amazing and all the info from previous posts, just wonderful. I was wondering how to get a sewing machine into the van when travelling for 6 months or more and now I know there are small ones around
I am going on the hunt. I cross stitch, knit and intend to teach myself to crochet during the trip next year. Hoping to do lots of cross stitch cards which won't take up much room. Like MArg I knit in the car and have done for years on trips of more than two hours.
Thanks again ladies, you all rock.

[Rob & Marg]

Hi all you lovely ladies who inspire, quilts amazing and all the info from previous posts, just wonderful. I was wondering how to get a sewing machine into the van when travelling for 6 months or more and now I know there are small ones around
I am going on the hunt. I cross stitch, knit and intend to teach myself to crochet during the trip next year. Hoping to do lots of cross stitch cards which won't take up much room. Like MArg I knit in the car and have done for years on trips of more than two hours.
Thanks again ladies, you all rock.

Hi Wandering Star,

Those quilts are inspiring, that's for sure! Let us know which machine you end up getting. The Singer that JDog posted a link to looked good, and 6 kg is pretty good. The one I got from Spotlight only weighed about 2 kg, but it didn't have a light like the Singer. (Thanks JDog!)

If you can knit you won't find it hard to learn to crochet. I bought both the A-Z of Knitting and the A-Z of Crochet from Spotlight (when they had a sale on knitting books, too, so they were a good price!) and both have been really handy. I learnt a new way of doing bobbles in the A-Z of knitting - a method where you didn't have to turn the knitting to knit back and forth; much better! And I crocheted some flowers from the A-Z of crochet to put on some knitted beanies for my granddaughters... e.g.



I also found out how to cable without a cable needle for knitting in the car. (The number of times I dropped that pesky needle on the floor before I worked this one out...!!!!)

Have you got any pics of your knitting or cross stitch to post here?

Cheers
Marg

[Ant@Shez]

Hey Marg, when are you and Rob heading off again in your caravan? I miss your stories and your DVDs. Freds doing a great job but I look to you guys like you are family and you tell us cool stuff about your adventures and places you visit. Hope you had a great christmas.
Anthony and Sherallee