A Little RV Talk and A Little Sewing Talk

Linda A in a comment left on a recent blog asked us how we hauled all our “toys.”  We travel in a 1995 Country Coach motorhome with a huge 455hp CAT diesel.  Our older motorhome is an oldie but a goodie—very well built with nice upgrades such as all wood cherry cabinets and granite floor tiles—and it has no slides.  We pull a 30 foot long enclosed cargo trailer with the motorhome, our Jeep Wrangler and the two ATVs fit in this trailer.  This winter while in Arizona the cowboy installed a 1500 watt solar system on the roof of the trailer—he did this so we could have more panels as there wasn’t enough room on the roof of the motorhome for six panels.  He also built a battery bank in the trailer. 

When we park for any length of time the jeep comes out and we use the trailer as a garage for the ATVs.  Michael also uses the trailer for a mini-workshop and I use it as a yoga studio.  Yes, we are a long train going down the road and we have to pick our parking places and fueling stations but so far it has worked flawlessly.  It helps to have a “backer” who has been backing trailers since he was 10 years old!!! 

We are very fortunate in that Michael can usually repair what goes wrong with our motorhome—thus we feel very comfortable with our older coach.  He’s extremely conscientious about maintenance and tires—so down the road we go in comfort, happy as clams!

Now on to quilting/sewing.  This winter I posted photos of the “cows” I was creating.  The pattern is made by Buggy Barn—they make lots of what I call “just whack” it patterns—no matching seams, cut off the excess, etc.  Our quilting group has made several of these quilts—here’s a photo of the bunny quilt my friend Shirley created and a photo of mine while it was still on the quilting frame.

The patterns use fat quarters—stack all the colors in one stack, place the traced pattern on top of the fat quarters and cut on the lines through all the layers of fabric.  For the cows there are FORTY-THREE pieces in EACH cow block—I had a cow assembly line going today—it was hard in the motorhome finding a place to safely (so all the pieces didn’t get scattered and mixed up) lay out the pieces and pattern.  I would just start sewing and it would be time to make lunch or supper and I would have to pick everything up.  Here at home I have all the comforts--

Table on my left with all the pieces, sewing machine in the middle with ironing/cutting table on my right.  I was on a roll finishing two cows in short order!  It’s turning into a whole herd of cows!

Four more to go and a barn or two—can’t have cows without a barn!

After a day of snow/rain the sun is now shining—nice!