Returning to Devon

Part two of our South West Coast Path Walk started with a drive up the Exe Valley to Exmoor and this time we drove over the top and looked at the views, over to the Quantocks, the Minehead headland where we started last time and the flat plain of Porlock where we ended our previous walk across the saltmarsh.

We camped right in the centre of Porlock at a nice little sight with sea views and went for a little explore that evening and tried out the local park.

The support crew gave us a lift to Porlock Weir in the morning and it looked quite different with the tide in, but we were soon on our way.

Our approach scared some lambs from the path, back under the fence to their mothers and we saw the first of many foxgloves on our way to the Toll House, where vehicles can pay for the privilege of getting to Lynmouth without having to negotiate the infamous Porlock Hill. We however, took the right hand option and the path to Culborne Church and beyond.

Whilst the path was steep in places, on the whole this stretch of the path felt flatter than last time and was mainly through woodland, with the occasional glimpse at the sea.

The path passes so close to Culborne Church that it would be rude not to poke your head inside. Especially when you know it’s going to be your last look at civilisation for a while.

We took the more coastal route and it was reasonably flat, with the odd little steep detour round a landslide. The coombes on this stretch were less dramatic, and therefore easier to navigate, we could generally hear the little streams and waterfalls before we could see them. There were still the occasional glimpses of the coast and at one The Boy even spotted a rainbow down below us.

We crossed the county line back into Devon from Somerset just before the little shrine at Sisters Fountain (where a stream emerges from the hillside), and found the boars head gateposts the guidebook mentions with ease. Soon after we hoped to have lunch with a view of the sea as the map showed we would be out of the woods, however, the rhodedendrums that have spread along this part of the coast continued to hamper our view, rendering several old benches built into the wall less tempting than they presumably were when built.

We eventually got our view and a lunch spot, and the boy celebrated by sending his Dad a text from my phone (what a great spot for a technology lesson, he’s still getting used to predictive text as he doesn’t have his own phone yet) and then it started raining! Never mind, we were soon back in amongst the trees and yet more rhodedendrums.

The rain had cleared when we finally emerged from the trees just before Foreland Point, and we decided to take a slight detour round the headland to see the lighthouse. The views there were spectacular, but the path from the lighthouse round the far side of the headland was little more than a goat track on a steep hillside and had a couple of warning signs to boot. It felt far too risky to me, so we retraced our steps back and went over the top of the headland instead.

Finally we could see Lynmouth and it was only two miles away, nearly there and all downhill, this is the easy bit I thought.

But it was pretty windy on that headland and we were basically walking along a narrow path along a steep cliff with nothing to break our fall if we slipped. I was pretty terrified most of the way down until we reached the wooded lower slopes.

The support crew were patiently waiting for us we came out onto the beach, having already scoped out the toilets and a likely looking fish and chip shop, and we all had tea there before heading back to the van, which was parked near a slightly depressing sign informing us that we had come 20 miles from Minehead and still had 609 to go to Poole. We didn’t even actually complete the suggested days walk, which was due to end up the hill in Lynton.

It was a slightly frazzled trip to the next campsite, in trying to avoid some of the steepest hills but still find a cashpoint in the middle of nowhere, we somehow ended up going round in circles for a while, and backseat navigators with Asperger’s are not the most calming people to have around in such situations, but we got there in the end and the kids even got to toast marshmallows. The real treat though, was the breakfast fritatta that LSH made the next morning in his new Dutch Oven, which was The Best Camping Breakfast Ever.

We love trains

Behold, the Trains Pride T shirt…

..the subtler, ironic and more colourful version of the Stonewall “Some people are trans get over it” t shirt.

Confused?  Take 2 minutes to read this article explaining it all, cos I’m not really qualified to explain, don’t worry, I’ll wait…

… all aboard now?

Anyway, this one off was brought to you via the Thread Theory Strathcona T shirt Pattern, some lovely, quality knit fabric the staff at my Local Fabric Shop have finally persuaded their buyer it’s worth getting, and a lot of hard work from yours truly.

There isn’t a pocket with that t shirt design, so I self drafted one, and used a freezer paper stencil to apply the iconic British Rail logo.  (If you’re wondering why that freezer paper has writing all over it, I tried out a company that prints sewing patterns onto A0 and sends them through the post (because my local print shop is prohibitively expensive).  With my order they sent a piece of freezer paper with it advertising a new “Thermo (Iron on) Adhesive Pattern” service, which I cannibalised to make this stencil.)

I’m pretty pleased with how this came out (apart from the one glaring error that no-one who doesn’t sew will ever spot) and I’m glad I took the time to trace 2 pattern pieces for the sleeves too so that the stripes run across. (Yup, this t shirt had 10 pattern pieces, 3 each for the front and back, 2 for the sleeves, plus the neckband and the pocket. I drew the seam lines at the 1/3 points on the front and back pattern pieces and added seam allowances when I traced them. I measured how far below the armpit the seamline between the pale and dark green was and used that to figure out where to draw the matching seamline on my sleeve piece).

Now to post it off to my friend along with this bonus double sided circular scarf.

Messing about on the river

My son loves prints as much as he loves colours and it’s so hard to find boyish ones, or rather, not girly ones, so I tend to snatch them up when I stumble across them.

A while ago I bought this boat print, which is very lovely, but the long sleeved ADV T I made it into hasn’t got worn so much, on reflection the design is probably a bit young for him, or maybe just not his thing.

With the remnants of the long sleeve T I started making a short sleeved negative version shortly after this was finished. (I used turquoise ribbing for the neckband, the closest match I had, I didn’t want lots of bits of boats there!)

I had to piece the back as I didn’t have enough red left and I foolishly decided to applique a boat on it whilst I was at it to match the print. It looked naff. My son loved it and wanted me to make it the front, which a) I didn’t want to do and b) would’ve been very complicated. So it languished in a pile for far too long, until I unearthed it in April when I joined in with the Sew Alongs and Sewing Contests UFO Purge.

After a brief try at sprucing up the applique, in the end I just manged to re-piece the back out of red remnants so it was plain red. Phew. After that it was a quick finish.

I wasn’t sure how much it’d be worn though, however, there was a lot of the boat fabric left and still a little red, so I made up some matching Domi shorts to make a summer pj set.  I even retraced them in the next size up.

Night Night!

Another shorts hack

Anyone spot the deliberate error?  My short posts went 1, 2, 4  and that was not because I’m into doubling, but rather because I missed a pair out.  When we went looking for shorts inspiration last summer, whilst the Girls favourite were the scalloped hem ones, I rather liked these ones with a gathered hem and tulip pockets from Ottobre 03/2017.

They also didn’t go up to her size, so I hacked these too.

I used some red linen left over from trousers I made myself and I reckon I did a pretty good job, right?

I had the benefit of having the Ottobre pattern piece to hand and I used this when hacking the shorts. I started with the City Gym Shorts pattern again, which is the white paper on top, the pattern I ended up with is the brown underneath. This first pic is trying to show you that the crotch seams are the same on both patterns. Also there is a little extra wedge on the inseam at the front (left hand pic). I was following the lines of the Ottobre pattern.

Then I kind of swung the pattern out a bit so that the waistband line of the city gym shorts matched the angle of the waistband on the Ottobre ones and used the width of the City Gym Shorts waistband and traced down the side seam from there. This creates extra fullness which is then gathered in by sewing a casing and threading a drawstring through I was just kind of making it up as I went along. Also, like on the scalloped shorts I straightened the edge and lengthened them slightly. The extra length is to allow for the casing.

As on the scalloped shorts, the order of construction needs changing around, sewing up the side seams first so that you have a nice flat surface to attach the pocket too. For the pocket I just used the template from the actual pattern. You cut two for each pocket, sew them right sides together leaving a gap, then turn them. The top zig zag portion is topstitched before they’re sewn on.  The elasticated waistband is just done like the City Gym shorts