Life, the universe, everything - but mostly crafty stuff!

 I hadn’t really planned on doing the Mechanic badge any time soon, although I noted that I could already do most of the clauses when I first ready through the book. As we will be taking a trip up north soon (let’s be honest - most places are north when you live in Devon), and I needed new windscreen wipers, I thought I might as well start the badge.  Yesterday I checked the oil and topped up the windscreen fluid. Nothing else needed my attention under the bonnet - and I have managed previously to top up the oil. I seem to remember doing it in a motorway service station, and asking someone for some help, because I couldn’t manage to undo the oil cap! I checked the tyres a couple of days ago - noting with interest the tread wear indicators on the tyres, and they are fine. We have a tyre pressure gauge and inflator that we bought recently (to replace the one my husband can’t remember what happened to it), so I will check the tyre pressures later today - with husband’s supervisio...

 Life has been rather busy recently. Firstly, I was asked to quilt a quilt for a sewing friend of mine, and that meant getting to grips (or as I call it - playing) with my new machine! My friend was delighted with the results, and I was also very pleased. Quite a few other people from my group were impressed, and at the time they were suggesting they may be calling on me! It was good fun to be able to practise this my skills a bit more, and I included some simple ruler work in it this time - using the rulers to create straight lines at a distance from each other - creating channels to do more FMQ work in (FMQ - Free Motion Quilting). Last week some North Devon Rebels met up, and had a good chat - and we’ve set a date for our next meet up too. I’m counting this as one of my scary things for the Carpe Diem badge, as I find that meeting people I don’t know brings about some anxiety, even when you are looking forward to it, and excited by it. I’ve been looking at the Rebel Health Check...

 The June Challenge - spend a month making a positive change for a cause of your choice. Without giving myself loads more extra work, this one was a little tricky to manage. You see, I am chairman / chairwoman / chairperson of FOTWHOP - A friends group for our local park. Our local park was bought by the town council (from the district council) to safeguard it from development, and I am a co-opted member for the town council park committee. The story is quite involved, and one that I will go into at another time, as my work for the park will form a large part of my Activist badge, and also part of my Fundraiser badge. Anyway - during June I continued to promote and run the 200+ Club that we run to raise funds for our group. I also signed up with Devon Connect - a website where groups can advertise the volunteering opportunities with the public. I applied for funding from our local Round Table (they had advertised on Facebook that they were looking for local community groups to give...