Those of you who read my first post will already know who Martha is. She is the one who enables us to travel in comfort to anywhere that we wish to go, she is our motorhome. A home from home really as she is quite a big girl at 8.7 metres long and has everything needed for self contained travel. It also means that when I’m away I can continue to work as there is plenty of room to both store my kit and to work comfortably.
She’s taken us to some really exciting places so far, such as Greece and Italy, which I will talk about in later posts but for now I’ll show you a little about how I work and what she looks like.
The above photo was taken just outside Bridlington in September. Due to COVID-19 we have been really limited on where we can visit so we are staying closer to home. There really are some beautiful places right on our doorstep but with many people staycationing, places are much busier than usual. Our ideal would be to be somewhere really quiet and beautiful without the throngs of people about that there is at the moment.
She has everything we need to travel throughout all of the seasons. Solar panels and good battery storage means that we can live off grid along with refillable LPG gas for cooking and heating. A good sized oven and fridge freezer also means that we don’t need to go shopping any more often than we would at home. We are quite adept at being frugal with water and can go a week without needing more and as long as we find appropriate places to empty the black and grey waste, we need nothing else. It’s quite difficult to do this in England – the continent is far better geared up and welcome motorhomes with open arms.
There are a few areas that I can work in Martha. At the back a large U Shaped rear lounge with lots of windows (which means that I often spend more time staring out at the view than working) and gives some great natural light. I also work in the cab area as the seats are really comfortable or in the dinette area next to the kitchen which also means that him indoors can watch the TV in peace.
Most of all though, I love sitting outside in the sunshine and working there.
Under all of the seats there is a huge amount of storage along with cupboards at head height all around, a large wardrobe and drawers to keep everything tidy. In fact, there are probably too many storage areas for what we need. I tend to travel quite lightly as I plan exactly what I’m going to be working on, so I pack the materials in clear boxes so that I can see at a glance what I need. That may change in the future though as travel becomes less restricted and we can go away for longer, I may need to revisit what I take with me.
One of the issues that I find when I’m travelling to new places is that I want to explore and not sit in the Van sewing. Luckily, I don’t see my work as just being embroidery, that may be the final outcome but much more thought goes into my pieces than that. The inspiration comes from lots research, the photography (which I absolutely love) and visiting new places. I’ve even bought a drone so that I can start making films of my travels and get those really gorgeous aerial shots.
So thats all for now, I’ll leave you with an image of Martha on the ferry crossing from Corfu back to Igoumenitsa on the Greek Mainland. I would love to hear your comments and any suggestions of things that you would like to see on this blog and now that I’ve got this site up and running, I’ll be writing regularly
Claire x
THE NOMADIC MAKER 