Happy New Year

I know it's not quite new year yet, but have a lovely 2014 when it comes.

My new years resolutions mainly concern unfinished or yet to be started projects, namely:

• my blue woolen dress
• Lindsay and Rich's housewarming (!) quilt
• Stephanie and Sandy's engagement present
• a quilt for myself (but I need to go to Paris in February first to get the fabric)
• my tweed bag with leather handles
• two tweed make up bags

If I can get all of these and more finished in 2014 I'll be very pleased!

It must be Christmas time...

Well, not quite, I suppose Christmas time is over but it still feels festive as the tree isn't down yet. This year I didn't give too many homemade gifts, but I did make some make up bags for my colleagues. 
This bag was for a colleague who has lived in Russia for a year so I thought the Matryoshka would be perfect - I hope she thought so! This one is also lined with the fabric that the doll is made from - it's my favourite Liberty fabric apart from the lovely pink I bought in London. The other two were made with buttons, I forgot to take photos of them but I was pleased with how they turned out.

Otherwise I haven't been crafting enough, I realised that I have a sewing basked full of unloved, unfinished projects. I suppose my new year's resolution will be to finish them - in particular my dress!

My mum and sister have also put in their orders for little bags, mum has one already actually but it isn't made with nice fabric really, just some random Liberty lining and Harris Tweed that happened to match. I've got some beautiful pale pink tweed I've bought especially for my sister that I'll use for Mum's too - they'll be lined with my special pink Liberty fabric. Hopefully I'll get round to making myself one too!

Next project? I've got my eye on a pattern for a lamp shade - using more of the pink fabric from Liberty of course. I'll keep you posted!

PS- the new Janome is beautiful! I love it...sorry Lidl...

So long, farewell...

 I have finally fallen out with the sewing machine for the final time. I am beyond sick of ripping seams (even if I do have colour co-ordinated nails, fabric and seam ripper....). So I have purchased a beautiful new Janome, I shall update with whether I prefer the Lidl machine or my new Janome in due course...I suspect that I might already know the answer....

Can you tell what my favourite winter colour is?!

Don't you forget about me

Well, I must admit that my previous post was actually written before Christmas and I just didn't get round to posting it. I've made a resolution to stop with the royal chat (until July at least - you must admit it's incredibly exciting to know that male or female this child will be a monarch) and focus on my sewing a bit more.

Other than the beginnings of a quilt I haven't really had a lot of time to sew. I did start going to a class but gave up after a few weeks as I just didn't have the energy. However, a good friend got married in August and I made her this as a gift - it's another Harris Tweed and Liberty combo (I don't know what I'll do when I finally run out of tweed!).

Mum and I went to the Creative Stitches and Hobby Craft fairs yesterday - we're now back to being committed crafters (blogger wants to correct this to crofters...). For now anyway. Hobby Craft isn't really our thing; too many card crafts which we're just not into. The Creative Stitches hall however, was heaven. I wouldn't say that there was a huge number of stalls that impressed me - I would say though that the few that I liked had some lovely fabric and haberdashery items.

My favourites were definitely Jo Avery's stall - from which I bought an embroidery sampler pattern - and Favourite Fabrics who were indeed true to their name. I've included some photos of my purchases - I love Michael Miller Eiffel Tower fabric which I've bought in different colours in the past.  


The prices at the fair were pretty good - I've bought from Favourite Fabrics online before and of course buying at Creative Stitches meant we skipped the P & P. The non Eiffel Tower fabrics above were £2 which is awesome given the blue flowery one is almost double the size of a FQ. The Michael Miller fabrics were £3.25 each which is very reasonable.

I now have a rather large stash of fabric so I'm really going to have to start quilting a lot more! These are just some of my FQs - I'm thinking a baby pink and blue quilt might be next.

At Christmas I finally managed to get a Cath Kidston sewing box in the John Lewis sale - it's not even nearly big enough for all of my thread and FQs but I love it! I particularly adore the new line of haberdashery that JL are selling - it's all 'heritage' and I really want to get some of the pins just for the cute boxes! I succumbed to the dressmaking notes notepad - it's currently being used for working out quilting measurements.


Speaking of quilts this is one strip of about 5 from the quilt mum and I are working on just now. We've got our own little system now of who does what and who is good at what (Mum - cutting, ironing, sewing, buttons, binding. Lynsey - threading the machine). At the moment we're just about to square off the strips and cut the strips for in between. I'm thinking this will be pretty awesome when it's finished. I adapted measurements from a quilt over at Oh, Fransson! - the larger quilt was too big and the baby quilt too wee. So hopefully this will be just right.

Finally, I found this in my fabric basket - what was I thinking?!

Since you've been gone

I know things have been rather quiet for a while, but it took me a rather long time to get over the loss of my beautiful Kate and William mug. It was a rather traumatic summer. Of course I spiralled into a deep depression following the end of the jubilee celebrations (and all I have to say about it is that Kate should not have matched her dress to the chairs on the boat) and then had the anxiety of learning of the illness of poor old Phil. Following that Harry sent my blood pressure soaring (not in a good way), and of course young Kate just made things worse. 2012 was not really been the best royal year.

HOWEVER, I have added not one but THREE new mugs to my collection. One, of course, to replace the late Kate and Wills mug, one to celebrate the jubilee, and one to celebrate the Queen's coronation. Marvellous. With any luck a new mug will be added to my collection in July.

I've been sewing a bit too, but that's not as interesting as my collection of royal memorabilia.

Pin's Potential Purchases: A Royal Roundup

Have you been looking out for some Diamond Jubilee memorabilia but don't know where to start? Look no further than my Royal Roundup of Jubilee goodies! You don't want to know how many of these things I already own...

 

 Tins

First up is the McVitie's Golden Jubilee Celebration Tin. It has the added bonus of being filled with tasty chocolate digestive treats. It's currently on sale in most grocery shops- Tesco is selling them for £2, but be quick (unless you're in Scotland, there seems to be tons of them up here) they're sold out online already.

 

I've been admiring these lovely tins for a while as well- Twinings have produced these beautiful tea caddies, complete with the special Jubilee blend of tea inside. The top tin is filled with individually wrapped teabags (with a commemorative message) and the second one is filled with loose leaf tea. Tesco are selling the teabag caddies for £4 each (RRP £4.99) and Waitrose are exclusively selling the loose leaf tea caddies for £6. (Available in three colours)

Small tin £8

I'm particularly fond of the range released by Emma Bridgewater. It would take a whole new blog post to detail everything on sale but I'll focus on the lovely tea and cake tins. 

These come in a variety of designs and sizes and are available both online and in John Lewis. They have a wonderful design, reminiscent of something from the era in which she was crowned. I can almost imagine her using the mug or the tea tray from this range.  

The only downside is that these tins are not filled!

Marks and Spencers have, like last year, excelled themselves on the shortbread tin front. They've produced three pretty designs. They're currently selling for £5 each, filled with shortbread. However, shortly after the royal wedding last year their equivalents were selling for £2.50- so it might be worth waiting! The hardest thing is choosing which one to buy. If you're not in Britain the above pictures link to a website offering world wide delivery on them.

Other Lovely Things

M and S tights

That's not all that's on offer, however. Marks and Spencers have produced an entire Jubilee inspired underwear range (?!), Tesco have t-shirts, the Poundstore have everything from bunting to straws to commemorative plates. The Cath Kidston jubilee collection deserves a mention, the mugs and a lovely bag are pictured below.

Cath Kidston

Cath Kidston

Lidl Mugs

Liberty scarf and biscuit barrel (a graduation present perhaps?!)

What will you buy?

Pin's Purchases: God Save The Queen

I have had a rather happy few weeks buying all the Royal memorabilia that I can get my hands on. So far I have added a lovely notepad, a great pin tin and an amazing cupcake set to my collection.

These are the cupcake toppers, I'm not convinced they're going to look great, really I'd rather have some photos of the queen's face like last year's royal wedding rice paper photos. I'm totally impressed with the set though- Poundland wins again!

I think my notepad makes up for the cake topper disappointment. I can't decide what to use it for though; a sewing journal perhaps?

 I also HAD to photograph my most exciting purchase EVER....my grad ball ticket(s). Beautiful. Do you think I can wear a crown and a nice sash to the ball? Perhaps take along a jewelled Orb to compliment my outfit? Perhaps not.

In other news, my dad brought me up a cup of tea the other day and announced,

"I'm afraid Charles and Diana have had an accident."

Clearly this was slightly confusing, however, it transpired that he had DROPPED MY FAVOURITE WILL AND KATE MUG. I'm not sure what was more tragic, the loss of my beloved cup or my father's inability to distinguish between Charles and William.

P.S- I say 'favourite Will and Kate mug'. I mean 'only Will  and Kate mug'. Honest.

Fall to Pieces

I didn't update last week, I know, I know. So I managed to finish my toile with minimum fuss. There were quite a few changes to be made, but it didn't take too long. I also sewed on the sleeves, I was pretty pleased because I didn't have to rip them off and start again- I got them right first time! The pattern said to gather the sleeves, however my tutor just told me to ease them in. I'm not sure what is more difficult but I hate gathering so I was pretty pleased!

This week I didn't get a lot done.  I hadn't spent any time in between classes doing the things I didn't need help for- totally my fault. So this week was spent TOTALLY deconstructing my entire toile so I could use it as a pattern. I did, however, get it ripped up and cut out PLUS the front of the bodice done. Sadly I managed to iron a crease into the bust accidently when I was pressing the seams, it just won't come out now :( 

So next week is my final week, I know I'm not going to get it finished in class, but I'm pretty sure I know what I'm doing. This week I need to cut out my lining and my interfacing and do some stay stitching...I will do it this week...promise!

Through many dangers, toiles and snares

My toile is sort of coming on ok. I had a few minor set backs. My one week crash diet (HA!) worked a little too well and now my toile is a bit big across my back, but now totally fine at the bottom. Ok, so I really just let out the seams. I've had to chop big bits off of the bottom of the bodice since, according to my tutor, I have 'a short back'. Great, I'll put that on my CV.

But just look at this (horribly edited so it shows up against the white backround) baby, IT ACTUALLY RESEMBLES A DRESS! I know my pleats aren't in line with my seams (I agreed with my tutor that I'd fix them on the real thing because I wasn't willing to sacrifice another stitch unpick on this thing) and the bust is now uneven (I had to take it in a little). But come on, this is my first real dress making project and it already has a skirt and everything!

There have been a few hurdles, I didn't transfer the dots from the pattern since I didn't know what they were (and my policy seems to be, if in doubt, miss it out), I didn't stick to 'right sides to right sides' which I TOTALLY know, and I didn't mirror my markings... These are small mistakes but meant time was wasted, going back to re-mark. I needed the dots to sew the gathers...but I missed them out and pleated instead anyway. It'll be fine....I've unpicked more of this pattern than I've actually stitched. Sewing is a frustrating business!

I also took in the bust, which has made it wonky. So to remedy this I'll measure the two sides, add then half the total then adjust so they're even. I whined at my tutor 'do I have to'. She looked at me, laughed and said 'do you want it to fit or not?!'. I guess I'll be measuring and adding tomorrow then...

I'm really enjoying the class and I am definitely learning a lot. I'm so glad I started with a toile...but then I realised the toile fabric was more expensive than the real stuff. Whoops...

What are you working on?

Hooray For Boobies

Now, before I go any further, I need to explain the title. At my class on Tuesday I made the bodice for my dress toile. I must admit that I got quite excited- when I started sewing I didn't realise that what I was doing would end up creating such a great shape! I waltzed home and announced that I had 'made a boob' much to my mother's confusion. She kept asking me what I'd done wrong...oh dear.

It was a little bit tricky, but I've learned a lot. The most exciting thing being...I finally know what the little arrows on the pattern pieces means! Ok, so I realise I could have just Googled it and it would have told me, but that's too sensible for me. ANYWAY, for those of you who don't know, you simply match the arrows up when you connect another pattern piece. It's fairly simple I guess.

So, my only problem is that it doesn't actually fit. So I've had to rip the stitches several hundred times. My seam ripper is now my new best friend. Actually, its not, it needs thrown out because it BROKE. The seam allowance is pretty big so I'm cutting it down from 5/8ths to 1/4. Hopefully that will help, if not my tutor is going to help me insert an extra piece. Or I'm going on a diet.

I also nearly wound up sewing it right up- forgetting I need to leave the back open for the zip!

So Tuesday will see me trying to sort out my fatty problems, and having a go at the collar. I'm going to play around with the tab and decide whether to use it or not. Oh and I have the sleeves to do too. I'm getting there, slowly. Not convinced it will be done at the end of the four weeks I've got left at the class nevermind the real thing.

In other news my royal mania is continuing; today I bought this awesome shopping bag:

Memory

You might have guessed that I'm not one of those people who refuses to share recipes. I quite like to pass on recipes that I love- it's a compliment if someone asks how to make something (not that I make them up myself!).

Anyway, other than the cake I gave you the recipe for on Saturday, my favourite bake is 'Raspberry and White Chocolate Brownies'. Being honest I can't remember where the recipe came from originally- I have a feeling it was the wonderful Good Food website but if you happen to know otherwise please do let me know. 

So the blog post title is 'Memory'....why? Well, I haven't made these brownies for about 3 years (despite their amazingness) and I can remember just about every time I made them. I once made so many that I ended up delivering them to friends on campus at uni, I traded some for a loaf of Veda Bread (BEST. TRADE. EVER.), an ex made some and posted them to me in Oxford (they weren't as good as mine though), I taught my Mum to make them, I gave everyone I knew the recipe...need I go on? There are a lot of happy (and unhappy I guess) memories attached to these. So, here is the recipe for the Brownies from an unknown source which I have renamed 'Memory Brownies'. Yum.

Ingredients

150g butter (Stork will do but butter is better) (try saying that after a few drinks)

220g dark choc (if you're buying 100g bars then 200g is totally fine, that's what I use. Oh, and this tastes AMAZING even if you use Tesco value 29p chocolate.)
220g caster sugar
1 tsp vanilla extract
3 eggs (be ethical and buy free range, go on)
75g plain flour
75g self-raising flour
100g white chocolate (I tend to buy a bag of chocolate drops from the baking section)

100g fresh raspberries (frozen ones could work but I'm not sure...the recipe tastes good even without these)

Preheat fan oven to 180 degrees

1. Melt the butter together with the dark chocolate in the biggest pot you own. (ok, maybe not if you own a pressure cooker style pot, but use a big one)

2. Remove the pot from the heat.

3. Add everything else except from the white chocolate and the raspberries. Feel free to sieve things, but I don't bother.

4. Throw anyone who likes to eat raw cake batter out of the kitchen (you will not get them to stop eating this, if I could get over my fear of eggs I would totally eat this all in one sitting before it was baked)

5. Mix everything with a wooden spoon until it looks er mixed. (DO. NOT. EAT.)

6.Grease a baking tray or line it with greaseproof paper. Or don't, but don't blame me if it gets stuck in the pan (although that would be a great excuse to eat it all straight from the oven)

7. If you didn't grease your tin then leave it a second so it isn't still really hot- otherwise your white chocolate will melt and that will not be cool

8. Mix in the chocolate drops and the raspberries. I try not to  mash the raspberries up too much, but it totally doesn't matter.

9. Pour into that greased baking tray.

10. Throw into the oven. I put them in for about 2o - 30 mins. But then I like my brownies to be totally gooey- if I wanted to make fully cooked brownies I would have followed a cake recipe. Basically take them out when you think they look cooked enough for you. If the top wobbles they're not cooked enough even for me.

 11. Place on a cooling rack. STEP AWAY FROM THE BROWNIES. Seriously.

12. Serve hot with ice cream. Or cold with ice cream. Or cream. Or on their own. Or straight out the tin with a spoon. Can you guess which one of these serving suggestions I followed...?!

I had to miss out the left hand side because I ate it all

Congratulations, your life is now complete.

Pin's Purchases: Buttons

Today I dragged my poor Father into the Barras. This time I wanted a forage in the actual market. For those of you (Tori) who are not familiar with the infamous market, it's in the east end of Glasgow. In its heyday it was packed and a great place for a bargain. I remember visiting as a child and being in awe of the stallholder's Glasgae patter. Sadly, it is no longer what it was, bits of it are now more akin to the late Paddy's Market than anything else.

Anyway, there were a few good stalls to be found, (after my dad dragged me away from the 'Mulberry' handbags, I didn't know they did a PU range...) one of which sold some rather awesome buttons. 

I'm a bit of a button fiend. I was reading a post the other day over at Tilly and the Buttons about 'satisficers' and 'maximisers' and I was convinced that I'm a 'maximiser'. This may be true, but I think I'm also a third option...a 'hoarder'. If I see a button which I think is pretty then I will buy it(and can never bring myself to use it). It doesn't matter if I have nothing to go with it, I will buy it (ok a set of them...) anyway. My obsession even extends as far as buying random buttons from Ebay- as in a lot of 100 which again go with nothing I'm sewing...

My love for buttons stems back to the days of my Mum knitting me beautiful mohair cardigans with shiny heart buttons on. I LOVED those buttons, so much in fact that I still have one 20 years on. I also have kept a gorgeous button I found in my Gran's button tin after she died; its a really nice pink with silver detailing that I can't bring myself to use because its so pretty.

ANYWAY, today I bought some really nice buttons...just because I liked them. In the Barras. See, I knew this post would make sense eventually! So without any further ado...the buttons from the Barras...                                                  

 I think I might use these beauties (left) for the front of my dress.

Or maybe these lovelies (right). I'm a little bit of a Magpie...

 These are my favourites (£1 for ten, amazing!) but I haven't got a clue what I'll use them for (left)

 Oooh, or I could use these ones for my dress? Or perhaps the skirt I'm making?(right) 

 We chose these ones for my Mum because she knits lots of Aran cardigans. (left) 

Any advice on places to find buttons (or button donations!) would be much appreciated!

One and only

A break from the dressmaking is in order I think, so instead I'm going to share one of my favourite recipes with you. It's my friend's birthday this weekend, so I've been baking.

This is from the BBC Good Food Website and they've named it 'Romantic Rose Cupcakes'. I go to this every time I need a plain sponge for cupcakes or a round cake. It's so so so so easy, impossible to get wrong and tastes amazing. Until I gave this a go I liked trying varying recipes- but I'm yet to find anything as moist and impressive as this one. Don't be put off by the nuts, you can't taste them, they just keep it nice and soft. It is impossible to make this cake dry, it is just so good! I've made this as a round cake this time because icing so many cupcakes is time consuming, but it looks lovely either way and tastes amazing.

You can access the original recipe here

Ingredients

 150ml natural yogurt (I use Onken's small pot which is 178g or own brand supermarket yogurt. However I never use the excess so I prefer to pay slightly more to buy the smaller pot!)

3 eggs, beaten
1 tsp vanilla essence
175g golden caster sugar
140g self-raising flour
1 tsp baking powder
100g ground almonds
175g unsalted butter (salted is fine too)

                                                                 Method

Turn oven on- fan 170 degrees

1.Add all dry ingredients to a bowl

2. Melt the butter in a pot

3. Mix the vanilla essence, yogurt and eggs in a measuring jug or similar

4. Slowly add the melted butter to the egg mix. This bit is a bit odd, it looks horrible. Don't worry, I've made this many times and the eggs are yet to scramble!

5.Start the mixer, add the buttery eggs over several batches to the mix. 

6. Don't mix it too much, just make sure it isn't lumpy :)

7. Now add this to a 7.5ish inch springform tin or cupcake cases in a muffin tin (you'll get 12 muffin sized or roughly 20 fairy cakes depending on the tin)

8. Bake in the middle of the oven for about 15 - 20 mins. You will know when they're ready- check the colour (golden) and that they're springy to the touch. If you're really worried shove a cocktail stick into one- as long as anything stuck to it is cooked then you're good (the cake mix does tend to stick so it's not the easiest way to tell).

9. Allow to cool

Ice with butter icing made from 140g of both butter and icing sugar and 100g of melted white chocolate. Don't be tempted to miss out the chocolate- I promise they will not be too sweet- the icing compliments the cake batter beautifully. Just make the icing as you would normally then add the melted chocolate at the end. Lovely.

I have a bit of a fondness for subtle shimmer and glitter on my cakes (as you may have guessed). I know there have been a few articles in the news recently about the 'dangers' of what is now called non-toxic glitter. As you can see I have disregarded this and carried on using it. I used a Dr Oetker shimmer spray on both of the pictured cakes, on the label it clearly says it is edible- a Doctor wouldn't lie surely....?! The spray gives icing a really lovely lustre. I opted for the silver spray. At over £3.50 it is a little pricey, but the effect is so pretty that I don't mind :)

I'm also a little too fond of filters over my photos- I take a perfectly good photo and wreck it with some effects...oh well. Pictured is the shimmer spray and the 'non-toxic' glitter I used. I love the white or pale glitters (Disco Orange is a particular favourite) because they don't look totally out of place if they fall unevenly. 

By the by, I also got this awesome 'cake carrier' the other day in the Poundshop of all places. It has a hook on top meaning it makes carrying the cake around a lot easier. I'm well impressed!

Puzzle

Tuesday night's evening class went well, Cardonald isn't the handiest to get to but it's a lovely new college.

I've got everything pinned to my fabric, ready to cut out to make my toile. It took me the full 2.5 hours to get through cutting the pattern out and pinning it- although I did chat a little too much! This dressmaking business is rather time consuming. It is a bit like a jigsaw puzzle, you have to fit the pieces on to the fabric so they all face the correct way. Of course certain pieces must be on the fold so it's a bit of a faff!

I nipped into my favourite fabric store last week and picked up some rather lovely lining for my dress at a pound a metre. It's navy blue and spotty so looks perfect with my navy fabric.

I also bought myself a new sewing tin (I've been needing one for a while). Ok, so it's an M & S shortbread tin, but it's the perfect size for all the bits and pieces I need to take to my class. I'm a little bit in love with the Royal Family so this will go nicely with my Royal Wedding tins!


The toile should start to take shape this week so hopefully I'll have something a little more interesting to report soon!