Busy Inbetween Days

 I hope you are all enjoying the break, it can feel a little like limbo land that bit between Christmas an New year and you tend to forget what day it is or I do any way.  I have had a very productive few days and one of my intentions is to keep working through new recipes and all my cook books.  There is a beautiful one that one of my sons bought me for Christmas last year and I have used it a fair bit, todayI made two recipes from it and I will share those below.  I also have in mind a better way in future to document all my sewing makes especially as quite a few of them will be going back to Minerva for in house videos.  I do like to keep track and this year I have been using the papers that come with Minerva fabric for project planning but this means I have a stack of those knocking about.  What I am thinking is a scrap book with images, fabric swatch and an actual photo in it, yes this does sound like even more work but it will be lovely to look back on and remind me how much I get done.  Sometimes I can be hard on myself even though I know I complete multiple tasks, garments, etc a week so it will be a nice record.  There is a scrapbook in my possesion that has been waiting for just this job I feel. 

I will share one of my Christmas gift makes here and it is my husbands Hoody.  I made him one a little while ago from Burda magazine and he loves it so I made him another in a different colourway.  It was right to the wire as I was busy making it on Christmas eve.  This time I went for the colours in the original magazine image of navy and orange, well the orange I chose is more of a bright rust colour but it is lovely together.  He loves it, here is a picture of him in it but I think he has splashed it here with water as I cornered him in the kitchen for a pic.  

                                      It has been on since he opened it, and now needs a wash.

Todays sewing  was my brand ambassador make for Minerva and as I had made a lovely sweater with a Simplicity pattern that has been worn quite a lot, it felt suitable to remake it but this time in the dress length.  It is a lovely comfy french terry so hopefully this will be another much reached for garment.  I will share an image of it on the mannequinn but need to do full write up for minerva so please catch up with me over there for the full post on that. (it is not on yet as this is only just finished!)

My reading is going well and The Magpie Murders is keeping me turning the pages, this is a good thing as my husband bought me four books by the same author in the same genre!  There have been a few duff reads over the past months so glad  I am to get my reading head back on.

We are keen to get out and meet some family for a dog walk but so far those palns have been rained off, lets hope that the next few days will bring some dry weather so we can get out in the fresh air.

There was a lucky find by my husband in the ASDA  yetserday in the form of discounted LOR advent calenders, the coffee.  They had been priced at 25 pounds and are now down to three pounds so he brought home two.  He said it was quite funny as a couple were looking at them at the same time as him and the man was saying we should get these to his partner  and she said but we haven't even got a coffee machine.  I am intrigued to know if they could be used without?  I mean it seems to me that all the machine does it perforate the pod and slowy pour hot water through it, I could be wrong so let me know your thoughts on this.  Youngest son is a big coffee drinker so he was super pleased with this find.

From one of my cook books today I made a butternut squash soup...

I also made a fabulous fruit cake that has so many ingredients in it and luckily I had them all bar one which I subbed.  It is a vegan cake so all suitable for me and I added my gf flour mix too.

This is the book my son bought for me.

Here is the cake cooling, there is a fair amount gone already!  Sneaky gin in the background that a friend gifted me, it is rather depleted. 

So there we are a bit of an inbetween catch up, I thought I would blog while I have the time as I have not been as consistent with this for the last year and I aim to to better.  So two in a row but if I don't do things while they are on my mind I blink and a week has passed.  

Thank you for stopping by.

December...ing

 Hello, I hope you are all having a wonderful Christmas and have managed to do the whole thing stress free.  I never really understand why people get themselves all whipped up into a frenzy at Christmas time as there really is no need. I can understand people feeling lonely or missing loved ones but not the need for a perfect meal, gift or experience.  It is after all what we make it, so if other people do not appreciate your efforts then  that is their problem so let's just all be happy with what we have and what we can do.  That said we had a lovely christmas day, my oldest son came over and my mum. So with me, husband and youngest son that was the five of us, we cooked a chicken for the meat eaters and I did a Veg Wellington that was fabulous details below.  Here we go...

Cooking The Veg Wellington, recipe from the Happy Pear guys on youtube.  If you have not looked at their videos beofre please do check them out especially if you are thinking of eating more plant based recipes in the new year. It is such a good one and formed part of their two euro dinner ( that is per person not two euros for the whole thing).  Now I know with inflated costs it would cost more than that now but it was still really good value, we had enough left to have it for lunch again today.  I did not get an  image as I was busy enjoying the day and I did have rather a lot of cooking to do so got sidetracked but I will make it again in future so I promise to take a pic next time.   I also did their spicy cabbage recipe, again so tasty! I will only cook cabbage that way in future, it has chilli, ginger, sesame oil and a little maple syrup.  That dish even got my younger veg adverse son eating it as it is so good. 

For desert I made Christmas pin wheel pastries with mincemeat in (the sweet kind) again no image due to Christmas day busyness. 

I also made cranberry cookies with walnuts and almonds twice this last week, green and blacks chocolate drizzled over the top.  My food photography is somewhat lacking but here is a peak...

I know the decoration also leaves something to be desired but they taste lovely so who cares, I find it very tricky to drizzle with a spoon. 

Dressmaking Of course there is always plenty of this, the latest makes were both dresses and one is the style arc Patricia Rose dress.  I was sent the larger pattern so I have sized it way down with tracing paper, origami and lots of faffing.  It worked but the dress is a loose fitting dress with no closures and now it is complete I have also added darts at the back as I do like a more structured look.  Here it was just after it was finished.

I also made a vogue dress in a blue soft washed chambray...

Sewing more hexies on my ongoing piece of handstitching, my thing with this now is that I have come to the realisation that I do not want a full sized bed quilt in all these colours, much as I love colour.  I feel that I would rather have a more definite pattern and carefully selected fabrics for such a large piece.  The main reason I am thinking about this is that I made a quilt some years ago called lone star and spent a lot of hours on it. The fabric were manily offcuts from the market near where I worked and part way through I knew they were  a bit dark and I didn't love them, still I carried on and completed it, quilted it etc.  A lot of hours and I had it a while, I was pleased to have finished but never really loved it.  That said I don't want to be in that situation again, so I am thinking maybe a large cushion cover to be used out on my bench in the summer and also continueing with the colourful hexies for scrap busting but using them in my handbags?   Here is the  piece so far...

Let me know your thoughts, but I have seen so many pretty designs for quilts and there are such a lot of hours that go into these that maybe it would be best to invest my time in one that I will treasure.

Eating out, with my mum.  As a christmas treat I drove my mum to Wentworth for breakfast and we had a little look around, youngest son came too as he was off work using up hoilday days.  She did take a bit of convincing as she gets stuck in aroutine but she really enjoyed it once she was out and said she would like to do it again so that was nice.

Watching a new series called Yellowstone with Kevin Costner.  I am quite enjoying it although my husband has just informed me there are another four series to go.  I will let you know if I still like it after all that.

Reading The Magpie Murders, now I have only just started this but I am a good way in and I have to say it feels a bit like Father Brown to me, I like Father Brown so that is not a bad thing.  My husband bought me a set of books for my birthday and I had said that I wanted to try something a little different.

Promising myself that I will do more art in the new year, I don't always do resolutions more intentions so this is my first. A promise to myself that I will set aside some time each week to do some art and also learn a little more about it, a new technique or style to try, anything as long as I sit down and create something with pencils or paint.  I love to sew and I am really enjoying working at it as my day job again but I think this year I have let a few of my others hobbies slide.

Enjoying the lights, decorations and cosiness that is Christmas, I will be sad to see them all come down as I am every year.  So I will be looking for new ways to cosy up the house for January, any suggestions welcome.

That is all for today, enjoy yourselves wherever you are. 

 

This week's Sewing

 Hello everyone I thought I would share a bit of sewing this week, none of it is seasonal because it is work sewing but sharing here in case you are planning next years summer holiday wardrobe in advance.  I know people do that don't they, book the sunny holidays and look ahead during the cold dark months.  We will be looking for campsites for the new year soon, but as we are in the UK for our holidays  and we always take the dogs, it will be about April before we get off anywhere.  I want the  weather to have warmed up a bit first!

This is the Style ARC Teddy top made up in a size 18, now this was made up in this size but I could not resist trying on and have now decided I like it so much I am going to do a lot of grading and make it my size.

The colour is a really nice red although it looks more coral on this photo and the fabric is a ramie linen.

Next up we have a summer dress, and this one has a cross over front.  Personally I don't always seem to do very well wearing a crossover as they do seem to gape on me, even with adjustments.  This one though comes higher up in the style so I do like the fit of this pattern.

Many of my days start off filming in the daylight and end up in the dark, I have three lights going while I sew late afternoon.  Trying not to think too much about the energy this uses, we are doing our best to keep the heating to a low level but  what with this weeks freeezing temperatures and snow, I feel we have not kept to that resolve either.   

I made  and filmed another dress yesterday but have not put the photographs on here yet just the film clips, I will share another day.  More frills on that one and a full wrap style.

Today we have been out for a long walk with family, the sun is shining so that looked really pretty with the snow.  It is really sticking around the snow at the moment when normally it melts after a few days, where we live the road is just ice.  After weeks of listening to the weather forecast telling us how mild it is, is this payback?  How dare we have such a mild Autumn.

Did I mention I have a new sewing book?  I thought I would treat myself to this one as there has been a lot of people raving about it.  It wasn't cheap but it is a reference book and I used my birthday money so that is ok.  It is The Palmer / Pletsch Complete Guide to Fitting, now I have been fitting clothes for years and mainly I have  to say doing it my own way, but it is full of interesting tips, advice and bits of history.  I am enjoying it so far.  Let me know below if you have this book and how you find it.  One of the most eye opening things for me has been the information about measuring for bust size and then choosing your pattern size using your high bust measurement.  On standard dress patterns I am sure there are people the world over who have been using their full bust measurement, I did!

Yesterday my son rescued three small coffee tables that were going in a skip at work that his boss was throwing out.  He contacted me as he knows I love to recycle furniture  they are now here so I will be sanding and painting those in the new year.  The smallest one is going at the side of younger son's bed and the other two? who knows, but I could not see them just thrown in the rubbish and they are wood too.

Right,  I am off  to try out some almond and cranberry biscuits,  I have a  basis of a recipe but it is not gluten free and I will change it a bit as I always do.  This time I will try to remember to take some photos before eating them all.

Keep warm everyone and have a relaxing weekend. 

Festive Dog coats

 Hello everyone and first of all can I say thank you for all your kind comments on my last post, it is so nice to know people are still reading and blogging is still a form that people want. To be more structured in the new year I was thinking of using 'the morning pages' from The Artists Way book. I did not finish the course last time, just read through in the end! 

 Now when I did part of that course earlier this year I did find the morning pages really hard going and I did not continue with it.  This was mainly because you were not to have a purpose for them but just to a brain emptying session every morning and also not read back through it.  I found that very time consuming and also rather pointless at times, three whole pages even if it means writing down I can't think what to write.  However I am now thinking if I adapt it to suit my needs better it could be useful, I will read through, sort ideas and plan from them.  Not what Julia had in mind but better for me I think, so hopefully this will help contibute towards blog posts, projects and plans for things I want to make and do.

On the subject of making I have whizzed off three festive dog coats this afternoon using more of that ever dwindling Christmas fabric.  I really do use all of my fabric and there are only small amounts left of the original bits now.  This did mean sewing strips together down the middle to make pieces big enough for the coats and I did want all three dogs matching but there was just not enough.  So as it is Bonnie and Clyde match and Little Marvin has his own design.  I am very happy with them, there is a waterproof layer (shopping bag) between the festive fabric and sweater fabric  so if it does rain they will not have wet backs at least.  They are not big on rain anyway so we usually wait for it to stop but we sometimes get caught in it.   Here they are and they would not stand still!...

                                                            Trying to hide behind dad's leg.

My two Jack Russels are Thirteen now so they do feel the cold more, layering fabric in these coats is a good way to make use of all the odd bits too.

There is the argument that these will not look like this for long based on the state the dogs are in when we get home, but things wash  and at least all the fabric was what I had.  It is just velcro for the fasteners and the little collar parts are cord fabric leftovers.

Over the last few evenings we have been watching a  drama series called flesh and Bone (very raunchy) this will nbot be everyones cup of tea and did think of not continuing half way through but  stuck with it as I really enjoy the ballet side of it.  It was just a shame that there wasn't more of the dancing and less of the pointless nudity, not being a prude it was just a bit much.  A brilliant dance scene at the end though. 

We have had a very long cold walk earlier today, and tommorow I am out for brunch for my Christmas meet up with friends so I hope it isn't too frosty as I don't  like driving in those conditions.  Have a lovely time whatever you are up to.  Bye for now. 

A December Start

 Hello to anyone who is still dropping by, I have been pretty much tied to my laptop or sewing machine but still not managed to get on here to post although I have to say it doesn't look like there is much activity anyway recently!  Have people stopped reading blogs? Please let me know if this is the case, I am very old fashioned and still like to read them myself. 

I have made a fabric wreath using up lots of oddments of Christmas fabric, the base is card wrapped in packaging then covered with fabric and all the leaves, cones, bow etc are handmade.  I did buy the three little bells but the rest is all handstitched.  I really love it when you can make something you want from recycled bits and not have to buy any special crafty bits.  It can be expensive to buy all the specialist equipment like wreath hoops and things like that, I much prefer to have my Blue  Peter moments (for those of you that watched that).  The cones were  result of a bit of experimentation, I am happy with their shapes and it has inspired me to create more things like this.  I seem to remember seeing a book in Waterstones about paper flowers that was very gorgeous, I have birthday money so I am thinking a trip to the shop may be in order to purchase that book.  Fabric and paper flowers coming up!  Anyway enough of the waffling, here is my wreath...

There have been lots of images floating around of very full wreaths covered in all sorts and of course you can make them as full as you desire but I got to this point and thought any more would just spoil the effect so I stopped.  What do you think?

I have a few more ideas of Christmas things I want to make, don't you always find you get to this stage of the year and one minute it is the 1st of December and the next you are running out of time for all the things you wanted to make.  Well one thing is some festive dog coats and I think if I plan on the dogs getting to wear these planned coats I had better get a move on.

Card making too, I am usually pretty good at getting this done as I tend to set aside a couple of chunks of time and get them all done.  That is going to have to start this week as we are seeing out of town relatives this Thursday so I can hand some over then.

I have had another few bad books in the reading department, one that was quite good was 'The Maidens' a little bit over done in places but it kept me turning the pages.  I have just started 'The Women of Troy' so we will see about that one.  My husband has bought me four Anthony Horrowitz books as a gift so I hope they will be good reads, not my usual  style but I did request some as I am trying new genres.

We had a lovely walk around Lagsett reservoire  on Friday morning before people were all aound.  We got there for eight fifteen so it was lovely if somewhat foggy .

Well I hope you are all having a lovely start to the festive season, let me know if you are still out there by leaving a comment, I do love to read them.  Bye for now.