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.