McCalls Dress

Well I've been out to do the weekly shop and it was quite a quick moving queue again, day 3 of Me Made May and I'm remembering to nip outside and grab a quick pic too.  I might become more forgetful of doing this as the month wears on but I will try my best.  So todays dress I made last year in April as a Minerva  make, I also have a long sleeve t shirt in the same fabric that I wear a lot (with jeans that I am vowing to stay out of for a month!).  For this dress I did use a pattern McCalls M7533, but I did add darts and taper it a bit as I found it a bit too loose originally.

This fabric has quite a silky feel to it so it is really comfortable to wear, I think clothes that are like that will obviously get more wear.  Shirts can look really smart and I have a few but they are never as easy on so they languish more in the back of the wardrobe, they will be coming out this month at some point.
Here below is the pattern I used if anyone wants to give it a try but be aware that  I added darts front and back to mine to get the fitted look.

Yesterday I made a carrot cake that was a bit of an experiment it turned out rather well, it is a little crumbly as all gf baking can be but not dry and very tasty. As we cannot be trusted to have a cake in the house in one piece here is an image of it with slices already missing!  It has also been cut a bit wonky but never mind that as long as everyone is enjoying it.  I will put the recipe below for fellow GF  bakers.   I made it in a loaf tin but I may do it in cake cases next time just for ease when serving.

Vegan GF Carrot Cake

100g GFv plain flour

50g gram flour

50g buckwheat flour

80g coconut

130g brown sugar

3 small carrots grated

grated rind of 1 lemon

juice of 1 lemon

1tbsp apple sauce (from a jar)

handful of raisins (your preference or flaked almonds)

4 tsp baking powder

100ml rapeseed oil

225ml soya milk 

1/2 tsp mixed spice

Method

Line a 2lb loaf tin and pre heat oven to 180, sieve flour and baking powder into the mixing bowl and grate carrots and lemon.  Mix in other dry ingredients, combine oil and soya in a jug. Add remaining ingredients to bowl and combine, quickly fold in the wet ingredients  and pour into the tin.  The mixture is quite wet, tap the tin on the side to bring air to the surface then bake for 35-40 minutes. 

You could also add xanthan gum if you wish and it may well hold better but I don't think that agrees with me so I have stopped using it.   Apples sauce is good or banana if you have a ripe one for getting things to hold.

I really must try and take better food images if I am going to post recipes ha, ha you will have to trust me it tastes better than it looks.  Cooking is usually taking place here as we are hungry or in need of cake, the pictures are always very much an after thought but the cooking and baking I do  enjoy. 

We are having a bit of a change to the usual Yorkshire Sunday dinner here today and I am making Chinese food. If nothing else that at least means less washing up as I do tend to create a mountain of it on Sundays!  Enjoy the rest of the weekend everyone.

 

Warm Weather Dressing?

Yes me made May day two and I am out of jeans again although wondering if it is such a good idea, I looked out of the window this morning to glorious sunshine so I put on a dress. However on venturing out to the greenhouse first thing I was shocked by the cold wind, especially on my bare legs.  Well I held out and I am still in the dress but once more a zip up hoody has been added to the outfit as the day goes on.

So today I am wearing a dress that I made about seven years ago, I only know it is that long because an old photo popped up in memories  last week of me with my boys and it said six years ago!  Well that shocked me as these things do because the memory felt so close, also I know that I already had this dress before that holiday so it gave me a bi of a time frame.  The fabric is ponte roma and once more there is no pattern as I just used another dress for the bodice measurements and two rectangles that I pleated for the bottom.  This is one of the dresses that I took in and removed the belt loops from quite recently, I don't always want to wear a belt with it so I thought it was best to take them off. I also moved the shoulders in a little as they were a bit wide on me.

Looking very much in need of the sun in this photo!

This dress has always washed really well and if hung out to dry hardly needs an iron so my kind of thing.  It is also really comfy so I like this style and I have a few, I do have a new piece of fabric that is on my table and I think this will be another dress along these lines.  The only reservation I have about it is that it is really bouncy and I'm wondering if the hem will be ok.  Sometimes really stretchy fabric can pull out at the bottom and spoil the shape even with binding due to gravity pulling it down.  I may just go for it and see, here is the fabric...

 Now I thought this looks nice and summery but at the same time it has black in it so I can wear tights if necessary and if I do short sleeves maybe a little cardi over it if it is cold, it often is here.

Yesterday I dug out another old book that I gave up on some time ago What the Dog Saw by Malcolm Gladwell.  Now I really like his writing but I got bored with this first time around, it is a series of articles  of his that were in the New Yorker so it is not one continuous book as is his others have been.  So yesterday I picked an article at random and really enjoyed it, and then another also very interesting. This time around I am going to approach the book that way and only read the odd article as and when it interests me, which just goes to show looking at things with new eyes in a new time etc. We are never the same two days in a row and neither is our perspective so it is good to revisit things we thought we had finished sometimes.

Now my cake tin is finally empty so I am off to go and do some thing about that. Bye for now.

Me Made May 2020

Day one of me made May and it was harder than I thought to get started as I stared into my wardrobe wondering what to wear.  The problem being the weather, the reason that is a problem is that we are at that funny in between stage here in the UK where some days it is warm and other really cold.  I had decided that during the month of May I will try to wear something different each day rather than reaching for the trusty jeans and a handmade top whenever I am home.  The thing is I make a lot of dresses and today is not a bare leg day! Especially when out dog walking, so I was pondering the clothes in the wardrobe and thinking what days I am at work, what if it rains and so on.  I know I am over thinking it but I thought as this is the first year I have done this I will make a good effort, my wardrobe is packed with handmade clothes but I do favour the summer months.

So today I have opted for my grey jersey t-shirt, self drafted pattern with a ruched v neck (made quite recently) with a skirt I made a few years ago also own pattern but this time using the Sew What Skirts book.  I have mentioned this book before as it is fabulous and have used this for a few of my skirts.

Here I am wearing this with tights but due to the length of this skirt I prefer to wear this one with tights anyway.   It is a lined skirt and as it is fitted and made from cotton I do tend to get a crease across the front when I have been sat, small problem as creases are mainly unavoidable.  The sun was out earlier but it has now gone in so I have grabbed a hoody now (not handmade but years old!) to wear over my t shirt while out dog walking.

From the book I used instructions for straight skirt with fitted waist, added darts and belt loops.  As I have had this a number of years now I tend to be able to do it without the book, make my own modifications, darts and details etc.  If you haven't heard of it, it is well  worth a look.

Yesterday I made another bag, I tend to have a little run of making these when I am home.  This time I made my own patchwork design on both sides of the bag so this one took quite some time to complete. You can see my shop here

There has been more baking and my son asked me the other day why I was making more when the last cake hadn't been finished (er... I have lots of time;) well it didn't matter as it was all gone pretty quick.  I made the recipe for  gf vegan ricotta cake but I didn't have the correct size tin so I just used fairy cake cases and that worked out fine, I think they would have risen more with more space but my mixture was pretty much up to the top.  Still they were light and fluffy which is not always easy with GF vegan baking. 

We have already been at them here as I made twelve, so yes another good little cake recipe from Vegan and Gluten- Free Baking. I think I only paid five pound for that book a few years ago and everything I have made has come out well. 

That is all for today, on the days my clothes are made from patterns I will of course include the details but I have quite a few items where I have just made my own patterns.  I think I have used more patterns since posting for Minerva as people need to have something to work from if they want to recreate what you are showing.

Take care.