A very happy new year to you

Thank you for visiting this year.
For reading; commenting; encouraging.
Without you, it would just be me and a keyboard.
Babbling into the ether.
Thank you for dropping by.

Wishing you and your loved ones every happiness for the new year.

A year of seam and hem experiments

I started this year with only 10 months sewing under my belt: an eager novice, with much to learn. I took myself off on some experiments with seams and hems. I researched, sampled, photographed and documented.

I discovered beauty can really can be on the inside (unless my hand sewing is involved ... in which case ... quick, look away now).

Seams
Simple seam edge finishes
French seams
Bound seams
Flat fell seams
Taped (stabilised) seams
Overlocked seams
Bulky seams
Creating seams on curves and corners

Hems
Double fold hems (wovens)
Single fold hems (wovens)
Hemming stretch fabric
Blind hemming

I'd like to do more of this next year. More hems and perhaps some closures. In the meantime, its all French seams and Hong Kong finishes for me. And none of it by hand.

365 days of sewing

Thirty-six completed projects. (And an untold number hidden away in the work-in-progress pile!)

The truth of the matter

A discussion with Anna from Shiny Happy Thoughts prompted today's admission: I have a collection of ... ahem ... abandoned Christmas craft projects. I'm not proud.

Exhibit A ~ Christmas wall-hanging (pictured above)

98% complete

Single panel, hand-quilted. Handmade binding. Was looking good until I reached the bit where I needed to make 35 button holes to poke Christmas lights through. Lost enthusiasm with just 10 of those confounded buttonholes to go. Bother.



Exhibit B ~ Christmas cards (pictured above)

5% complete

Perhaps the less said about the stack of untouched cardboard, the better, yes? I can only apologise to all the family and friends who did not receive a nice handmade card (actually make that any card at all) this festive season.



Exhibit C ~ Gingerbread cottage (pictured above)

1% complete

At least I had collected the delectable decorations - and its the thought that counts, right? Sweetie anyone?


What about you? Do you have any unfinished Christmas business?

The plum recipe

I have a funny little plum tree in my garden. It resides in a large faux-terracotta pot and has moved from house-to-house with me for the past 15 years. Bearing the scars of traversing the city in trailers and removalist trucks, it now lives on a permanent lean. The trunk is narrow; the branches spindly. The foliage often turns yellow and drops by the second week of summer - this tree has all the hallmarks of a bit of Hoppo Bumpo neglect horticulture.

Yet, in spite of its harsh life, the little tree blossoms every year. Its a pretty, fluttery blossom, full of promise. And every year I wait ever so hopefully to see what happens next: fruit, or not?



There was great excitement this year - apparently we were in for a bountiful harvest. In an uncharacteristic move, I spent time in the winter and spring pruning, feeding and mulching. And so it was that we harvested 7 plums.



By crikey, what to do with the bounty?

Thank goodness a dear friend passed on an excellent recipe that calls for quite a lot of plums ( ... oh, and that I stumbled across a 5kg box of beautiful, juicy plums at the market for $2.oo). We feasted at Christmas with the most delicious plum sauce.

Try this super easy and rewarding recipe if you get the chance. And please, don't bother with trying to grow the plums first. That bit is not rewarding at all.

Em's mum's plum sauce

1.4kg (3lb) red plums, whole
2 apples, peeled and chopped
2 onions, chopped
450ml (15 fl.oz) vinegar (I used white wine vinegar)
700g (1½lb) sugar
1 tablespoon cayenne pepper (ooops, I didn't have any so had to omit it)
7g (¼oz) bruised ginger
7g (¼oz) allspice

1. Boil all the ingredients together for about 1.5 hours.


2. Towards the end of the cooking time, place some freshly washed jars and lids into a deep saucepan of cold water (I used two old St Dalfour jam jars 284g/10oz along with two larger Sacla pasta sauce jars 420g/14.82oz )


3. Bring to the boil for 10 minutes to sterilise the jars.


4. Carefully remove the jars and lids and place straight onto a baking tray lined with a clean tea towel.


5. Place in a preheated oven at 110°C (230°F) for 15 minutes.


6. Strain the sauce to remove the plum stones and skin.


7. Remove the jars from the oven and pour the sauce straight into the hot jars.


8. Put the lids on tightly and turn the jars upside-down for 10 minutes.


9. Turn the jars back the right way up and cool.
   A vacuum seal should have formed on the lid and the little "button" in the middle should have been sucked down.


10. Store in a cool, dark place (if you can bear to wait)

Adrenaline

Adrenaline (n): Hormone released by the adrenal glands, when making gifts awfully close to the Christmas deadline. Key to the sew-or-go (also known as the fight-or-flight) response. Prepares body for the emergency situation increasing heart rate, contracting blood vessels and dilating airways. Allows subject to multitask cooking, cleaning and child-wrangling with production of such items as ...

.... a pink satin skirt and gold train for size 4 princess (above) ...

.... a duck egg blue shower cap with handmade rose bias binding (below) ...



... a shopping bag in a favourite print ...



... an appliqued t-shirt for a cactus collector ...



... appliqued Christmas t-shirts for Argy and Bargy ...



... and one more Oliver + S popover sundress in size 4 .



Rest-and-digest response (n): a function of the parasympathetic nervous system. Returns body to a calm state after massive adrenaline surge and allows those mince pies to finally digest properly. Tends to occur after frenetic bouts of sewing and leads to blobbing about the house for several days.

Hamming it up

I have a little theory. Humour me if you will, while I talk it through.

You see its this: I believe there's a correlation between culinary skill and life-stage. For example, you haven't moved out of childhood until you can be trusted to use a kitchen knife. And you're not really an adult until you can prepare a meal on your own.

So when I decided to include glazed ham as part of our Christmas festivities this year, I felt sure that it meant I must finally be very grown up indeed. The picture in my head was of an edible show-piece, worthy of the sort of reveal that should always be accompanied by a big ta-dahhhhh.

Mid-afternoon yesterday I departed the last of our lunch celebrations at my parents' place and hurried home to begin preparing the ham ahead of the dinner guests arriving. I whipped the ham out of the fridge with a flourish, forgetting its weight. The momentum behind 4 kilos sent the ham straight to the floor. Hmmpph. A dent on one side - perhaps the guests wouldn't notice. I braced myself and hoisted it back on to the bench.

After struggling with shrink-wrapped plastic, I set about to remove the rind. All the instructions I had read, suggested this was no harder than say, peeling an orange. My prissy, ineffectual little cuts with a kitchen knife brought no joy. Maybe the knife was a bit blunt. I started to cut and hack until preparations were beginning to look less White Christmas and more shower-scene-from-Psycho. Success.

Having cleaved the rind, I tried to pull it away. It was kind of stretchy and rubbery. I pulled. It became sort of a ham tug-o-war. Pull, pull, pu-u-u-l-l-l-l. Ah-ha -it started to come away ... when suddenly ... the ham rind snapped like a giant rubber band. Thwack.

Ham rind in the side of my head. And as I stood there with bits of ham fat and meat in my hair, stuck to my face and alluringly across my decolletage, I giggled hysterically.

Perhaps I still have a bit of growing up to do.

Merry Christmas

Tis the season ...

Deck the halls with boughs of holly
Fa la la la la, la la la la

Tis the season to indulge my folly
Fa la la la la, la la la la



Sew I now some girls apparel
Fa la la, la la la, la la la

Love frills and pink - can you tell?
Fa la la la la, la la la la



There's something about Christmas that makes this mother of two boys go a little silly in the sewing-for-girls department.

In my defence, however, I was aided and abetted by Oliver + S, who provide the beautiful Popover Sundress pattern (children's sizes 2 - 8) as a free download.

How could I resist?


You can find my review of this lovely
and super-easy pattern at PatternReview.com.

A message from Santa

Have you seen the Portable North Pole?

A friend sent me a link to the PNP website, where you can arrange a personalised video message from the Santa himself. Its fantastic!

Link: The Portable North Pole

Cheat's bunting

With apologies ...



... for bring the gentle art of sewing bunting into disrepute.

Yes, its cardboard (... but a lovely way for Argy and Bargy to use their special Christmas stickers)

Empire dress

0300 hours Saturday 12 December: Hoppo Bumpo secretly tries on the period costume - a Regency-era empire gown - in the dead of night. Completed only moments earlier, its to be delivered to its new owner in just 4½ hours.

She puts the memory of sewing the dress three times (two toiles and a final garment); a complicated bodice alteration to increase the bust by 4 cup sizes; slippery satin fabric; the hand-dyed lace incident and other craftsasters behind her .... and smiles.

Its the first dress she has made. And it has been, she thinks, just like hitting her head against a wall: fabulous when it stopped.

Folkwear #215 Empire Dress
In all seriousness though, the pattern itself was very good. I would cheerfully make this again ... so long as no complicated alterations were needed! I wouldn't hesitate to sew anything from Folkwear again. You can find my review of #215 over at PatternReview.com

Fit(ted) for a king

There it was - Argy's first invitation to a party. An invitation in his own right. He wasn't invited because he was related. Or because we knew the parents. No, this was a special invitation at the behest of the birthday girl. The invitation paper was all pink and purple and silver and stated simply that the theme would be "Princesses and Kings".

There was great anticipation on Argy's part. But for me, a dilemma: just how fancy is fancy dress for 4 year-old parties? As I didn't know the mum - other than to nod to on the kindergarten run - I (foolishly) felt too shy to phone and ask.

So, would this be a homemade cardboard crown affair or full fancy dress? What would the other children be wearing? Its just as bad to look ridiculously overdressed as under. As the party date steadily advanced, I vacillated between the options.

Finally yesterday I decided err on the side of caution (read: panic-and-do-a-lot-of-last-minute-sewing). I was brought up to believe that dressing-up was a compliment to your host; so dressing-up it was. I raced to my local fabric shop and picked up a McCall's pattern and some lengths of regal fabric.



In the end Argy went off in a faux fur and gold braid trimmed medieval red velveteen and white satin robe.



As I type, the costume is probably lying trampled on the ground somewhere, while he runs around with a group of happy children wearing cardboard crowns and tiaras.

Medieval king robe
McCalls 5907 (View A)
My review of this pattern can be found on PatternReview.com

Missed

The trouble with getting sick at this busy time of year, is that certain pieces of intelligence tend to be missed.

For example, you might find that your daily craft blog has been sitting neglected for two weeks. Or maybe that your husband has been wrapping the Christmas gifts using the good fabric scissors from your sewing box.

Or that you now seem to have two pet cats instead of one.

I'll be back when I have finished surveying the extent of the chaos.

My creative space

I am joining in with Thursday's My Creative Space at Kootoyoo.

Clockwise from left:

• Flour
• Table salt
• Cream of tartar
• Water
• Oil
• Cocoa

I've had a crash-and-burn kind of week; a tenacious respiratory bug and a migraine have put paid to creativity.

The empire gown languishes unfinished. The quilted Christmas wall-hanging sits in want of the last 10 (of 35!) buttonholes needed to hold the fairy lights. December 1st has passed and my handmade Christmas cards still look remarkably like a stack of blank cardboard.

So this week I'll have to cheat and show you Argy and Bargy's creative space instead.



They have been really enjoying mucking around with chocolate play dough.



It smells delicious, looks suspect and tastes foul. The boys, of course, love it!



Chocolate-scented play dough

I based our play dough on instructions I found at Idea Box.

1. Sift together 1 cup plain (all purpose) flour, 2 teaspoons of cream of tartar, 1/2 cup salt and 1/2 cup cocoa powder.
2. Combine the dry ingredients with 1 cup of boiling water and 2 tablespoons of oil in a saucepan.
3. Stir over a low heat until the mixture combines into a crumbly dough. Take care not to burn it!
4. Turn the dough out in a bowl. When cool to touch, knead in a pliable ball.
5. Fashion into volcanoes, mud pies and monsters. Ensure a bit of it gets mashed into the carpet and stuck in someone's hair.
6. Store at room temperature in a nice air-tight container

I'm off for a little lie down. See you again soon.

Thank you very much Kirsty for hosting My Creative Space. Its great fun seeing what everyone is doing. To see who else is showing their creative space (or to join in), head over here.