More Stitching

First of all - I'm sorry that I didn't check my comments, I had comments that weren't posted to my blog for some reason.  I don't have comments on moderation so not sure why they didn't appear.  Sorry Theanne and Peggy.

I've been making some project bags again.  I gave a tutorial on these quite a while ago that I have now put onto a PDF if you would like a copy.

 

 

 

The reason I've made these is for the group I belong to.  We are doing monthly stitch-alongs.  http://groups.yahoo.com/group/International-Hand-Stitchers/ 

Each month a member comes up with a project and whoever signs up will get the tutorial.

 

As well as mine being a tutorial for the bag it also includes the idea for trying variations on a stitch - in this case it is chain stitch.

 

While I was researching chain stitch I saw a fab design that I just had to try

 

It was from the same site as the chain stitch instructions and is called Jacobean Jumble and was something really different for me.

I got a bit carried away with the chain stitch variation 'double chain stitch' and made another bag!

I don't know how many of these bags I've made, it is well over a dozen, probably as many as twenty.  They are useful for keeping things together, I tend to end up with bits and pieces that don't have a home, like my hair clips, rollers, hair bands etc, now they have their own bag instead of being scattered all over my bathroom.  Originally I made them for keeping my current project in.  I also keep my interfacing in one.  Anything that needs to be kept together in fact.  They are also nice to give away.







Crazy Quilting

The Yahoo group I belong to has started doing a Stitch-Along (sal).  The first month was a pincushion and scissor fob.  The second month was a crazy quilting heart...

 

I've had a go at putting a block together before but just couldn't get the hang of it.  This time I succeeded and this heart is the result.





A Bit of Embroidery

It's quite a while since I settled down to my embroidery.  This last couple of weeks I did quite a bit.  This pincushion is stitched with my favourite embroidery subject - lavender.  The stems were done with whipped running stitch and the flowers with bullion knots.  I was going to put a stitched, covered button in the middle but wanted to get it finished, for such a small project it took a long time.  I love bullion knots but I'm quite slow at them.



This & That

I have nothing new to show that I haven't already shown on my blog.  It does tend to get a bit repetitve after a couple of years.

I've deleted my facebook page, don't know why I didn't do that ages ago, I rarely go on it and when I do it is sooo boring.

I prefer to read an online newspaper, which often is not good for my blood pressure (not that I suffer with high blood pressure or anything).  Things in the news get me so irrate.  The latest one is MPs wanting a HUGE pay rise and at the same time expecting new policemen to take a HUGE pay cut.  So, the cost of living goes up and up but the standard of living of the ordinary working man goes down.  How is that fair?  But of course politicians don't understand fair do they.  And another thing - when IDS said he was going to sort out the benefits culture everyone thought he meant the out of work people who were getting more in benefits than the working people could earn.  But of course not, take away child allowance from some, penalise the pensioners by threatening to take away the paltry help they are given.  There are now too many pensioners.  What did they expect?  If you browbeat the population into living a 'healthy' life style they are bound to live longer.  Leave us alone!  Well I could go on but I'd better not, it might not be good for my health.

A recent development is that I have been converted in my opinion of the 'Kindle'.  I swore I wouldn't get one, I do like books.  Well, Graham ordered one for me and my son put tons of books on it.  I admit now that I love it.  I've read more lately than I have for years.  The amount of books I get through can be very expensive and take up lots of storage space at home.  With a Kindle there is free and cheap stuff and it takes up no space.

Due to over indulgence at Christmas I haven't dared do any baking, the weight soon creeps on doesn't it.  Up until about ten years ago I had trouble enjoying food, didn't eat much and lost weight very quickly if I wasn't careful.  Now every chocolate biscuit I eat puts a pound on.  What have I been doing then?  Mostly dolls house miniatures and dolls clothes, a lovely hobby.  Also been walking one day a week, there aren't many weeks when I don't get out and luckily I've always had decent weather on my walks.

Baking Again

From the Afternoon Tea recipe book I made a cherry cake...

It had glace cherries and dried cherries in it.  The dried cherries has a bit of sourness which was very nice, but overall the cake could have done with a lot more cherries in it.

 

Today I made a coffee and walnut cake.  This is one of my favourite cakes, I just love the flavour of it...

I used the Delia Smith recipe but used instant coffee instead of the espresso, I have used the espresso but didn't think much of it.  Also, I made coffee butter cream icing from here instead of the icing Delia uses.  I like Delia's icing recipe but find the butter cream recipe quicker if I'm in a hurry.



More Baking

Yesterday I went into Nottingham and visited the Lakeland shop.  I wanted to buy one of those new silicone tartlet pans that are perforated thus allowing pastry to cook evenly at the base.  Well, I am delighted with the results.  I made Bakewell tarts and individual quiche...

Here you can see the perforations and also notice that I was able to lift one quiche out easily.

 

The Bakewell tart was made with bought puff pastry and the quiche made with homemade shortcrust.  (They are both the same size, my terrible photography make them look distorted)

 

Another thing I learned recently was to roll my shortcrust pastry out between cling film, usually I make my pastry rather wet knowing that I will have to use flour to get it to roll out easily.  Using cling film I was able to roll it out at the proper consistency.  This was the best shortcrust pastry I'd ever made.  It just goes to show that even after over forty years of baking there is still something to learn and improve on.

 



Summer At My House

As everyone else is saying "I can't remember a worse summer than this one!".  It has been weird, rain, rain and more rain.  We have had spells of fairly decent weather so at least we have been able to get outside occasionally.  So far I've been on three holidays, Oban, Ilfracombe and Eastbourne.  We were fairly lucky with these and weren't stopped from getting out and about by the weather.

 

The garden has suffered, not much has got done at all.  Because of all the rain most things have grown extremely well, in fact our garden has been a bit of a jungle and we are now busy rooting a lot of plants and shrubs out so that we can redesign things.  What we want to do is make it low maintenance and have decided on hybrid tea roses.  The good thing about roses is that you can prune them back each year and start off the season with neat plants.  In between we'll probably plant annuals.  The veg plot is the same jungle and our strawberry bed was a failure.  The few strawberries that we got either rotted, went mouldy or were eaten by slugs.  Mind you, the plants have grown incredibly well, I'll have to dig a lot out before next year.  Even the plants in the polytunnel have suffered.  This was partly down to the slug invasion and partly to lack of sunshine.  A few things are growing so it won't be a total failure.

 

I haven't done one bit of embroidery for ages, my crafting time has been taken up with making dolls clothes.

 

One thing I've done quite a bit of is baking.  A friend gave me this book...

...and I made this cake... 

...a lovely sponge cake filled with crushed raspberries and confectioners custard - absolutely delicious!  It was supposed to be covered in whipped cream but that would have been just too much.