Sewing a Blind Hem

I did it! I did my first blind hem and it looked fine! This is something that has always baffled me because of the whole folding it this way and that thing that goes along with it. Until I found this video. It explained the folding bit so well that it made you think - what was I worrying about?

I forgot to take a picture before I gave the skirt back to my Mum (for whom I was altering it) but it really did turn out well. I was pretty chuffed with myself. I did use a blind hem foot which came with the machine and I can see that not having this would make it more difficult as you wouldn't have the little guide that special foot has.

It really has made me happy that I got this done - I've had the skirt there for ages and whilst for much of the time, I was without a machine and therefore unable to do it, I was also a bit nervous when I did have one as I didn't want to mess it up, as it's part of a suit. I unpicked the lining and just did a normal hem on that, as had been done on it originally. I nearly cheated and did a normal hem on the main fabric but I really wanted to learn the technique.

Now I have done it once, I'll hopefully be less intimidated another time.

If this is something you're struggling with, I'd highly recommend you take a look at the video I mention. I watched it at 4am whilst unable to sleep and even got it then, so that must say something about how well she's explained it!

Happy Sewing!

New Sewing Machine - Eek!

Well, I finally decided and now have a shiny new sewing machine. I have to say that I haven't had much use of it yet, but I did actually manage to get the bobbin wound, in and working yesterday. I rummaged around and found a skirt I cut out more years ago than I care to remember - and due to that fact am not sure I'm even going to fit into anymore! :(  which is this one from New Look.

 

New Look 6300

 

As you can see, it's noted as 'Easy' which makes it even more annoying that I couldn't flippin' work out some of the instructions! I sewed the back together yesterday and it originally had a vent...well, not anymore. I'm hoping it's just because I'm out of practice and not because I'm actually being a bit dopey! So, having edged and hemmed the vent, I couldn't work out how it was supposed to lie, so I ended up hemming the back seam all the way down from the bottom of the zipper area and chopping the vent bit off.

 

The view I'd chosen and cut out is the one the model is...well, modelling in the picture. This is also throwing up issues for me. I'd cut all my skirt out of some really nice faux suede I'd got from Croft Mill years ago in brown and a beigey/creamy colour. However, when I've got to patch it together, it seems like some are going to be the wrong side up. I thought I'd cut them out wrong but having looked at the cutting layouts again yesterday, it does seem that I've followed them correctly. Which is why I ended up sewing the back together first.

 

So, at the moment, it's sitting in a pile until hubby who although not a seamstress, has a very clever and logical mind, can look at it with me and see if it's me or them. As I say, all this might be academic because I'm not the skinny girl I was so it might not even fit, but I did think that I might be able to put some panels down the side if things start looking that way, bearing in mind it's a pieced look anyway.

 

If anyone has had any experience with this pattern, I'd be happy to hear from you (more than happy!).

 

Any whilst it probably wasn't the best project to start out on a brand new machine after a long gap away from, being shiny on one side, and grippy on the other, I did at least sew a few bits of fabric to another few bits so it's a start!

 

 



Plum Crunch Cake

More baking! Although I have to admit I made this one a little while ago but didn't get around to putting it up on the blog.

It's an excellent recipe for using up some fruit that might be looking past its best a little. I actually had some plums to use up, but I should think it would work just as well with something like apricots, and even apples.

As you can see, I made two and froze one. It froze really well - no complaints when it was time to be pulled out and eaten. The recipe itself was torn from a magazine and had been sitting around for a while so I was glad of the chance to try it out.

The sugary syrup is poured one when they come out of the oven and then left to set, hence the 'crunch' part of the title. Of course, you could leave this bit out if you wanted to cut back on the sugar content.

The only downside with this cake is that it's not so great for transporting - probably not the best for lunchboxes (although hubby did manage it just fine. I can't say if all of the bits stayed on but they certainly got eaten, detached or not.)

Any other fruit you could think of that would be good for this recipe?

Chutney Surprise

I have never made chutney before but I had a bunch of green tomatoes, and a few reds one that really needed using so I went rummaging for a suitable recipe and this is the result.

First you have to chop up all the onions and the tomatoes, add a little salt, and then let it sit for 24 hours.

After that, it's a case of adding the rest of the ingredients and cooking it all down. I ended up halving the recipe amounts, just to make it tally with the amount of tomatoes I had, but I'm glad I did as I still ended up with about 5 jars and I think that's plenty for now, especially as it's an untried recipe!

 



I've tucked them away in a cupboard for now, but wondered if anyone knew what the best amount of time to leave them is before you start tucking in?

All info gratefully received!

I've Been At The Glue!

At last! I am back! Apologies for the delay. We actually took a bit of time off and if you follow my other blog at Scribbler Maxi, you will know from this post that we had a lovely week up in the Peak District and Yorkshire, exploring places like Chatsworth, the Bronte Parsonage and the rather fun and fabulous National Media Museum at Bradford. I would highly recommend the latter for passing time on a rainy day. There's a tonne of stuff to see and plenty of hands on things to keep both little, and big, kids amused.

I knew I wanted to keep some sort of journal for this trip. Let's face it - our first holiday since 2005, I think deserves some sort of celebration! :) I'd looked around online at the Smash Books but I had two problems with these; one, I thought they were kind of pricey and two, I wasn't sure if I was keen on all the designs in each book so in the end I decided to make my own version. That way I could choose the papers, knowing I liked them all.

As it turned out, the week before our trip got a bit hectic so I was, at one point, regretting not having ordered a book! In the end, I sat down and at half ten the night before we left, had the pages ready to go. I didn't have time to bind it, which meant that it wouldn't be accessible to drop in a bag but I could live with that.

 

 I had ordered a Smash pen which has a pen one end, and a glue stick the other. Here I made a boo boo - I chose the 'pink' version thinking it was just called that as it was supposed to go with the pink-bound book. Wrong! It has pink ink. Not what I had planned for. Oops! Anyway, I took it, along with another black ink fine writer, and a tape roller. I don't know if anyone else has had an issue with the glue on the Smash pens but my postcards were coming unstuck within a very short time so I am glad I had taken the extra tape roller as back up.

I had lovely time sticking in brochures, entrance tickets, receipts and postcards, and although I didn't always feel awake enough to journal at the end of the day, it was all done pretty close to the actual day.

 

 

When we got home, I cut the covers out of mountboard, covered it with some more paper, and washi tape and bound them with my Bind It All. I had an offcut of coil left and I actually prefer this look to having a full length binding in this case.

 

 

And I've no idea why this won't load the right way up...

 

 

 

Once it was all done, I found that I actually had some pages left over, so I didn't put them in the book and will just use them on some layouts.

 

I also printed a few photos and put some of them in there when we got home, but even this could be done 'on the road' if you have a mini printer, or are somewhere you could drop into an instant developer.

 

Hope you like it!

 



Making Soup, Sauce, and Grow Your Own

It's been a funny old year, weather wise. Certainly not the best summer for grow your own - whilst we didn't have the drought that they threatened us with, a situation which the media revelled in, conjuring up hype about how we would all be queueing with our buckets at the local stand pipe, it turned out to be rather the opposite!

There was plenty of water raining down from the sky. And whilst it wasn't reaching scorching temperatures all that often (something I for one, didn't mind), it wasn't exceptionally cold either. Which all led to a rather muggy, damp summer. Around this time last year, our garden was pretty much decimated as we had to replace the boundary wall. The plants against it were overgrown and out of hand and needed to be ripped out so we could get to the area to build. There was big brown, muddy patch on the lawn where we had stacked cuttings as we shuffled them bit by bit in the compost bin and to the tip. Once it was finished, the wall looked fantastic, but the garden looked a little bare and sorry for itself. We managed to save a couple of plants and I bought a few more, and got a couple of donations from my Dad in the form of some red hot pokers that hadn't performed well at all in his garden. As we have different soil, we thought we'd try them here. Although the smaller one didn't flower, the bigger one sent up 5 or 6 flower spikes over the season. In its previous home, it had only sent up one spindly one, so it seems quite happy where it is now.

When I look at the garden now, it's hard to believe it's only been in a year, some of it less. The amount of rain, combined with enough warmth to get shrubs going, if not annuals so much, has resulted in the plants putting on quite a lot of lush growth! So, there's an upside for some of us.

On the other hand, my Mediterranean veg haven't fared so well.

I was having a fight with caterpillars on my chilli plant and found that apparently, they like to sleep in the chillies! There was a little hole, just the one, on most of my chillies. They munch a doorway, crawl in and take a kip! Although I could cut that bit off, I didn't fancy eating something a caterpillar had taken a snooze in so I whizzed them into the compost. I don't use chemicals so I made up a concoction of mushed up garlic, some chilli powder and a squirt of washing up liquid, and mixed it all with some water. I then strained it and put it in a sprayer bottle. I squirted this a few times over the plant, and it seems to have done the trick. I've actually been able to pick some chillies for use now. The aubergine and pepper have been quite a disappointment. One on each plant. The aubergine did have another but it had grown right at the bottom and with so much rain, it started to rot where it touched the soil. Another time, perhaps some straw underneath might help.

I also grew several tomato plants. We went back to more well known varieties this year after a disastrous outcome last year with 'natural', non hybrid seeds we'd sent for. Again, there's been a lot of lush and leafy growth and one of the Tigerellas got so big, it was wedged up with several stakes from the front as it had bent the large metal stake it was tied to! I've had a lot of pickings, and spent most of the day the other day making tomato soup. I tend to use Delia's tomato and basil soup from her Complete Cookery Course.

The book (available here at a great price). I also made 3 batches of tomato pasta sauce. My favourite recipe for this is Annabel Karmel's roast cherry tomato and mascarpone sauce here .

Both of these recipes call for the soup/sauce to be strained to get rid of any skins or pips at the end. After doing it the first time, I've never bothered with this step again. By the time it's all been blasted into oblivion with the food processor, it's fine with me if I get the odd tomato seed.

And as you can see from the picture, I don't stick to cherry tomatoes for the sauce recipe either. Whatever I have is whatever gets used. Still tastes just lovely!

Once again though, that damp humidity has had some affect on my plants. Blight appeared so I've had to get rid of a few of the plants and am just trying to get as many of the other fruit to ripen as I can, as I keep an eye on them and make sure it's not spread to any more. This is the second time I've had it on my tomatoes after years of not having it, but with the last two summer's we've had, it doesn't surprise me. And as Monty Don on Gardeners' World had his tomatoes attacked by it this year, it shows it's not just us amateurs who've had the problems.

New Sewing Machine Advice and Beautiful Old Ones

As some of you know, I've been 'between machines' now for some time, and whilst I'm having a nice time pondering on what I will make as and when I get a new one, I'm also finding that deciding on such a thing can be quite overwhelming. There's so much choice and so many different opinions. Who's right? Or is it all, as with so many things, just subjective?

I did have an interesting time a few weeks ago when I managed to rip the Brand New Dress I'd had on for about three hours! This is what comes of trying to carry too many bags of shopping down steps without lifting up the maxi dress a little.

I have to say, I am one of the clumsiest people I know, and am prone to tripping, banging into, or falling over so this was not really a new turn of events. What was new, (apart from the dress!) was that the fabric of the dress was quite fine which meant instead of me just falling up or down, as normally happens, I heard the most horrible tear. Looking down confirmed my fears.

Once I'd calmed down, I realised that at least this was fixable. The tear was at the bottom of the dress so turning it up an inch or so, should rectify the problem, and comforted myself in the fact that I hadn't put a great big hole in the middle at least! I say the problem was rectifiable. It would be if I had a machine.... Mum!!!

A little trip to my parents and I was soon sat opposite my Mum's machine which she got when she was 17...it's now over 50 years old. They certainly don't make them like this anymore. It's pretty just to look at!

 

 

Excuse the fact it's not the best quality pic in the world, but it was taken with a phone, in a north facing room. But it's still pretty!

 

It's the first time I've used a foot pedal in many years as my previous one had a start/stop button, so that took a bit of getting used to but after commandeering one of Dad's (clean!) hankies that was of a similar fine weave, I had a practice and got going. And I now have a wearable dress once again! It made me wonder what people who don't have a machine, or access to one, do when things like this happen. Or are they just not as accident prone as me?

 

In the meantime, I'm still pondering over what machine to go for. I tried out a Janome a few weeks ago, the TX607, and that was nice - I do love those little snippy scissor buttons! I wasn't so keen on the screen though. I didn't think it was as clear as some others, such as the 5900 (also Janome), although sadly this one doesn't have the thread cutter. I've been leaning towards Janome because I want something that I can get feet for easily if I want to, without having to send off and pay enormous postage, has a good range of fancy stitches as well as the workhorse ones, and basically will handle anything I throw at it - thick or thin.

 

If anyone has any opinions on the subject, I'm all ears! Thanks so much!