Requiem for my trousers - Ta dah!

This is a bad news/good news post.  First the bad news.

My trousers have died.  To be fair, they have had a good innings.  They are nine years old.  Which in trouser years makes them about 112.  These are the trousers that have survived every cull of my wardrobe. Every house move and clear out.  Every makeover and fashion reinvention.

I bought them when I lived in Kosovo.  Think mud and dust in Summer.  I wore flat shoes all the time because the surfaces were all uneven.  And these were the perfect flat shoe trousers.  Good quality linen, a good cut that relaxed rather than sagged around the behind with each wear.  And comfort akin to trackie bottoms.

They then came with me to New York the first time we lived here and I schlepped all over the city in them.

In North Africa they were line dried in searing heat over a couple of years, fading to a kind of colourless grey.  So, when we came back to New York three years ago they came too, but were consigned (most of the time) to house trousers.  A bit too scruffy to be seen out in but too deliciously comfortable to give away.

Every Summer I promised myself would be the last.  But somehow they came out each year for one more go around.

But this year, they have given up the ghost.

First it was a thinning.  But the thinning gave way to a hole, and a dangerous lack of thread in the crotch area (ahem).

So, what to do?  I couldn't quite bring myself to throw them away.  And then I hit on the perfect solution.  I could still sit on the them, sort of....

TA- DAH!  (Imagine a gap in my typing here while I skip around the room.)

I had some heavy cotton fabric with a big repeat in the pattern that I haven't quite known what to do with.

It used to be wrapped roughly around the original horsehair (uncomfortable) cushions that came with this chair found at a flea market years ago.

But the chair had a makeover when we moved to Manhattan and the fabric went to live at the bottom of our laundry basket.  For a very long time.

So, cast off fabric, meet worn out trousers.

A fab new cushion.  My first ever cushion cover.  Do you like it?  Do You?

Now it lives on our sofa bed, looking pleased with itself.  Fits right in.

Even the Queen looks pleased.

So there you have it.  I made a cushion cover.  Hurray!

So, have you recycled your clothes?  Would love to know what you've done with them.

C.x
(The Queens are vintage life magazines bought on ebay and framed by Mr. P.  And the make do and mend is an original photo from stock in 1942.  Did I tell you I love ebay?)

In the bag - Ta-dah!

LOOK!

My iPad cover.  What I made.  All by myself.  Gosh, how clever am I!

I would like to tell you it was nothing really, just something I knocked out in an afternoon.  But this has been tormenting me for about a month now.  I even got up early one Saturday recently because I thought I'd cracked it, only to find myself ripping it apart again in frustration later in the day.

Never one to make it easy on myself, I didn't think to look up a pattern.  Or at least I did, but I didn't think any pattern would accommodate the beautiful piece of fabric with the car that I wanted to form the front flap, and I knew if I found a pattern I wouldn't be able to adapt it, so I ploughed on.  To give you an idea of how many times I re-did this, I went through a whole spool of thread...  I know, right?

And now that I've got it sorted, I can't believe how stupid I was being all along.  And of course the answer was so simple, and had been staring me in the face.  All I needed to do was to follow the way I made my bags (sort of).  I knew I didn't want any exposed seams on the sides because they would come apart after awhile, but I must have tried every possible variation of folding and stitching before it dawned on me that I needed an inner pocket sewn right sides together and left that way, and an outer pocket sewn right sides together and then turned inside out so that the right sides faced out.  And then the inner pocket could, well, sit inside the outer pocket.  Genius!

That only left the flap, and I knew I only had this little piece of fabric to work with so necessity made that bit quite straightforward in the end.

So, there you go - my first ever made up made thing, ever.  Isn't it pretty?  Do you like it?  Do you really?  And doesn't my iPad look the business tucked away in there?

If I'm honest, I will tell you that in fact I didn't make the pockets high enough, so that when the ipad is inside, the flap comes over but you can't see all the car, which niggles me.  But I still love the colour combination and the travel motif (nothing if not obvious) and the general feel of the thing.  And did I mention that I made it?  Me.

And just in time - I am off on my travels tomorrow (Afghanistan and Lebanon - not sure how I feel about that...) and will be out of touch for a week or more.  Will be thinking of you all and looking forward to hearing how you're getting on.

C.x

(A bit of a cheat, but...) Ta Dah!

Mr. P is in England at the moment, taking to an architect and builder about the old lady house. I had to stay here and work, which I'm feeling a bit peevish about even though I know we both didn't need to be there, and that gallivanting across the Atlantic every couple of weeks is all very well but we have to watch our pennies at the moment if we are going to have any money to spend once the house is bought.

And it's raining. And will keep raining for the next 5 days if the weather forecast is at all accurate. So to take my mind off my strop and the weather, I decided to do some crafting. (It was either that or endless episodes of Lie to Me...). I tried first to fix the iPad cover I started to make a few weeks back. All I achieved was to understand how to use my seam ripper. If anyone needs lessons in using this nifty little tool, I'm your woman. I can tell you that an empty flat is just the place for this exercise, because I had free reign to swear liberally and loudly all afternoon.

I eventually abandoned my efforts in favour of repeating an earlier success. If in doubt, stick to what you know...


So I made another bag. Smaller this time, because I had less material, and because I wanted it to be useful for my 8 year old niece.




I'd found this lovely fabric at Purl Soho when I made my first bag. It's so Springy and happy and has this lovely pattern on a deliciously slubby thick cotton...





Very Princess and the Pea... I decided to use grey thread which would blend with the darker colour way and provide contrast to the yellow fabric...


I realise this was a bit risky since my days of sewing in straight lines are obviously yet before me, but still... It has all the same feature as the first bag, with a magnetic snap for the outer pocket and two smaller pockets on the inside...






And, of course, it's reversible and washable.

Having made it once already, this came together pretty quickly and I'm chuffed to bits with it. I only hope my niece likes it too. Do you?

C.x
P.S. I realise I've been completely crap lately, not really crafting much, and not commenting on all your lovely blogs. But I am reading them all and planning lots of future projects, so please bear with me. There's just lots going on right now.

P.P.S. The quality of photos is appalling because Mr. P. went off to England with the cable that connects my SLR to the computer, so these were transferred using the Blogger App on my iPad, which clearly doesn't do photos.  Humph.

The best of excuses

It was Mr. P's birthday yesterday.  So of course that could only mean one thing...

I first made this cake in my teens and made it so often I copied it into a notebook (hard to believe I was ever that person).  But then for some reason I stopped and haven't made a chocolate fudge cake for years and years.  It was always going to be something chocolatey for Mr. P.  I tried to push the idea of Nigella's chocolate and ginger as recommended by Annie of Nimble Fingers and Steady Eyebrows but Mr. P was having none of it.  (Sorry Annie, but I will doubtless find another reason to bake that soon...)   And it being his birthday, I couldn't really say no.

It's a simple recipe (see below), which is really just an excuse to make the icing...

... which is oh so sweet, but somehow just perfect.

The cake stand was put to work again, and this is just the cake it was made for....

The weekend wasn't all baking though.  I tried to make an ipad case with this lovely fabric that I mentioned here...

I will post about the disaster that followed another time when I've stopped sulking and figured out how to fix it.  I may be some time.

My head was full of sewing on my way to brunch when I came across this:

I was running late so didn't have time to go an investigate.  I suspect it was for one of the local hairdresser, but what if it was the sewing fairy come to tell me how to fix my fiasco?

Hope you had a lovely weekend.

C.x
Chocolate Fudge Cake
6 oz butter or marg
6 oz dark brown sugar
2 large tablespoons cocoa blended with 2 tablespoons boiling water and left to cool
3 eggs
6oz self raising flour
2 oz ground almonds

Icing
2 oz marg
3 tablespoons milk
1 rounded tablespoon cocoa
8 oz icing sugar

Cake:
Mix all the ingredients together until smooth.  Divide between two 7 inch sandwich tins.  Bake for 25-35 minutes at gas mark 4. (Simple!)

Icing
Place milk, marg and cocoa in a saucepan over low heat until marg melts (do NOT allow to boil).  Cool a little.  Sieve icing sugar into bowl and add cooled mixture.  Beat until smooth  Leave to go completely cold before icing.

Enjoy!

Packages (2)

Like most people, I do love a parcel.  And when I got home the other night, there were not one but two cardboard boxes waiting for me.  Mr. P is very good and doesn't tell me when such parcels come so as not to spoil the surprise.  I have to say I would not be so disciplined, and would likely rip into them to have a good rummage inside before ever he had the chance.  But anyway, these parcels were both ebay purchases.  I have not mentioned this before but I love ebay.  We used to live in the desert in North Africa before we came here, and before every holiday, I would go onto ebay, with the result that I always had parcels waiting for me at my sister's house when we went home.  Most of it was stuff I now don't have (what does this tell you...) - summery things and jumpers (who knew you needed jumpers in the desert).  But not housey stuff.  No point in carting housey stuff back to the desert only to ship it on to, well, wherever we were going next.

But now.... Now is an entirely different ebay experience.  Which leads to purchases like this...

... and this...

I am now the proud owner of a pink milk glass cake stand...

...with a beautiful, intricate lacey pattern which will be so easy to clean...

... and which stands elegantly on a pedestal adorned with patterns that look like musical instruments (I gave up piano when I was nine)...

Really I don't know how I have limped along in life without this until now.

AND, a sewing basket....

... with pretty faded fabric on the lid...

... and more shouty fabric inside.  Of course now that I am a seamstress, I will definitely have use for this.  And I haven't a single other box or tin or cupboard or drawer where I could store my sewing things.  No, I'm sure I don't.

Do you ebay?

C.x

Cue drum roll...

Ta- Dah!

I'm so bursting with excitement and general pleased-with-myself glee that I'm not sure where to start.  Or what to say.  I made a bag.  Not just any old pillowcase with a drawstring bag.  A sturdy bag that stands up all by itself.  One that I can throw in the mashing machine when it gets grubby.

THIS bag....

...with inside AND outside pockets, with a magnetic snap....

... a fully reversible bag..

I made that.  From scratch.  Me.

Maybe this will say it better than I can...

C.x

Woman meets machine

LOOK!

I made that.  All by myself.  No need to rip and start again.  First time.  With a sewing machine and everything.  Me.  Yes indeed.  I'm so clever I could skip.

Okay, now that that shameless bragging is out of the way, let me tell you.  I went to my sewing class yesterday all excited.  I got there 20 minutes early and hung around outside nervously waiting to be let in.  Everyone arrived and we all settled down while the teacher went over everything she'd already explained about machines last week.  (The woman has the patience of a kindergarten teacher.)  She gave us scraps to practice on first.  I would show you this practice piece if my sampler looked like the woman's next to me, with neat rows of all the machine's stitches as she went through the settings one by one.  My sampler looked different to that.  A bit challenged really.  Random bits of stitching all over the place.  Still, I got there somehow without injuring myself or breaking the machine.  And then at some point the teacher told us to take out our fabric that we'd cut last week and start to sew the bottoms of the fabric for the inner pockets together.  So that's what we did.  After that, it went by in a bit of a blur with only the odd hiccup.  (Note to self: never sew with the foot raised.)  And by the end of class I had this:

I could tell you the million and one things that are wrong with it and what I might try to do differently next time.  But mostly I want to come round to your house with it so that you can see it for yourself and  ooh and aah and tell me your stories about how you learnt to sew and what a lovely bag this is going to be.  Oh yes, and how clever I am...

Of course, this is only the inner lining of the bag.  The apple print fabric will be on the outside with the dotty fabric making an outside pocket.  But when I open the bag and look inside, this is what I'll see:

The dotty lining with two apple pockets.  Sweet, no?

Last class next week where we make the outer bag and the strap and put it all together.   So expect more shameless bragging then.

C.x

Just a little something - Giveaway

This week, I have reached over a 1000 hits on the blog.  Even leaving aside my Mum and my sisters and Mr. P and randoms people I've pestered at parties to take a look, that still means that total strangers are checking in to see what's going on.  And I'm chuffed to bits about that.  Either it's lots and lots of people having a look once, or the same 5 people lots and lots of times.  Either way, I'm happy.  And so I wanted to say thank you in the tradition of Blogland by having a giveaway.  Now, I know that I'm supposed to make something to give away.  But you will know that I have yet to make much of anything, let alone something all you talented people out there might want.  So, my giveaway is a bit different. 



A thread cutter!  Those of you who followed my progress through Australia may remember the fiasco of my wool-buyer expedition to Morris & Sons in Sydney and how they wouldn't allow me to return everything when I realised I could get it all for a fraction of the price back home.  Anyway, because of this, I ended up with not one but two thread cutters.  One thing you should know about me is that when I take on something new I go for it with all the zeal of a convert, and buy lots of gadgets and gizmos that aren't strictly necessary.  I half thought the thread cutter would be one of those things.  What's wrong with a scissors, after all....

But believe it or not, this little thing is amazing.  I can take it on a plane without freaking out the security people.  It doesn't have any sharp pointy bits to stick through the seams of my wool bag or take anyone's eye out.  And it saves my wool from being pulled apart by my fists.  In short, this is my new favourite toy.  So, I thought you might like one too.  And you can even wear it round your neck if you want so that you always know where it is when you need it.

I do hope you'll think it useful too.  All you need to do for a chance to receive this is to leave a comment on this post.  I'll keep it open until Sunday 27 March.

Happy St. Patrick's Day!

C.x

Show and tell

 

All my life I have learned from books.  At school and afterwards, to figure out life, I have turned to books to explain.  I trust words.  Written words in particular.  It's no coincidence that I should choose as my first craft project to spell out words in fabric!

So, when I want to know how to do something new, my instinct is to buy a book.  When I took up photography a few years back, I bought shelves full of books about technique, and bought beautiful photography books for inspiration.  I took a writing class last year, and another pile of books sat by my bed.  I thought, and still do, that by reading about what motivates writers, what gets them to sit down at their computers every day in front of a flashing cursor,  some of that motivation might seep into me.

Now, I am discovering that this crafting business is a bit different.  I can read how to crochet chain stitch, but how much better to be shown how to crochet, as here.

But I have not quite kicked the habit.  I have been leafing through this over the weekend and  it's absolutely lovely.

 

Forgive the dodgy photography - taken under lamplight but the illustrations are too lovely not to give you an idea.  

And the book is full of step-by-step instructions on how to make everything from a simple apron to winter curtains.  And lots of helps with seams and other things that novices like me find so tricky.

And fab drawings and photos to show you how lovely an egg cosy can be (who knew?)

I bought the book on impulse last year.  I had no idea why.  I didn't even tell Mr. P about it.  I sneaked it into the house and shoved it onto the top shelf like a dirty mag because I couldn't quite admit that I might be the kind of person that would want to sew.  But that was before I saw the cloth letters and the woman in Peter Jones helped me pick out some fabric.  She told me a story about when she first got married and she wanted to learn how to make a cake.  Whenever her husband went out for the afternoon, she would get out a recipe book and follow it slavishly.  She said she must have made half a dozen flops before she had a cake that she was prepared to show her husband.  "Just practice", she told me.  "You'll be fine."

When I got home, I knew exactly where I would go for my first lesson.  A book.

And even as I write this, I know I am distracting myself with words from the fact that I have not yet learned how to make my first granny square.  This is where I've got to so far.

Somehow, 'granny rhomboid' doesn't have the same cozy ring to it...

Claire