Show and tell

Here is my 'show and tell' from the past few days.

 

 

 I made this lunch bag for the scrappy swap, I really hope my partner likes it, as I enjoyed making it for her - it will be off in the post with some Nottingham lace (my local item) by the end of the week.

eeek - terrible photo, (and I won't draw your attention to the parts of the star that don't line up!) but I made my stash bee block for this month, this was loads of fun to make - it's off to the USA already.

 Two big kisses for the bee blessed quilt this month

Lots of goodies arrived for me this week (can't think why!).  My favourite things are the hand made items..... it's not very clear, but there's a funky lanyard for work which I am very excited about.  My own personalised mug hug....

and Jan (Isisjem) made me the most adorable pincushion and handy sewing roll. - I love it

My decadent treat this week has been a day totally to myself - and I have sorted myself out a sewing shelf..... putting things in tubs and jars and baskets (happy days!) ..... photos of my shelf next time!!

getting in knots

This week we had the second "Stitching it Together" evening at my house.  And Hannah taught Di and I to crochet.

 

Well, she taught Di to crochet, Di took to it very well and whipped up the cutest little trinket pot during the evening - hopefully there will be photos on her blog soon.

I on the other hand was very slow to pick it up, and here was my effort after a whole evening of trying

 

But, I am not to be deterred, I may not be a natural crocheter, but I have perservered, and finished it.  So here is my completed little trinket pot!

And...... what fun I had organising all my scraps, and putting mine together with the ones Trudi gave me, look at them all in colour order.......

Now there is no excuse, I have to get on with my scrappy swap - thinking of making a pink penguin lunch bag......

 

Here are details of the next Stitching it Together - let me know if you fancy coming along.

 

“Stitching it Together”

We are meeting again on Wednesday 9^th January 2013, 7pm onwards.

Last time we had lots of fun when Hannah taught us how to crochet.  There has been talk of us tackling a paper pieced block next time….. so watch this space.

Or, if you want to bring something else you are working on that is fine.

There will be cake!!!!

Hope to see you there,     Tanya x

 

 

Feeling grateful

Those of you who have been with my blog since the beginning (hello you two!) will recall that I intended this blog to be about the things I made and created, from things I grew, found, discovered and aquired!

As I got deeper into the world of sewing blogs, it took another turn and has mainly focused on sewing and quilting and the fabric side of things.

I'm kind of going back to the beginning today.

Today I am feeling grateful for other people being generous...........

I have been given a bag of green tomatoes and apples from Sue at work.  It was full of the most gorgeous green tomatoes, from teeny weeny to very amusing - check out my favourite!

I did a bit of research and learnt that if you store them in cardboard in a warm dark place they will ripen and turn orange - so these are forming an experiment to see if that is the case.

And these have been turned into green tomato soup (I considered making chutney but decided to make something I love, and I far prefer soup to chutney).  The recipe is here.

I snuck in a few of these bad boy chilli's that Polly grew - and gave me a little packet - they may look small, but they are mighty powerful.

These were the apples, and they will be turned into a crumble and apple cake this evening. 

Here are all my pots of soup (the paler ones are the green tomato soup) made this morning

 

Now....... it wouldn't be a proper blog post if there wasn't some reference to fabric would it??  I was really touched and a bit overwhelmed when Di handed me an enormous bag of scraps from Trudi when she came over for "stitching it together" this week.

Look............

I am going to spend this evening colour coordinating all my scraps, now I have a collection big enough to organise....  THANK YOU to Trudi.

So watch this space for my next post which will show my lovely colour coordinated scraps..... and my efforts at learning to crochet when we met with Hannah for "stitching it together" this week.

Beautiful day

What a beautiful day.............

My tote bag from the mouthy stitches 2 swap arrived today...... I have been holding my breath after seeing so many gorgeous bags in the flickr stream, to see which one would come my way, and look......

Check out the fabulous lining.

Danny from mommyfor reals has made it for me, thanks so much Danny, I love it.  Can't wait to use it

Just to wish you all a happy halloween

Pretty scarey hey??

x

Mincemeat!

Look away now if you cannot face the thought of Christmas yet.

However, if you are getting a wee bit organised, or stocked up ready, then I thought I would share my mincemeat recipe with you.

You will need:-
450g currants
450g sultanas
450g raisins
450g cooking apples - grated
50g glace cherries - chopped
50g dates - chopped
175g candied peel
450g suet (we used veggie suet)
350g barbados sugar
1/2 teaspoon salt
1/2 teaspoon nutmeg
1/2 teaspoon ground ginger
1 teaspoon mixed spice
2 lemons (grated rind and juice)
2 tangerines (grated rind and juice)
150ml rum or brandy

Basically bung everything together in a clean washing up bowl (or huge huge mixing bowl).



The smell of lemons and oranges filled the house all afternoon - it was great.

 

 We used this strange Honey rum that Hope won on a tombola!

Put the mixture into jars - it makes about 7lb, and we used 7 jars.

get creative with decorating the stickers, and suitable fabric choices for lids.

 

These will be heading off as gifts for special people a bit before Christmas so they can make their mince pies in good time.

 

x

This week.......

This week has felt like a month...........

There was Brownie pack holiday away, which was a Charlie and the Chocolate factory weekend, during which I was referred to as Verucca Salt all weekend (quite surreal really).

We made mini pizzas out of chocolates and sweets.

We ate a LOT of chocolate (here is Hope cheating at the chocolate game).  And I got more sleep than I usually do at home!!!

In between working four (very emotionally draining) days this week I also managed,

the completion of my mouthy stitches 2 swap bag and key ring.

The front...............

 The back................

My first ever attempt at an internal pocket - will definately be giving this another go, I love it.....

The keyring - poor photo taken in the dark, sorry!

My partner has been silent throughout the swap, and doesn't seem to have commented on anyone's pictures, but I haven't seen her comment on mine, so it has been a lot of guess work, and I really hope she likes the bag - apparantly her favourite colours are purple and grey.... and favourite things are sausage dogs.........  so I have thought a lot about her while I tried my hardest to make something that she will love to use.  This bag will be winging it's way to America soon.

Then we also had the first evening of 'Stitching it Together' this week.  Which was so lovely.  There were five of us, Moira and Di both came along which was lovely, and I adored and admired Moira's latest quilt, and drooled over Di's latest bag (and am on a mission to get the pattern and have a go myself).  And Hannah and Helen to local friends came, sadly Ingrid had a migraine, but hopefully we will meet up next week instead.  We are going to have another 'Stitching it Together' evening next month, when Hannah will be giving us a crash course on crochet.....  watch this space.


Finally, I have also been nipping to our local wool shop (click here for my post about Joan's shop) on a Thursday night for my hand stitching sew an owl cushion course.  It's hopefully going to look something like the one below when it is finished, but hand sewing is SLOW and I am not naturally a slow hand sewing type of person...... 



I am thinking of cheating a bit and whizzing some of it through the machine this week, ready for the next evening class.

But while at my class I learnt about Kisko a fabric guild shop in Leicester, and it just happened to be open today, and me and Lou just happened to be free, and we just happened to pop down there and I accidentally came away with a bag of goodies!  I can't show any peeks because there were birthday and Christmas presents bought for special people that are in the bag.  But I did treat myself to a few cute fat quarters which were just 99p each. And stocked up on some bargain calico and cotton.

So I would like a calm, relaxing weekend with plenty of me time........ no chance!

x

My blog is one today

My blog is one year old today.

 

 



I just love JillybeJoyful's cake for her first bloggy birthday

I can't believe how much I have loved getting to know the blogging community in the past year.  My sewing skills have grown no end, and my use of the computer has probably tripled!  It has given me lots of enjoyment and a hobby that happily fills my spare time.

To celebrate, I am not having a giveaway.


Instead it's the start of "Stitching it Together"

“Stitching it Together”

I have discovered that it is fun to sew with other people.  So…..

You are invited to come and sew at my house.

Bring along your sewing machine, favourite fabrics, patterns and ideas. (Or just yourself).

We can either spend an evening making one of the patterns I have got, or just bring along whatever you are making at the moment.

There will be cake!!!!

First evening is  Weds 10^th October 7pm.

Tanya x

Hopefully this group will meet monthly, and grow organically as people fancy popping along.  There will be at least three of us next Wednesday.  If you live near enough you are more than welcome to join us.


x