13 + 19 and another pinafore

I finished off the dumpling pouches I was making.

All 13 of them.

I wonder why I can never seem to make things one at a time?

Talking of which - I made 19 pinnies this week! This is them waiting to be ironed.

Then I got back to some dressmaking. I decided to make myself another pinafore dress like the denim one I made here. It just needs the hem and buttons and buttonholes done and it'll be ready to wear. Just in time for the cooler weather.

baking, sewing etc

I don't seem to have blogged "properly" for a wee while so, yet again, I have to rely on my camera to tell me what I've been up to.

First of all, I baked: crunchy cookies - recipe below.

And sultana cookies - recipe here:

I folded all my summer clothes up ready to go into the suitcase under the bed. They've been like that for about 2 weeks now. It's not hard to pull the suitcase out from under the bed ... I just haven't done it yet!

I got myself some new patterns in the Simplicity half price sale.

I've got some dumpling bags on the go - free pattern and tutorial here.

Joanna made us a chocolate cake for our anniversary. It was delicious!

She also made up a date night basket for us.

Needless to say the chocolates are all gone but the rest is waiting for us to decide on our choice of movies to watch.

Here's the recipe for the crunchy cookies. Before we were married (35 years ago last Monday!) I went to cooking classes which were called "Budget Cookery". I could cook and bake - my mum taught me well! - but I thought it would be good to learn some new things and maybe, as a young wife, be able to do it without spending too much money. I still use a lot of the recipes I learned and this is one of them.

CRUNCHY COOKIES

6 oz marg/butter
4 oz soft brown sugar
8 oz plain flour
¼ level tsp salt
demerara sugar for covering

Set oven to 160ºC

Beat marg and sugar together until soft. Sieve in half the flour and salt. Blend together and then add the rest of the flour. Roll into a sausage.

Sprinkle a piece of foil with demerara sugar, place sausage on it. Roll so that the outsides are evenly covered in the sugar, adding extra if needed. Place in the fridge for 30 mins to firm up.

Slice into ¼” slices. Bake for about 15 - 20 mins. Leave on trays for about 5 - 10 minutes then cool on a wire rack.

coral or jade

Apparently, a 35th wedding anniversary is either a coral anniversary or a jade anniversary. All I can say is it's a long time since this photo was taken.

And yet, it also doesn't feel that long. Here's to the next 35 years, Douglas. I love you! :o)

bindings, sleeves, trousers and a top

After I finished the blue diagonal quilt, I was about to put the piece of blue/green stripey fabric I'd used for the binding back in the pile when I thought I might just cut what little I had left into 2½" strips and make more binding. Then I got the idea that I might do the same with a few other fabrics.

After a bit of joining and pressing then neatly rolling them up, I have a decent collection of possible quilt bindings. Just looking at these makes me happy!

My next wee job was to shorten the sleeves of the white shirt with the pussycat buttons I made earlier this year. To be honest, I don't know why I made it with long sleeves - I'd rather wear short sleeves with a cardigan than long sleeves any day!

I wore the adapted short-sleeved blouse yesterday and it is much more useful now so I know it'll get worn a lot.

Next I made some navy trousers. I used a pattern I've used many, many times before -

This time I made view E which are narrower in the leg than view D. Very comfy trousers.

My next project is to make this top - view B but with short sleeves (shown top right on the pattern).

First of all I made a copy of the pattern front so that I could do a full bust adjustment. This is the amended front piece before I trimmed it properly.

I've been sewing it today but it's not finished yet so I haven't been able to try it on. My fingers are tightly crossed that it works out well. :o)

blue diagonal quilt - a finish

I finished hand-sewing the binding of the blue diagonal quilt last night and sewed on the tartan bee label this morning. I love it!

My quilt holder obliged me by turning the diagonals the other way.

And then he suggested he held it on the diagonal. Why? No idea. I photographed it anyway! :oD

The diagonal quilting shows up quite nicely on the blue fleece.

And this photo shows the quilting on the front and the stripey binding. And you catch a glimpse of the Farmer's Wife quilt on the wall behind it. (Posts about that can be found here. Be warned, there are a lot of them!)

I have plans for what my next quilt will be. I've even got the bits cut out for it but I don't think I'll start it for a wee while. Unless the urge takes me, of course! :o)

nearly there

I got a lot of work done on the blue diagonal quilt today. First I pinned the top to the royal blue fleece backing.

Then I quilted it in blue thread, ¼" away from the seam lines only quilting on the white fabric so that the blue thread would show up.

I used white thread in the bobbin - I like how it shows up on the blue fleece but isn't shouting out that it's not the right colour.

I then searched my piles of fabric for the blue and white stripe that I knew I had for making the binding. I looked through all of the piles 3 times and it wasn't there. I don't remember using it but I must have. Anyway, it wasn't there so I had to choose something else. In the end, I think it's an inspired choice and probably better than the blue and white stripe would have been!

I machine stitched the binding on to the quilt top -

And then started hand-sewing it to the back.

It's not quite finished but hopefully I'll get it done tomorrow.

no zigzagging here!

Over the weekend, I decided to do the layout of the blue zigzag quilt. As I was laying it on our bed - who needs a design wall? :oD - I kept mistakingly putting it down in diagonals instead of zigzags. It was almost as if the quilt was telling me it wanted to be different from the pink version so I went with the idea.

I spent some time on Saturday and some time today sewing each of the rows together.

Then pressing them:

And then I joined them all together to finish the quilt top.

All I need to do now is put it on the blue fleece I already have lined up for the backing, quilt it and then decide on, make and attach the binding.

Now, the way I've written all of that makes it seem like everything went swimmingly, doesn't it? Well, let me show you this picture of a small dog who obviously didn't care for the lovely layout I was making! I'm sure you can see she's cackling in this photo! Silly Tilly! :oD

a blue zigzag quilt

Back in June, when I was making this pink zigzag quilt:

(blogged about here) ... I knew I wanted to make a blue version too. I got down to starting it last week. First I cut out 72 x 4½" squares in blue fabrics.

Then I cut out 72 white 4½" squares.

I drew lines down one of the diagonals on all of the white squares:

And sewed a blue to a white square sewing ¼" each side of the drawn lines.

Then I cut them all apart on the drawn lines:

Then pressed them open:

And cut off all the dog ears:

And that's as far as I went. I've decided I want to do some dressmaking this week so they'll just sit tidily in their box waiting until I can be bothered to do the next bit! :o)

sewing for Maple & Thistle

Last week was spent with my nose to the grindstone sewing machine sewing things for Debbie & Jason's Maple & Thistle shop in Perth. They were running low on tartan bee stock so I sewed and sewed and sewed.

To save posting the 19 photos I took of everything I made, I played around in my Photoshop and made combinations of them all. First of all, more calico and tartan appliquée bags:

8 shopping bags:

In total I gave them 19 shopping bags of one kind or another.

Then there were the 18 pinnies - there are 2 pinnies of some of the designs:

I was really pleased with how much I got done and Debbie and Jason were delighted to have more of my stuff to sell. Let's hope the good people of Perth and summer visitors think so too!

Debbie's birthday tea

We had a birthday tea for Debbie yesterday. I do love a good birthday tea! :o)

We had sandwiches:

Fruit:

Lots of sweeties:

Sticky krispie cakes:

Sausage rolls, more sandwiches and more sweeties:

Sausages and cheese on sticks:

And lastly, Debbie's favourite sweeties - dolly mixtures.

There wasn't much on the table that was good for us but that's why birthday teas are so great. Eating junk food is okay as long as you don't do it every day - even if you secretly wish you could! LOL