Trip into the past...

I got inspired about a month ago and decided to finish off some long outstanding craft projects.  One in fact from 1985!! The other one wasn't quite that long ago, but nearly!

Some of my former school friends might recognise this project from Year 8 Art Class! Yes I finally finished it! LOL! It was a screen printing activity.  We had to design a template based on a bug/insect of some sort.  I chose the butterfly and if I remember correctly the art teacher didn't think I enough detail, so co-opted someone else bug onto my material.

The next project I finished is a cushion cover.  I finished stitching the cross stitch quite some years ago, so it's just been sitting amongst my stuff waiting to be made into something. So I decided to use some of the leftover boarder material from another quilt.

Here is the finished project.  Laura this will be winging it's way to you at some point for Kate!

Cooking a Nigella Recipe

I made this over Christmas while in Noosa.  My Mum and I watched one of Nigella's programs and she made this on the episode we watched.  Mum and I were both so impressed, I tried to find the recipe on her site the next day, but to no avail.  So I did the next best thing, I watched it on ABC iView and wrote it down as she made it. 

It is call Black Beer Gingerbread, and it tastes heavenly!  All members of the family loved it too, even my Dad who isn't a fan of ginger anything ... taste not red heads! :D

I used Kilkenny Stout, and have made it again since with the same Stout.  Although I do have a can of Guinness sitting in the fridge for the next batch to see if it makes a difference to the taste.

Below is the recipe as I watched the program.

Black Beer Gingerbread

Recipe By Nigella Lawson

Pre-heat oven to 170 C.

Melt in a saucepan, 150 grams of butter, 300 grams of Golden Syrup & 200 grams of dark Brown Sugar (Demerara). Once melted, keep on heat and whisk in 250 mls of Black Beer (Stout). Then mix in 300 grams of plain flour, 2 teaspoons of Bicarb Soda, 2 teaspoons of ground cinnamon, 2 teaspoons of ground ginger and a ¼ teaspoon of ground cloves. Once this has been whisked into the beer mixture, remove from the heat. Whisk together 300 mls/grams of Sour Cream (Small carton 300ml) & 2 eggs. Mix sour cream into batter and pour into a pan. There is no need to grease the pan, especially if using the suggested BBQ foil pan. Bake in moderately slow oven for 45 minutes.
Serve on it’s own, or with cream, ice cream or custard.

So I made this ...

I again visited the Sylvia Pippen Designs website and spent some more money.  This time I purchased her Sashiko Scissors Holder.  The colour selection was a random pick by the person who fulfilled the order.  As luck would have it I got red & black fabrics!  I was really happy about that.  So the kit includes 6 Sashiko designs to choose from, white cotton, a needle, a button and all the fabric and wadding needed to make this beautiful and functional item. 

So the first decision I had to make what what design to choose.  The red and black accent fabric to go on the front was of paper fans, so picking a design to go with that was hard.  I decided to go with the double cranes, as that is what my eye kept being drawn to when looking at the selection.  I traced the design onto the black fabric, forgetting that I needed to angle it so it sat properly when the boarders were stitched on and it came time to construct the holder.

Double Cranes

Then came the cutting and sewing of the boarders to the above piece, which was fairly simple. Then came the sandwiching together and then some very simple quilting. I ditch stitched around the centre panel and then sewed a quarter inch line either side of the ditch.  I sewed on the binding, and made the button loop.  Which was to me a new thing and it took me a bit to work out how that might work.

Then came the folding into the shape and stitching in place.  I used one of my own buttons as the button that came with the kit did not match the fabrics.  Below is the finished result, both front and back views.

Front View.

Back View ... if a bit fuzzy!