Walking, sewing and muffin making

What an excellent weekend

I got to experience the great outdoors on my usual Saturday walk. I was once again really thankful that I had walking boots as the snow was still quite heavy on some parts of the path. It did put a bit of time on my walk though. I’m training for the Moonwalk and really hope the snow is gone before I get to doing the longer training walks.

Following the great cardboard clear out, I got stuck into my makes, repairs and upfashions pile. I made a present bag for my Dad with a representation of the Tardis on it. He’s a big Doctor Who fan and one of his presents is related to this so it seemed appropriate. I even remembered I had a K9 brooch tucked away so I dug it out to include. Alas I forgot to take a photograph so I can’t display my handiwork here.

I repaired a skirt and a pair of leggings and altered an Icing t-shirt and an army surplus top to fit. I think I might be getting to grips with bust darts. Just doing the work on these garments has cleared part of my study. I now have two paper carrier bags of projects rather than an untidy heap. I’ve decided that I like to have my next project set up on the dress model immediately after I finish the current one. In this case it’s a pair of grey trousers that are destined to become a dress.

My search for an excellent breakfast has continued and I was totally inspired this time. I bought mushrooms for this weekend but for various reasons we didn’t end up using them. I thought about how I might incorporate them into breakfast thinking about some kind of pate and then I had the eureka moment. Savoury muffins! I did a quick google search and found a recipe. I then almost totally ignored it using my usual vegan muffin recipe and adding sun dried tomatoes. The only thing that I took from the recipe was frying the mushrooms first and adding herbs. These are totally delicious and will be making regular appearance on my breakfast menu. I’m now thinking of other vegetable combinations I could use.

Have splendid week and try not to worry too much – it’s only life

Could do better...

If my weekly resolutions were graded like a school report, this week's would definitely read 'Could do better'. Last week I set myself three very simple tasks and pretty much failed to do them. It's not that I've been doing nothing. However, I failed to decide which item to put on eBay, only managed one and two half present bags and haven't been anywhere near the curtain. I forgot to take a picture of the bag I did make with a little heart and gingham ribbon.

Reading through the daily/weekly/ongoing job lists in my daybook I can see that often a task will appear for several weeks before I actually do it. Does this mean I need a warm up period? That I'm not really serious about carrying out the tasks I set myself? That I'm setting too many jobs? I think I'll monitor this for a bit and read up on effective list making and task scheduling.

It was a pretty good (and busy as ever) week.

Friday I went to the Vitality show where I indulged in a few eyebrow wax (with scary lady who told me in NY accent that my brows were very bushy), found out about facial exercises (Eve Fraser certainly does not look her age) and got a water filter in a goody bag!

Saturday Dear Heart picked up his new car. He asked me to go with him which meant I had to sit around in the show room for a couple of hours while the salesman went through various checks. However, there was a copy of Vanity Fair in the waiting area. I've always thought that VF was way too high brow and high fashion for me. When I actually began to look through I was pleased to see more text than pictures and proper articles. A new discovery for me to indulge in occasionally!

Sunday, some chums came over for lunch. Much wine (and quantities of vegetables) consumed. Much laughter. They were also happy to take the goody bag water filter off my hands. I rounded off the evening with a delightful chat with my folks.

And finally I'm still completely obsessed with Gala Darling and iCiNG. Makes me think about baking some vegan cupcakes and trying out the icing tools I've never used. Wander across for a peek yourself and don't forget to sign up for cupcake.

Happy Birthday Dad

This is the present bag I made for my Dad's birthday. It's his birthday today so I'm not spoiling the surprise. I tend to find it quite difficult to work out what to buy for him as he seems to want for nothing (which can only mean he's very content?). Here are the back and front views of the closed bag.

Here is the open bag. It contains a couple of pairs of trousers (a sort of cross between jogging bottoms and pyjamas). Just the thing for wearing on the days he works from home. In the smaller pocket is a Starbucks - for the days he has to leave the small town in the country he resides in and venture into big smoke.

I usually make up present bags for specific people or occassions. However, I've had a little time recently and made up these two that I have no immediate use for.

There's this drawstring bag with three hearts.

And this little yellow bag which has turned out to be exactly the right size for a CD.

I'm thinking of putting them on Etsy. It's a bit scary though. The first few sales on Ebay were a little worrying but once one has picked up the form and knows the procedures it's OK. Selling sometjhing you've made yourself is putting your work (your art?) up for public discussion. It's good to do thing that frighten you though so I'll give it a go in the near future.

My photos

I just find it so hard to believe we are midway through January. Time to start blogging again on a regular basis!

Once again January is an alcohol free zone for me and Dear Heart. I've been taking the opportunity to set in place routines that I want to follow over the year and have been trying to spend more time working through my sewing to do pile. After a few weeks break over Christmas I'm now walking again on Saturday mornings. However bits of the trail have been rather soggy. Last week part was even flooded, luckily it was just before my turn around point. I'm now wearing wellingtons when I walk on this particular trail.




I'm making good progress on my fabric sewing to do pile and once that's sorted I'm going to start making gift bags to use up my fabric stash. Here are some pictures of present bags I made around Christmas.

Jingle bells and let it snow bags used snowflake sequins that were a table decoration (and destined for the bin) at a party and a bell from a long ago eaten chocolate reindeer.

I was also quite pleased with these gift tags made from magazine cuttings and fabric scraps. I couldn't find (until it was too late) where I'd put the Christmas cards from the previous year to make tags from.

and more Christmas bags...

Just for variety a few birthday bags

Here is the apple pie I made for our Thanksgiving themed dinner in December. I veganised Linda McCartney's recipe that uses cream cheese. I was delicious and there was enough left over for me to enjoy some for lunch the following week. One the subject of food, my lovely sister bought me a stick blender a a Christmas present. She didn't think it was a particularly great thing to give me but shrugged as it was on my list. I love my stick blender. No more batch blending of soup which resulted in soup dripped all over the work surface. Dear Heart will eat almost any soup as long as it is blended. He claimed the simply lovely carrot soup (from the garden of Vegan) that I made last weekend was the best soup I had ever made. Pretty high praise for a few carrots, some stock, dill and soya milk. I did make home made bread to go with it as well. the really easy bread recipe takes so little time and it's so nice to have fresh hot bread with home made soup.

That's all for now but more photos soon of some sewing projects I'm working on.

What I've been making

I finally got around to loading the pictures from the camera to my computer.

This is the bag my sister's birthday presents went in. I actually made it for another occasion but some pomegranate juice intervened. It washed out well though. The outer fabric is a napkin which lacked matching companions and I really liked the design woven into the fabric.

This is a dress I made from an old skirt belonging to my Mum. The waist was too tiny to fit me. I removed the broken zip and the waist band, cut into three of the side seams to make arm holes and the V-neck. I then machined sheering elastic around the waist to give it some shape. Very happy with this and it looks great over jeans.

More as soon as I clear the clutter I referred to yesterday.

A golf themed gift

I though I'd share the present bag I made for Dear Heart's Dad's birthday with you.

He's a keen golfer so I made this bage with a picture of a golf ball bouncing towards the hole. It held a 'Jobs to do before Golf' notepad.

Mother's Day

I was a creative little bunny for mother's day this year. My original plan to cook dinner from my Mum at my house was out. My Grandmother was visiting near where my parent's live and was going to drop by.

Following a chat with my sister and my Dad we moved the cooking to my parent's kitchen with input from sister, Dad, me and Dear Heart.

I made this card for my mum making use of some magazines I was about to throw out. I just love the 'Mum' spelt in jeans on the back.

I made couple of present bags this week. One with a present for my grandmother in it (bath bombs) and one for Dear Heart's sisters birthday. I find that I'm really busy as the moment. Particularly as a result of all the time I'm spending on Moonwalk training. I think I might have to reconsider the targets I am setting myself while I'm spending time on training. I also need to sort out in my head all the books I've read about not spending, how evil supermarkets are, how cheap proper food can be and quality of life. I'm sure they all tie together but I'm getting bit tangled up in all the principles at present. Anyway, here are the bags. Enjoy the cute green signature hearts on the backs (reminds me of the care bears!).

I'm off to try and wind up my ever growing job list, eat more carbs (lots of walking means I now have to wear a belt with my jeans to get them to stay up to a decent point!) and get my head together!

P.S. I cannot believe that 2 weeks have passed since my last entry. I will try harder to blog at least once a week, particularly during busy (and therefore interesting) times.

My gift bags

I said ages ago that I would post some pictures of the gift bags I made. So this weekend I got the camera out to take some pictures for EBay and did a couple of the gift bags while I was at it. these are bags that I made for Christmas 2005. The reason that they are currently in my possession is that they were reused this Christmas to give a gift to me. Isn't recycling a wonderful thing! I made this one for Dear Heart's sister and it had a DIY book, muffin tin and a muffin recipe in it. It was bulging with Benefit make-up and other goodies when it came back. The ribbon definitely needs an iron before I reuse it this year.


I made this one for my Grandfather and to my shame I can't remember what I put in it! It doesn't show up very well in the picture but the net around the candle flame is orange.


I hope to have a profile photograph soon so watch this space!

A rod for my own back

Last year I attempted to start my own Christmas tradition. I've become concerned by the amount of waste that Christmas generated. So I decided to make drawstring bags (with cute little designs on them) for presents to go in. I used old curtains and all kinds of bits and pieces from my sewing cupboard. They looked absolutely gorgeous. I really wish I had taken a picture. I'd even done fabric gift tags with initials on them so they could be used as a glass charm after.

My big , forward thinking idea was that these would be used year after year for presents instead of paper. I put my initials, the date and 'please reuse me' on the back. I imagined looking back in years to come and remembering who had made various present bags and when they had first been introduced. I rather hope that some other family members might have come up with their own versions for this year (or re-use the ones I made last year).

However this means that I have got to produce around 20 bags for this year's gifts to go in. I'm going to make bags that fold over at the top this year with little ties rather than drawstrings. I suppose I'd better get to work on them tonight or I shall be burning the midnight oil and sewing when I should be enjoying mulled wine by the fire!