Wednesday 15 August 2012

Sewing outside and a Book Review

Last week we had a little trip to the garden of my husbands family and I took one of my best friends -  my sewing machine with me to work on my sorbetto top.
This was the view from my improvised "working" space



On the right corner you can see a bit of the baby blue crepe (no silk crepe of course) I used. The fabric has a golden scalloped hem and I am not quite sure if I should also use golden bias tape for the neckline and the armholes. I can't remember ever wearing golden clothes, but it would match well with the hem. The fabric was on sale for only 1,50€ per metre and immediately I saw the sorbetto top made of it in my imagination. I think it is a really good buy - if you immediately know what to do with the fabric, otherwise your fabric stash will just grow bigger and bigger - with a lot of beautiful fabric waiting to become a real project one day.  So my new mantra is to only buy fabric when I really have a clue what to do with it.
As beautiful as outside sewing is the wind made it a wee bit harder to cut the fabric properly. But I made it at the end. To someone like me, nature is a very distracting thing so I havent finished the sorbetto yet. But crafting on the outside was a totally relaxing and joyful adventure.
And we could have our dinner at the treehouse!
Beautiful view from the treehouse while having dinner
Another little gem that I layed my eyes on is the Queen of Crafts book by Jazz Domino Holly the daughter of Joe Strummer ( I know it is usually stupid to mention the daughter/son of... thing but as her dad beeing Joe Strummer I set aside that intent). In her book she nicely describes what impact crafting has on her life and how her father, great-grandmother and her grandmother inspired her and helped her making her first crafting steps. The story of her great-grandmother reminded me of mine, who taught me the first stitches.

 Jazz Domino Holly (yes a long name!) is also founder of the Shoreditch Sisters a feminist crafting group which meets monthly in East-London. That of course makes her even more sympathetic to me. The book is loaded with nice projects like planting a tea garden, knitting a scarf (which is good for me as a knitting newbie), making jam and chutneys, baking and even a DIY beauty section. Though the baking section is mostly not vegan the recipes could be veganized easily. And she included a recipe for edible glitter that I totally want to test. Who doesn't want edible glitter on a cake?



Monday 6 August 2012

The fear of taking photos

Chocolate Cupcakes with candied rose petals that I made 2 years ago.

I did a lot, but without taking photos. I made a tool belt for the little one, I finished my picnic blanket skirt and I' started making my first sorbetto top.  I baked a lot of  pies and cakes for birthdays, but sadly without any photo. I have to kick myself in the ass to make photos and to overcome the fear that my photos arent good enough. Though I'm satisfied with the Cupcake Photo above (minus the background).
So note to myself: Try more and learn!
More soon to come.......