Keen posting!

My computer was right there, the camera was next to it, and I could actually find the uplink cable. So before I forgot to, I've decided to blog it tonight!

We were looking forward to welcoming new stitcher Rosie, but she didn't end up coming - perhaps my "see you tomorrow night" - written late on Monday night - confused the matter. Oh dear. So it was a small gathering tonight, with just Princesses Eleri, Alana and Kate in attendance.

Princess Eleri brought along a fabulous show-and-tell with the completed top (minus border) of her wedding ring quilt. Only has to be finished in a week or so - thank goodness there's a long weekend coming up!

And here's a close-up of one of the rings. The fabrics and sewing are just fantastic - all those curved seams. Wow!


Once the top had been ironed, photographed, draped and adored, it was time to contemplate the border and how to apPLIque it to the rings. Quite difficult, really.


Poor Princess Alana is sick with a head cold again after staying up late baking for the bake-off, but she still managed to work industriously on Prince Ed's jumper. Nearly one ball of wool finished (sssssh, only 16 remaining). Estimated completion date by winter 2009 :)


Princess Kate had intended to work on her interim emergency project (another gypsy skirt made from charm squares) while her fabrics wing their way from the US (brilliant website: http://www.hancocks-paducah.com/ for all your quilting needs. Hide your credit card first!), however conversations of fabrics and stashes distracted her, and so she spent some time searching through and sorting old boxes of fabric. After looking in the box labelled 'Evening Fabrics' (and finding some amazing and forgotten pieces), she resorted to opening the box labelled 'Mending and Incomplete' to find the 80cm of $120/metre embroidered silk that she'd never dared cut into. It was originally purchased for a corset, along with all the boning, piping and ribbon, however the prototype didn't fit and was too much of a pain to resize. So ideas were discussed about what to do with this incredibly expensive and stunning fabric - feature panels in a skirt, I think we decided.

Interim emergency project:

Very expensive embroidered silk:
(reflection from the silk is a bit strange - it is actually black).

Last week I was so inspired by the apPLIque jumper I was sewing for Della, that I stayed up late once I got home and kept working on it until the wee hours. Silly me. Here it is:

(oops, I see I should have flattened it better before photographing it - the arms don't actually have those big wobbles in them.)

I've been thinking of setting up at Etsy store for clothing like this and the skirts - what do people think?

Finished projects

It has been rather a while since I've done an update on this blog... Sorry princessi :(

Among other things, I promised I would post some photos of the firefighter quilt:

The finished quilt! I photographed it on our bed, so you can't actually see the borders or special corner squares...

A close-up of the border fabric and one of the corner squares. The corner squares came about when I realised that the pattern was ginormous and completely too insanely big, so I reduced the number of blocks (was 7x8, reduced to 6x6). Of course this was after I'd cut out all the pieces and made all the red squares. *sigh*

The label, and a view of the blue-flamed backing fabric (which was so completely JJ and was the inspiration for the rest of the quilt). The wording on the label had been all nicely spaced out, until a party a week ago when a number of people came up to me to ask if it was still OK to go in for the present. Teach me to be organised and to finish it well ahead of time! So I had to squish a whole lot more names on - including up the side too. Ah well.

Oh, to explain the 40th/10th birthday thing: her birthday is the 29th of February, so while she was turning 40 years old, it was only her 10th birthday.

JJ was totally amazed by her gift and absolutely loves it. Her father has said that the family now has a new heirloom :)

I had also promised to post the recipe for the apple crumble I made a few hostings ago. Hmmm. I tend to make this one up every time I make it, so I'll have to experiment to work out approximately what I did. It would have contained something along the lines of:

1 cup wholemeal flour (unless I used wheat-free flour?)
1 cup coconut
1/2 cup raw sugar
sesame seeds
sunflower seeds
walnuts/pecans
enough melted butter/margarine to make it the right consistency.

Not a particularly clear recipe - but Good Luck!

I thought I might also post a picture Della's skirt that I quickly ran up one night a few weeks ago. It didn't make it to a SnB night, as it was quicker to make than I expected.


I bought a pack of 25 pre-cut 15cm charm squares at Lincraft - and I had to add two of my own to make the proportions work right. The longest part of making this was working out the layout of which squares was going to go next to which. The pack contained fabrics that were the same pattern but in different colours - I managed to keep them from being next to each other in the rows, but failed dismally in separating them vertically! No matter. My overlocker made this project very simple, though the gathering was a bit of work too. I've bought another couple of packs of these squares, as I think they'll make nice (and cheap - the pack of squares cost $9.95, and the elastic would come to only about 40cents or so - so all up under $11) preschool presents - I'm sure Della will be invited to a few parties at some stages of this year!

Tofu at Princess Bek's

I believe it was the week before last that stitching was at my house. I forgot utterly to take any photographs, but Princess Kate very kindly brought along her rotary cutter and the mat you cut out on, and the ruler thingy, and showed me how to cut out 3 inch squares to do patchwork with (next week I am hoping she will show me how to pin and sew them!). Princess Eleri was also working on patchwork.

My PU#1 came and hemmed a curtain for us. I can't for the life of me remember what anyone else was doing (possibly because I was busy running in and out of the kitchen, organising an enormous pile of roast veg and baked tofu as well as baked lamb chops for the non-vegans).

The baked tofu worked so well that Hugo actually ate the rest of it. Here's the recipe:

1 pack firm tofu
1/4 cup soy sauce
2 tbs maple syrup
squirt tomato sauce
1 tbs white vinegar
dash tabasco
1 tbs sesame seeds (actually I must admit I didn't measure, I just chucked some in)
clove garlic, squished
few good grinds of the pepper grinder

Slice tofu into cubes, mix all the marinade together, marinate in the fridge for a half hour or so. Then put it in a single layer and bake in the oven at 190 C for 15 mins, turn over and bake for 15 mins on the other side. Voila, as the fr sa.

This was good, because it took about the same time as my baked lamb chops (drizzle with olive oil, cracked black pepper and fresh rosemary, bake with whole cloves of garlic).

Not related to stitch and bitch, but I'm just at the moment boiling oranges to make this cake to take with us when we go to a friend's for dinner tomorrow, and it smells SO good! Plus, no dairy or gluten, so it's not going to make me all allergic. I might make some orange slices in syrup to go on top of it...

Some old pictures!

Hi everyone, and here are some old pictures you might remember from I think the last S&B at my old place (oh, I miss our little tudor-style cottage :-( Still, our new 70's pad is pretty cool!) in perhaps October last year.

Enjoy.

First we have a rather nice photo of the Eleri-buffet-picnic, with a special focus on the lettuce, which I seem to remember Ed placed in the bowl in a flower-like effort (thank you Ed, very good creativity).

Our next picture shows a few of us having a bit of a giggle (Us? Giggle? Surely not!) It also shows the lovely Kate diligently working at unpicking a couple of rows of misjudged knitting Eleri had stuffed up earlier in the night. Subsequently there was a bit of knitting school so now eleri knows what purl and knit looks like and how to interpret what to do next - thanks Kate, you're the best!

Next we have the lovely Viv showing off a pretty pink cardigan for Megan.

And Viv's sis, Emily, working on a camel-coloured jumper...

And the Bek holding up her second rag-rug, which is made of scraps of denim and pink fabric.

And finally, a beanie I made for my Ickle Sis!

Sadness

There have been no posts for aeons! I'm sure we have been stitching. And also bitching. So why no posts?! For shame.
Anyway, I thought I would blog today to tell everyone that I have been an exceedingly good stitcher and have, in fact, been stitching on one of my SPs (Secret Projects) this weekend, and it is looking quite lovely, and I am very pleased with it, and I will happily show it to some of the Stitchers this week. Which reminds me, I have no idea where stitching is this week, and will have to send a message round. byeee, Princess Eleri xxx

Festivities Continued...

Finally got onto the computer at home.

I don't really have much to add, but I do have some piccies of us all enjoying the food and Princess Bek's Tiaras.

Woohoo, the camera timer worked. All of us, patiently waiting for Princess Viv to arrive.

One end of the happy Christmas table.

The other end of the happy Christmas table, with Princess Alana making weird faces...

We actually had alcymahol. Preservative free wine procured by Princess Alana, to make sure we could all drink it. It made me too lazy to do any stitching apart from boring mending.

Festivities

Hello hello, here is the first post I have posted in ages. Thank you to Princess Lermily for hosting and cooking delicious chickenandsaladandroastedveggies and flourlessorangecake, and to Princess Alana for making delicious salmonanddillandcreamcheese entrees as well as cranberryandturkyandpumpernickel entrees and also passionfruitmeringues (quite delectable), and to Princess Kate for bringing yummymuffins and to Princess Bek for bringing excellent Princess tiaras (some said "Princess" and some had flashing lights!), and to Princess Viv for bringing silverbeet to be rehomed. In honour of the festive cheer, here is a very fetching image of some of the Princessi looking exceeding regal in their tiaras.

And here are some more lovely photos of some stitching that was happening for Princess Beks' birthday (rather belated gifting by Princess Eleri here, but it would all have been finished before if not for the recalcitrant sewing machine, which decided it was time for an early Christmas break). Half-finished:

And completely finished:

Anyway, festiveness to all :-) Princess Eleri