Ah, the joys of having wee ones interested in making something out of fabric. Mind, it only lasts ten minutes at a time, and I do most of the sewing, but it is nice to have them at the table making something. This time they wanted to make pillows: draw, stitch and fill. All done!

Yes, I did bake in the last month, you’ll be surprised to know. Although sewing took up most of my spare time, to diverse the mind I did do some baking at the weekends.

The first baking, Swedish cinnamon rolls, was initiated by Hendrikje when we went for a walk along the Callan river. ‘Mummy, when are you going to make those buns with that sticky, salty [yes, salty] white stuff on them?’ Hein? Oh, cinnamon rolls with lemon icing! A while back we had a small picnic with those buns when we walked along the rivers and that seemed to have stuck (in more than one way, haha).

The second round consisted of a baked cheesecake. The plan was to make a mocca cheesecake, for which everybody was really enthusiastic, even the girls. That is, until I actually made the instant coffee mix. “COFFEE?! Yugh!! We don’t want coffee, we want berries!!” O, okay… Luckily there were some mixed fruit leftover stuck at the back of the freezer…

The third round of baking was for a visit from friends for tea: sweet scones, and a lot of them. Butter, jam and plain, anything and everything went!

Now on our holiday I made a non bake cheesecake, inspired by Kathrijn’s imaginative food shop play: ‘here you are mummy, strawberry cake with cola sauce’. O thanks dear…. Mmmm, maybe it is not so bad: cola cake, cola cheesecake? Let’s google that. Yeah, sure, cola cheesecake exists, but I found baked only. So I made my simple non bake cheesecake and mixed in ± 175 ml cola. The flavour was very subtle, but I suppose you don’t really want any cake to taste obviously like a glass of coke! At least we didn’t have to burp after it!

The lack of blogs over the last few weeks is mainly because of this coat! It has taken me quite some time to get it sewn together. The Oliver + S instructions are however such that you would need to pay no attention at all to get things wrong! The number of nights spent sewing until halve twelve caused a serious lack of sleep and a serious backlog in blogs! But it was so worth it. Hendrikje was pleased as punch with her coat and keeps telling everybody I made her the coat. I feel so proud that I made this coat all by myself and so satisfied that I am able to do this. I think I have found a serious new hobby….

When I had ordered the pattern, I needed a nice fabric to make a summer coat, rather than a winter or a rain coat. Rumour had it there was a good fabric shop in Carrickfergus that would be well worth the hour’s drive from Armagh. And my, how it did!

A huge shop with lots of corners and side rooms full of everything a seamstress could want. I spent nearly an hour and a half just looking and touching, not yet really finding the red canvassy/linen fabric I had in mind. Just as I was about to give up in entered a slightly dark section with big rolls of fabric (and considerably cheaper fabrics) where this fire truck red corduroy jumped out at me. Yes!

As the lining I had two fabric in my stash: Ikea fabric from a few years back, which used to be curtains and Amy Butler’s Garden Maze in pink. Hendrikje was quite definite: Ikea! Although the background fabric is white and susceptible to the dirt that Hendrikje seems to attract like no other, it was my choice as well. I am quite pleased with the match in colours.

The photographs were taken by Paul in true photo shoot fashion: ‘turn around, oh yeah baby!’ That’s why Hendrikje is baring her teeth in this way, she loved it!

After having decided to make my own clothes, the access to fitting patterns (if you pardon the pun) was essential. Of course there are plenty of patterns available in my size, but boy, are they boring!! Luckily I remembered the Finnish pattern magazine Ottobre from long ago. Initially they only published childrens’ clothing, but since a few years they publish a woman’s magazine twice a year. Their style of clothing is very much my style and the sizes go up to 52, so I was a happy bunny to find their magazines to be for sale online. After flicking through all the copies, I settled on four copies. These should provide me with over 20 patterns that do not need size alterations!

First on the list are the tunics in jersey fabric.

Then a coat which should be made with boiled wool, but I envision it in apple green cord with a shocking pink or orange lining!

And so forth, and so forth!!!

After getting these magazines, I realised that Hendrikje really needed a new summer coat. Strolling the city shops I found nothing suitable (Hendrikje agreed). Why then, why not make her a coat? I had been eyeing Oliver + S patterns for a while, and now that there seemed to be a real need (what more excuses do you need?), I went online to buy the school days coat. Just my luck, it was on offer at Oliver + S, but only if you bought another pattern as well. Oh dear, such a difficult decision, hahaha. The jump rope dress is sooo pretty, I couldn’t resist.

Within a couple of days I thus received enough patterns to last me years!!

[Apologies for the dire quality of the photographs, evening photography is not my strong point (if I have any!]

After some serious conversation with Kathrijn, who asked me: ‘Why do you always never finish my quilt?’, I kicked myself and got going again. First of all the back of the quilt had to be made. Easy peasy, if I would have stuck to the original plan of using just one block colour of Kona Cotton Kiwi. But of course, I happened to find bundles of pieces stacked coins that I didn’t use for the top of the quilt and it would be a waste not to use them. Unfortunately the blocks didn’t match up, so I had to dig into my fabric stack to find the right colours, cut extra coins, sew them at the right place (which is quite difficult, when you’re watching Who do you think you are? at the same time) and measure until the column was long enough. After some seam ripping I ended up with a correct stack of coins which would fit 1,5 column.

There was going to be little debate on what shapes I should use for the quilting: hearts it should be, and hearts only. After contemplating some different heart shapes: modern and symmetrical, hand drawn, I settled on the heart pattern on one of the “Sent with Love” fabrics.

Marking both a print out of the fabric and the quilt, I managed to get the pattern more or less satisfactory unto the quilt.

After that, the dreading quilting began… Thank goodness it wasn’t half as bad as Hendrikje’s flowers! Actually, it went quite smoothly. I didn’t have to stick to the lines rigorously and could skip lines, without comprising the overall feel. So far, so good!

Last weekend was rather an orange weekend: football, politics, food and drink all had the bright shine of a sunset. Across the waters in our homeland the people were going crazy because of the Dutch national football team had reached the final of the world cup and anticipated a big win. Normally we couldn’t care less about football, but the wins of the national team convinced us to watch the last three matches. Orange is the colour of our Royal house and mostly used national teams in all sports.

Here in Armagh and all over Northern Ireland people were preparing for the 12th of July celebrations which are by definition also an orange affair. In big parades Orangemen celebrate the win of the Protestant King William over the Catholic ruler at the battle of the Boyne. This is something we definitely would not associate with, if only because the parades keep our children up all evenings!
Then the food. With Lucy from Attic 24’s lemonade recipe being a big hit, we thought that that procedure could be used for all sorts of fruits, especially oranges. Five oranges peeled and squeezed, mixed with sugar and water give a lot more sirup however than five lemons and my precious soup terrine nearly overflowed!

After 24 hours of patiently waiting, a nice glass of homemade orange squash with bubbly water taste sooo good! Tjabering loved sucking out the orangeskins, funny little man!

Along side in the meantime, I had an evil plan (evil for any weight loss ideas we might have had): after a few weekends of very little baking, I wanted to make a proper cake. One that would make people beg for more, even though the are ’shtuffed’. Obviously the orange theme had to be maintained and there was just the recipe waiting for me in Leiths Baking Bible: orange and poppy seed cake. Although I am usually hesitant in baking/making poppy seed food with a toddler running about (anyone who has ever changed a dirty nappy after a poppy seed roll lunch can only sympathise, I’m sure), but as Young Master nowadays does really well in toilet training himself, I took the chance!

The cake itself is baked with only some orange rind. The big sunburst orange flavour is added after the cake is baked and cooled. Orange juice and sugar is boiled to a syrup, which is poured over the cake after you have put a skewer in about 40 times. Swirl swirl until most syrup has run into the holes and leave to stand until all syrup has disappeared. Wait, not yet, let is sit for a few hours, so the syrup has had the chance to seep right to the bottom of the cake. Then cut, eat and say, like Young Master: mm-mm, lekker (yummy)! And no, he didn’t walk into a wall, those are the remains of a green tiger face painting!

Some orange weekend we had!

A couple of weeks ago I received my long yearned for order of the Sew Liberated Schoolhouse Tunic pattern and a long long stretch of Anna Maria Horner’s Fortune Sea fabric. While I finally had it, I didn’t dare cut it, in case the tunic would prove too small, wrong fit etc etc etc. The only way around that would be to make a test tunic. Unfortunately my fabric pile did not have enough fabric to make up the 2.7 metres I would need for the tunic. Maybe patching things up would work, but I figured: what if the tunic is perfect, but I can’t wear it because it is made out of seven different colours? I might as well go for a proper, but cheap fabric.

Up and away to the fabric shop to get pattern paper and fabric. Ha, paper yes, fabric, no. Only synthetic fabrics and not what one would call cheap. But not to worry: I still neede plenty of time to trace the pattern AND add one size to the largest on the pattern… Although all my tops are a size 20 when shop bought, the schema of the pattern said I would not fit into their size 20. With a lot of patience and double calculations I increased the largest size to a 22…

A solution for the fabric came from an (for me) unexpected corner: Hendrikje and I went to the Barnardos to leave down some clothes all children grew out of. And what did my eye spy? A second hand, o sorry, *cough*, a vintage *grin* duvet cover! Lovely smooth and fine fabric in creme with orange motive on one side, and a woven orange, brown and green striped fabric on the other. £2.99! I didn’t have to think for too long, and that same evening I was cutting the pieces for my first schoolhouse tunic.

Before long I was pinning and sewing away, feeling so happy that most of the pieces actually fitted! Only one piece had a little excess fabric, which was swiftly cut away. Yesterday night I finished it and I was really pleased. The shape seems to suit me, although the split at the front gapes a little more than on any photographs I have seen so far, as I am just a tiny weeny bit more endowed than others. Perhaps with the ‘proper’ tunic, I will close the split a few inches at the bottom.

There is a recent trend in our house: whenever I get my sewing machine out during the day, the girls ask if they also can make something out of fabric. Last week Hendrikje really really wanted to make a heart like the one we made for our friends. As I hadn’t planned any major sewing detours that afternoon, I gave her granny’s box of squares and let her pick her fabric and cut out her own heart (you can imaging I had to rewrite this sentence a few times, to prevent social services coming to investigate!).  I did do the sewing on the machine bar 1 inch, but she turned the heart herself and stuffed it with Ikea pillow filling. Not long after Kathrijn came in, saying she wanted one as well. Same procedure as last time.

When they were hugging their hearts, I asked them to pose with them. Would they stand still? No. Too interested in their late afternoon movie… So here you go: several blurry pictures of the girls with their handmade hearts!

For the lunch with our friends I wanted to make something the girls choose. The last couple of weeks the girls are weirdly and unexplainable interested in the cupcake and cheesecake cookbook I bought a while back. The only cheesecake I made from it was nice, the first slice, but gosh, the rest was ate with some reluctance. Most recipes ask for 750 grams to 1 kilo (!!!!) of cream cheese, which gives me hardburn just reading it. Anyway, the girls had picked a ’sprickled cupcakes’ recipe (i.e. picture), and as I promised I would make whatever they picked, I followed the recipe to the letter.

Remember how I always complain about the consistency of the batter. This recipe gave the most gorgeous, velvety batter I have made so far!!! O, skip sip, hop hop, this is going to taste sooo good!!

Half an hour later I am chewing some stodgy cupcake that is perfectly cooked, but still tasted as if had just gone in the oven, yugh! The girls went on the decorate them with icing and sprinkles and thought that they were yummy…. Weird children!

I am sure I will now only use that cookbook for flavour inspiration and leave the recipes well unread.

As we got a sneaking suspicion they didn’t want to have big farewells, we invited them home for a lunch last Sunday  before the girls would leave for their summer with their grandparents in Bulgaria. We had a lovely time, a bit quiet every now and then. I was able to contain my emotions really well until Petya called the girls to leave. Yoana came downstairs in tears saying that she would never see Hendrikje and Kathrijn again… I fled into the kitchen: one child upset was bad enough and I didn’t want to set anyone else off. Unfortunately I still had to hand over a gift I had made them: a family heart, or rather, a friends’ heart that I made (again from Amanda Soule) with a little pocket containing an A4 sheet with drawings and messages from everyone to wish them well. Well, eventually, all adults and Yoana were crying and the others were looking sheepishly….

I so hope their new life in Edinburgh and the new little life they are expecting in August will make them happy and content. Of course we will now have a prefect excuse to finally travel to Edinburgh together, but it would have been nicer not to have one.