I got this kit from the Purl Bee for my birthday, I was SUPER excited about it. I like the idea of embroidery but find it rather daunting, this was perfect for me as it was quite open stitching and I learnt loads of different stitches.

The kit comes with everything you need plus a whole stitch booklet (type-written) and really detailed hand-written instructions. This made it feel very cottagy and vintage.

Basically I couldn’t put it down, it was so much fun to do.

I need to get it framed and then it will take pride of place in my Haberdashery.

For my next project I’d like to try these goldfinches, maybe for my grandmother, or there are some amazing jacobean samplers around, but what would I DO with them? Answers on a postcard…

Bonjour, Amber here, guest-posting, as I have had 6 weeks off and have inevitably been crafting it up…

So, I have had my eye on this party garland recipe from The Purl Bee for ages as it looks amazing in their carefully styled photos and I loved the different shapes and sizes. Seeing as it looked pretty easy and I’m all about the instant gratification of such projects, I gave it a go one typical ‘summer’ afternoon.

Apologies for the poor and dingy photo, I’m afraid I have no garden or quaint natural setting as has Kimberly… However, it does look very sweet in my newly organised Haberdashery room and was super easy and quick to make, as claimed by The Purl Bee.

I used some ‘fat eighths’ of this beautiful V&A revival fabric that Kimberly bought me over a year ago for patchwork, but as mentioned earlier, I’m all about the instant gratification and I have discovered that slow paced crafts such as patchwork are therefore, not for me.

First I downloaded the templates for the different shapes and duly cut out a few of each from each piece of fabric. I was concerned that the shapes looked a bit titchy but did what I was told…
I then laid them out into some kind of ‘random’ order.

So, to the sewing! I was thrilled to find the required invisible thread in my local Morrisons! It was actually quite satisfying sewing it all together, if only because it takes hardly any time at all and the whole thing was finished in an afternoon!

Although it looks lovely, my main problem with the whole thing is that it is all so ABUSRDLY TINY! As if it’s been made for The Borrowers’ summer fete. The main reason I decided against employing my own initiative in the sizing was that the photos on The Purl Bee made it look much larger and I thought it would all be ok once it was put up somewhere. What a fool I was…

The fabric works perfectly for this project I think but I would need a lot more to make a proper length garland should I want to use it for some kind of celebration.

So, despite the templates for this being so stupidly miniature, I would definitely make more of this, but bigger, and maybe using some plain fabrics too to complement the beautiful patterns. The moral of this story is therefore, I know best.

Last weekend in the sunshine Simon and I went berry picking at Parkside Farm in Enfield, sensibly we arrived early, before the rush which was descending as we left at 11am!

Arriving home with a decent haul of strawberries, raspberries and blackberries I rolled my sleeves up for an afternoon of jam making. As ever I pulled out the preserving bible that is The National Trust Book of Jams and Preserves for guidance.

The bramble jam was a quick make, equal amounts of fruit and sugar plus the juice of two lemons, and was done in 20 mins. It is a delightfully tart jam and due to the short setting time still has large bits of whole fruit in it. In a blind taste test (which basically meant me feeding Simon breakfast) Simon rated this lowest of the three, but given that they are all delicious I think that sounds harsher than it should be.

The raspberry jam is easily my favourite, slightly sharp, very fruity and great texture (unless you’re the sort of weirdo who likes seedless jam), I left this to mingle with the sugar overnight before boiling and it really helped with the consistency. I’m also slightly partial to this as I potted it into some of my favourite jars…

The strawberry jam took four days to make, yup, 4 freakin’ days! But who am I to argue with The National Trust?

The first day you layer the fruit and jam sugar in a dish, cover and leave to soak, on day two you boil it for 5 mins, then cover and leave in the pan for another two days, on the fourth day you can finally bring to setting point, pot and cover.

So is it worth it? I would say yes, I got the best set I’ve ever had with this jam and Simon rated it top in our blind taste test, plus I would say the strawberries were not the best I’ve ever picked so definitely a success.

So that’s cream teas, victoria sponges, steamed puddings and a number of christmas prezzies sorted – shout now if you have a preference, I’m not sure how much will be left by then.

I’ve been meaning to make this for ages, this is another gem from my Italian classics cookbook that Simon got me a while ago.

Should have done it sooner – they are freaking’ amazing. I might have made them slightly too large but I’d only eat more if they were smaller.

I also used some of my delicious vanilla sugar (made from the empty vanilla pods as suggested by Nigella, I do everything she says you know) which I’ve been saving for just such an occasion and as far as I’m concerned that really made the difference (yeh so I’ve got nothing to compare it to, give a shit, I trust Nigella!)

Anyway I quite like the idea of making these every weekend to have with coffee, that’s probably unrealistic but I will certainly try these chocolate ones next time.

I’m aware this isn’t a great photo, it was very difficult to photograph without putting it on a child, and a) I don’t have a child and b) the child for whom it was made was not born yet, annoying.

Anyway this was made for a beautiful baby boy called Harrison, he’s the son of my jitsu sensei so it had to be very boyish indeed, and it’s hard to find good baby-boy items to knit. But I think this is ideal and I really like the contrast edging and the button band construction.

This is the first time I’ve made a pieced item of this kind and I WILL NOT BE DOING IT AGAIN. It was a fucking nightmare, it took me about a week to do all the knitting and then at least another week to sew it all together, if someone ever re-writes this pattern to be knitted in the round I would definitely make it for another boy as it did turn out really cute!

I used King Cole Baby Comfort DK which is really cosy and soft, plus it’s washable at 40, which I’m pretty sure is important when you have a small child.

I made it for a size 12 months but my gauge must have been off as it is a 6 month size in my opinion, not a big deal, it will fit at some point

Anyway, look at the cute baby bear ears!

My sister is a teacher and it’s her birthday this week so perfect timing for teacher gifts, loads of kitsch items you thought you had lost to the school yard, enjoy.

Gold star necklace
Clipboards
School clock
Rocking chair
Personalised stamp
Apple cupcakes
Leather satchel
Vintage pencil pin

PS I’m aware I haven’t done any ‘proper’ blogging for a while but I’ve got two corkers coming up I promise, just got sew on buttons and block, sigh…

I’ve been spending a LOT of time on Pinterest recently and I thought I’d put it to good use by sharing the pretty things with you. I was browsing recently and on discovering the oilcloth below was reminded of our brilliant mexican party last year which got me in the mood for this:

MEXICAN FRIDAY!

Find them on Pinterest:

Beautiful Embroidery
Bling Piñata
Hand-Painted Tiles
Mexican Oilcloth
Penguin in a Sombrero Egg Cup
Seven Layer Chilli Dip Shot

Disclaimer:
It’s annoying but Lightbox (the image plug-in I use on here) won’t allow me to create a gallery with links to the original pins. Hence the list beneath the gallery, I know it looks shit but I can’t do anything about it. Sorry.

I also made these for Alex’s hen high tea but I feel they deserve their own post as they are so god-damned delicious. If you don’t know what a blondie is, (and it turned out no-one at the hen party DID) they are white chocolate brownies (geddit?), a genius idea.

As with all baking it’s the quality of the ingredients that makes these and so I obviously used Green & Blacks white chocolate, drooooool, best quality vanilla extract and some delicious whole pecans.

I used this recipe from The Times ‘inspired by and adapted from’ Gale Gand, the pastry chef of Tru restaurant in Chicago. She suggests serving them as 2.5cm cubes with coffee, and really, I think these were perfect for afternoon tea, delicious, light and sophisticated.

It was nice to have an oven that worked and meant I probably ever-so-slightly overcooked them, they could have been a bit squishier. However, they had my whole family coveting the tin and I had to let them try some the night before the hen party or there would have been blood, even my mother who professes to hate white chocolate was seen snaffling one whilst making the tea .