a bumblebee cake

17/10/2021 8:52 pm \ 5 Comments \

I know I don’t do baking posts here very often, but I actually make a lot of cakes! and if I get to decorate them in a exuberantly fun way like this one then I will be tempted to write a post about it here…

My niece Jacinta was having her 21st, with a yellow-themed birthday party… and what with one thing and another making it very busy for my brother’s family I ended up offering to make the cake.  Time was pretty short and the pressure was on! and I’m so glad I could spare the time myself, as well that I had already prepared my own yellow outfit well in advance!

I made two batches of cake, flavoured one with the grated rind of two lemons for a lemon flavour, the other one with vanilla essence…  baked each in halves to make 4 flat cakes, and layered them alternately. I made lots of batches of plain icing to glue them together and give the cake a crumb crust, and coloured the outer layers with yellow food colouring… finally it’s decorated with real flowers and mini chocolate bumblebee cake decorations.  I wound gold jewellery wire around my finger to make spirals, speared the bumblebees on and secured them with a tiny blob of icing.

I was so happy with how it turned out! Also, we had such a wonderful time at the party and it was so lovely to spend time with all the family!

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yellow clogs

16/10/2021 4:23 pm \ 6 Comments \

I made some new shoes!

So, we have my niece’s yellow themed birthday party coming up, and I’d made my dress so was all set to go, and well hmmm; I just kept dreaming of matching yellow shoes.  Of course I could not resist such dreaming for long.  Eventually bowed down to the inevitable and set to making a pair of yellow shoes to match.

You might think this is a ridiculous amount of effort to go for an outfit for a birthday party.  Yes.  Yes, it is.  Actually the truth is that I just fancied some yellow shoes anyway of course, the party was just the excuse!  I ordered one of the new high heeled clog kits from leather needle thread, and got onto it!

well hello, my little photo bomber…

This was just as much fun as the first time I made a pair of clogs from this company, and honestly, I don’t think these will be my last pair!  I did make a few boo boos making this pair, just like I did before.  The main thing with these was that I broke my awl making holes for the nail/stud thingies  *sob* and had to prise off a bit of the glued-on leather and then tease out and pull the broken end of the awl from out of my almost finished shoe with a pair of pliers … yes, you can imagine my barely controlled panic at this point!  I ended up using our drill with the skinniest drill bit on the end to make holes instead.  Actually this was a far superior method to the awl in the end and I wished I’d thought of using it right from the start.  We live and learn!  And now I guess I need to buy a new awl too!

Anyway, these are awesome and I’m so excited to try wearing them with my entire summer wardrobe… I’ve found in the past that “unusual” solid coloured shoes actually go with far more colours in your wardrobe than you might think…. and by unusual I mean unusual for my own particular personal colour tastes.  For example, my lilac sandals have gone with so much of my wardrobe, in spite of the fact that I have basically no lilac in my wardrobe at all.  Strange, isn’t it?  I have confidence the same phenomenon will result from having these gorgeous golden beauties in my arsenal too.

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some cute new work clothes

10/10/2021 6:20 pm \ 5 Comments \

I actually finished these things a little while ago but have only just now had the chance to photograph them… also I have a new policy with regard to making things.  I’m planning to alternate making things for others in between making things for me from now on, well for a while at least!  I’m really, really trying to get my stash down, and so I’m sewing like a madman lately!  Hopefully my blogging will keep up with it all too!

So, a few months ago, Cassie and I helped each other go through our entire wardrobes and make brutal decisions with regards to what should stay and what should go.  It was heaps of fun! and we also identified a few things that Cassie needed to go with her existing pieces and just generally refresh her working wardrobe.  She selected a few pieces of fabric from my stash, and she also had a few of her own too… and this new skirt and top are the latest things.

The top is kinda selfdrafted, loosely based upon a bodice piece from a really old NewLook dress pattern that Cassie keeps as her “block”, and the cowl neckline is a hack, she got the idea for it from a Pattern Magic pattern book tutorial.  The avocado green merino knit is leftover from a long sleeved tee I made for myself, originally bought from The Fabric Store.  I did a binding finish on the back neckline, and the armscyes I did by rolling and invisible slip-stitching by hand, because you know; I’m a glutton for punishment.

 

The lower edge was done with my twin needle, and a not quite matching green thread. All inside raw edges are finished with navy blue overlocking thread, because I do not have matching thread and I’m really determined to buy the absolute minimum in my quest to use up my stash!

The skirt is a heavily modified V8363 – honestly, not even the same pattern by now – and I lined it with a beautiful sea green lining fabric (stash).  The skirt hemline is bound with pale pink poplin, itself leftover from some mask lining fabric I bought at the beginning of the pandemic for such a purpose; pale blue button from my stash too.  Cassie supplied the blue cotton fabric, I think it was given to her by a relative of D’s who was cleaning out their stash.

The pale blue invisible zip was the only thing I had to buy to complete this entire outfit!

I hope she likes wearing these things!  I think she looks great in these colours and shapes!

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yellow Yallingup dress

09/10/2021 10:15 am \ 4 Comments \

So my niece is having a yellow themed birthday party! and since I currently have zero yellow garments in  my possession therefore I needed a new dress… obviously.

I needed to test something out for our Yallingup dress pattern… an add-on that Cassie really wants to introduce for it; but didn’t have any suitable fabric so I had to go out and actually BUY new fabric… imagine!  It’s been quite a while!  I found some suitable yellow linen in Spotlight.

Even though it’s our own pattern and maybe I shouldn’t play favourites like this, but I REALLY love this style… it’s really so comfy and fun to wear.

I made another youtube video on the process… it’s slower paced than my previous few.  Honestly not sure what is my motivation to keep making videos since they get very few views and even less “thumbs up”! so I guess they’re pretty bad but I’m going to keep going and try new things to hopefully improve.  I might try doing a voiceover next time because maybe that’s the problem and maybe the music is a little irritating?… but this is a scary thought.  What on earth am I going to say?

it’s here should you be be so curious…

https://youtu.be/IEkyycm_em8

btw, very pleasantly surprised that I managed to get Thing 1 and Thing 2 on the neckline binding like this.. total serendipitous!

 

also.. yallingup in action!

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made some stuff…

05/10/2021 3:05 pm \ Leave a Comment \

thank you so much everyone; all your kind words about Sophie mean so much more to me than I can say…

 

just a few more pictures:

Now:

I really should blog about these few things that got made, in some cases, weeks ago!… and just for something a little bit different I’m just going to go with short and sweet, bullet point kind of blogging.  Ready set go!

Item 1!

  • a new raspberry pink skirt…
  • piece 9 in my #make12 capsule wardrobe from my stash challenge that I proposed at the beginning of the year, hurrah!
  • self-drafted
  • upholstery fabric from Spotlight stores, and the leftovers from my fibremood Heaven dress that I made previously here
  • I bought absolutely zero new things for this skirt!
  • huge pockets
  • fully lined!
  • added a nice bias bound finish to the bottom edge before hemming
  • used the same wine-coloured cotton to line the waistband
  • actually very pleased with the lining to invisible zip attachment this time
  • LOVE IT and already worn it several times
  • am thinking of making this into a pattern and writing an accompanying tute for how to do the zip this nicely!

Item 2!

new onesie for little Theo!

  • own design, the same one as this one
  • cute sloth cotton jersey from Piermont fabrics in San Francisco… I bought this when I was out shopping with Shams, Beth and Yoshimi, during Yoshimi’s and my joint trip to USA together.  Wow, I wonder if we will EVER travel overseas, ever again?!
  • I did the back opening a little differently from the last time, and it is not as good.  Definitely sticking to the way I previously from now on
  • nonetheless this is a HUGE success and both he and I (and Cassie) all love it!

Items 3 & 4

little T-shirt and pants for Arthur…

I used some of Tim’s old trousers for the pants… I actually love doing this recycling old clothes/fabrics sort of thing and really want to get back to doing this more again.

  • self-drafted pattern, using a pair of his rtw leggings to gauge the size needed
  • I added pockets! so cute …
  • to line the pockets and make a kind of facing for the faux fly, I cut pieces from an old purple shirt of Tims… recycling/reusing for the win, or what
  • T-shirt based on one of his currently well-fitting T-shirts.
  • white cotton jersey thrown out from Mum’s stash, when she did her big cleanout
  • I bought absolutely zero new things for this cute little outfit too!

That’s it for now!  I’ll be more talkative next time, I promise!  🙂

 

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Sophie

30/09/2021 1:48 pm \ 17 Comments \

It’s the last day of the month and even though I have several recently made things to write about, it’s all kind of paling into insignificance for me right now since we lost our dear Sophie earlier this week…

We’ve had this lovely girl the longest out of all our pets so far; she lived to be nearly 18… oh it’s so easy to fall into a trap of thinking she’s going to be with us forever.  I know I certainly did.

I can vividly remember my first sight of her; a friend of Tim’s had a litter of kittens they were giving away, Tim happened to go over for a sleepover and convinced us the next day to go over and check them out.  We were NOT in the market for a new kitten, however as soon as we laid eyes on this adorable little grey ball of fluff with huge green eyes she came home with us pretty much straightaway.

Right from the start we were all head over heels for this wonderful sweet lady… she’s always been the sweetest and most good natured and placid of cats imaginable: even tempered, calm, loving, always up for a spot of purring curled up on your lap.  We would often joke about how much she loved her food, and was sometimes called (meanly) the Fat Cushion; but actually she was quite a little cat really, she just had lots of fluff.  And of course as she got older and slowly started losing condition I would have given anything for her to regain some of that lovely soft plumpness.

She would follow me around the house and just “be” with me while I was doing whatever, often sneakily trying to insert herself onto my lap if I happened to sit on the couch for a bit, and especially if I was sitting out in the sun.  Her solid purring presence was always such a joy.  I remember after losing Sienna I would often seek out Sophie and cuddle her, and the warm fluffy weight of her was such a huge comfort.  We always used to say in the family that cuddling Sophie was an instant tonic to feeling sad because just holding her brought peace.

Some favourite pictures of when Sophie decided to “help” me with my blog:

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Betty boop

15/09/2021 3:13 pm \ 6 Comments \

I’ve made a pair of cute little trousers! well at least I think they’re pretty cute anyway…

 

So: here’s the funny thing; I really do love and want to wear a lot of trousers/jeans/pants but I kinda struggle with them.   I genuinely worry that I look terrible in trousers and I’m convinced I look better in dresses and skirts.  If anyone has taken even a passing glance at my ootd blog it’s obvious I rarely wear pants.  And yet, I’m always on the eternal search for pants that look cute AND that I think I might look ok in.

 

And I think these fit the brief!  I’m very happy with how they turned out; they have a sorta fitted feel to them without being in the slightest bit tight, they’re loose enough to be comfortable, but have no hint of bagginess in them.  Yes!

 

I have an extra special reason for loving these; my grandmother was known as Betty, even though it was not technically her name.  SO I have a special soft spot for the name.  I’ve always held this deeply secret wish that my name was Betty, because I loved my grandmother so much.

Anyway!  I’m happily adding these to the small collection of pants that I really love… I have several pairs that I feel really good in; up until now my blue Sashas and my Morgan jeans were the top of that list.  I also still love my Ginger jeans, although I wear these less nowadays.  Yes, all Closet Core patterns, hehe.

Coinkinky-dink; the fabric I used to make these are the leftovers from my old Ginger jeans!  I made those back in  *checks blog archive* wow 2014.  I can’t believe they’ve gone so well, for so long!  I could have sworn I got the fabric in Spotlight, but my blog reliably informs me I bought it in KnitWit,so there you go.  I have zero memory of that.  Ha!  Thank goodness for the blog!

I cut the pocket lining from this cute evil-villain, cotton fabric, that was leftovers from one of Craig’s surgical masks, and I also made a few Covid masks from the leftovers this year too.

I used a red top-stitching thread for all the topstitching, I dunno, just for fun, because I had it.  In fact, 100% of the materials for my Betty’s were from my stash, which always feels amazing; if I can achieve it.  The potential of my stash is quite exciting to me, I’ve discovered so many garments in it this past year!

The top I’m wearing them with here is a Burda pattern; 04/2014;111, made in a bobbly stretch stuff from Fabulous Fabrics.  And in another funny coinkinky-dink, I am wearing this very same top in my blog post of the Ginger jeans too!  Another old favourite that has stood the test of time for me  🙂

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blue and pink clogs (shoes)

06/09/2021 8:52 pm \ 2 Comments \

I’ve made some new shoes! and of course I’m over the moon with how lovely (I think) they look… !  A few months ago, during one of our infrequent and thankfully very short lockdowns – and I’ll just say it again; I am SO GRATEFUL to live in Perth! – anyway, I decided to treat myself and bought a clog making kit from leather needle thread; this is the one that I bought here:

And this is the result!  I was very happy with the quality of all the materials in this kit; the wooden soles are really nice, with a solid and very sturdy looking rubber undersold… the leather is a beautiful quality and of course those beautiful colours!

All the other bits and pieces are really beautiful quality… the little brass tacks are so pretty!  I bought a tool kit too which was terrific and worked really well.  I did think the brass buckles were just a tiny bit tarnished but not too bad and definitely not enough to detract from any other part of the clogs.

The only not-so-good thing was that the tiny little tins of glue supplied with the kit had both dried out, but fortunately I had my own glue that I’d purchased through Lisa of the Shoe Camaraderie from previous shoe-making adventures … I can appreciate that Esther of leather needle thread had gone to the effort though, even though the tins hadn’t worked.

Honestly I can understand it would be a pretty difficult thing to divvy up between kits and expect it NOT to dry up, I can even imagine how you could achieve it actually.

The other thing I did was to separately purchase some clear, water-based varnish, with which I varnished the soles before making my clogs… I’ve made several pairs of clogs already, for which I had carved the soles myself! and I believe they have lasted longer, stayed cleaner and been easier to wear too, thanks to varnishing the wooden soles.

Anyway I made another little “making-of” video, currently up on my YouTube channel… please enjoy!

https://youtu.be/xy2E9qpEkQ8

In other news, I’m now on TikTok too, since apparently it is The Thing to do now… I’m pretty new over there and am still learning, and it takes me forever to make a tiny little video, even on top of making the thing! but hopefully I’ll get better at this too.  My Tik Tok video for this is here.

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Posted in: shoes \ Tagged: ,
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