Doodles

I mentioned in a recent post that I had been doodling more since my sewing machine was still in a box and thought I would share a few of the sketches.  I think with the coloured zentangle stuff will make it into a scrap book with more detailed arty writing of quotes and song lyrics. The black and white pics I am going to scan into the computer and then print them out onto transfer paper to then iron them onto fabric and sew around/ through.  I'm thinking they will be panels on tote bags with appliqué detailing.

                             

 The other thing I have been working on is a dresser I bought from the auction a few weeks back.  It will house lots of my fabrics in the new sewing room and lots of my organisation is on hold until this is completed. It looked awful after it's first coat and I really thought I was making a mistake by painting it but 3 coats on and it is looking promising.

  

I will upload more pics to chart my progress but I'm off to do some more now!

Birthday season

We have now entered Birthday season in our family beginning with my brother in law on the 3rd, right through to the end with my other brother in law on the 28th.  In between there are 11 others which includes my own, my first born and now the birth of my good friend Becky's new daughter, Olivia.  October brings almost as many which is not only expensive but busy with parties.  Fiona turned 5 this week and is now at big school which has now impacted our day to day routine.  I am a girl who likes routine though and admit I have found our disorganised life of boxes quite challenging so I am looking forward to getting organised... finally.  Birthdays do offer the opportunity to get crafting though so I hope to share some pics of makes soon.  I was asked recently to make some things for a raffle- actually I was given things to 'pretty up' which involved making.  For this, my sewing machine was unpacked- YAY.  I have missed 'Tony'!  It took a little while to get started though as I couldn't find the Bobbin case.  After 1/2 hour, I found it in the last place I looked (Peter Kay says of course it is the last place 'cos you don't keep looking once you find it) which when you see the following pics, I think you will agree, I did well to find at all.

This my daughter's shopping trolley which she fills each day with attractive objects.   This week, her magpie eye spied a shiny silver circle that she then added to her trolley.

Luckily, it is shiny and thus caught my eye in time to make some little toiletry bags.  Take a look at the project 52 page for a full description of the makes and extra pics.  Here's a sneaky peek.

time flies

I'm really not sure where the time goes.  I knew I hadn't written on here this week but hadn't realised it had been 2 weeks!  I had a head cold and felt fuzzy for a few days- perhaps I 'lost time' then.  I have been getting ready for my daughter to start school this week which brings mixed feelings from pride and excitement for her but also pangs of sadness that my eldest is a proper big girl now.  August and September are busy birthday months for us so we have been dashing around getting presents and attending parties and it is by no means over yet.  Sadly this year, I haven't made too many presents whereas usually I would have made a few bits to add to people's presents.  When Fiona starts school, I am expecting/ hoping I will be able to finish finding places for our belongings and then get creative in my crafting room.  I have been drawing again and doodling which I will upload pics of when finished but I work on them for a little while, put them down and then come back to them at a later date.  I will aim to do a few more craft sales with Christmas approaching which will also hopefully allow me plenty of crafty bits to make and share but for now, I can simply share what I love that others are making.
I have mentioned a few times how much I love pinterest which I confess, I am a little addicted to.  I have also now discovered channel 4 have a scrapbook which allows you to save things to your own 'scrap book' including clips from programmes and recipes etc.  You can add to it from other websites too so not exclusive to channel 4 programmes.  As it happens, Kirstie Allsopps programmes are divided into projects which I have been able to 'cut and paster' there including the leather notebooks, changing mats and lamb kofta biryani.  The latter, I attempted last week with some success with a few alterations.

I followed the recipe fairly closely but did add a red pepper to the lamb mix before rolling into meatballs.  This was quite different to the process I would usually do for meatballs as it has no breadcrumbs but instead uses an egg.

Once rolled, I covered them and placed them in the fridge for an hour which is supposed to help them bind together and stop them from crumbling when frying later.

Meanwhile, I began on the sauce which I used my hand blender to chop the onions very finely and again, I added a pepper.  The recipe said 2 onions so I used one red and one white.

With the spices added, it looked and smelled lovely especially since I was using my new pots.  The recipe said to leave the tomato and onion mixture to boil to a pulp so I stepped next door to do some jigsaws with the girls, however, I burned the sauce and had to start again :(

Fortunately, it was only onions and tomatoes that were wasted.  The recipe said apricots but I used peaches as I couldn't get any apricots earlier that day but they worked well too.

The last stage was to then layer the rice, fruit, koftas and sauce and then cook in the oven.  It was a little too spicy for the girls but tasted good and I will definitely do it again; quite possibly a contender for a dinner party even.