Newness

Well...sort of. I'm very short of time and hands at the moment - the vast majority of my sewing has been stitching in name labels to K's uniform as she starts school this time. And D has not been left out; I've made her two very quick stripy hats just in time for absolutely awful windy weather up at Grandma's over the bank holiday. That's nicely stashbusted my remaining Debbie Bliss Cashmerino DK...now to find something to use up all that chunky Cashmerino on. But first, on with the Mr Sun commissions which have been quietly stacking up over Summer, oops.

I do love Autumn; much more than January it feels like a time for fresh starts. Which is, I suppose, all tangled up in the new school year and the old idea of Halloween being the start of the Celtic year. So here's my new workbox, which I "accidentally" picked up at Debbie Cripps when I went looking for cute buttons last week. It's SO nice to have everything in one place at last - although I have no more excuses to ignore the mending because I can easily find everything I need now! It's just about the right size for a couple of small crochet projects, some cross stitch, sewing or some combination thereof, although it's not big enough for a hoop. It's also safer, I think, I've had a bad habit of scattering my equipment left, right and centre.

A lovely box demands lovely accessories, so imagine my glee when I spotted Ali at Craft Matters was having a sale! A new pincushion and needlebook are mine, hurrah. Ali is also making me a new make-up bag. Mine is bursting at the seams and I can't see any way of getting to my sewing machine properly for the time being. I'm not sure what it's going to look like yet as I've chosen three gorgeous fabrics from Julia at Gone To Earth and asked Ali to surprise me. How exciting!

Speaking of Ali, she is moving - do catch up with her new blog at Very Berry Handmade and get in on the housewarming giveaway when it's up!

Domestic Goddess

I wanted to have a picture of racks and racks of gleaming jam this week, but you'll have to make do with my first proper loaf instead! I used this recipe because I've always been terrifed of bread. I've tried a number of times before and been utterly flummoxed by rye and sourdough - most of my loaves have resembled bricks and not tasted much better. This, however, looks practically perfect. It's literally just out of the oven so we haven't tasted it yet, but I also made soda bread from this recipe earlier. That was delicious - and I use the word "was" because it's already disappeared within an hour of K coming home from preschool; first as a bread-and-jam sample and then with Cosy Soup (spicy butternut squash).

Jam-wise I made rhubarb jam and tricolore marmalade on Sunday - if you follow me on Twitter you'll know I had a crisis because the fresh rhubarb from my FIL's allotment vanished from the kitchen for three days! We found it eventually hanging on the back of the door where someone had put it absent-mindedly on our return from Newcastle. Whoops. Anyway, it's made the most beautiful, sharp, tangy jam which is just perfect on toast. I used a Mrs Beeton recipe for that one.

The tricolore marmalade is a mishmash of Mrs B's recipes and techniques made to my own taste, so I can share it:

Tricolore Marmalade

1 ruby grapefruit
2 small oranges
1 lemon
an equal weight of pectin-added sugar
200ml water

Remove the flesh from the peels and break into small pieces, taking out pips and all those icky bits. Now boil the peels for two hours, changing the water at least twice. When done, cut the peels up fine and place into a pan, adding the flesh and the sugar and about 200ml water. Now boil this for about half an hour or until a drop sets on a cold plate. Plonk into sterilised jars. To one of my jars I added a tbsp of whisky - looking forward to seeing how that comes out!

Speaking of alcohol I've been making blackberry vodka this week, too - I'd love to say I went brambling (as K did with her grandma and great gran, bringing home the jam to prove it) and have returned with the glory of autumn scratched up my arms, but sadly not. I spotted a load of punnets going cheap in the supermarket and, well, blackberry vodka is the result. I got the recipe from a friend who says it's from a River Cottage book. I now have to leave it until December, but I can say already that it tastes pretty good! Another friend suggested reserving the fruit once drained and coating it in dark chocolate. I can't wait to try it!

We're waiting around for our veg box to arrive today - again, there's a surplus of plums going cheap so when it arrives I'll be making plum jam. Whilst I've been waiting and baking I've taken two other deliveries:


Handmade Home finally arrived, hurray! I've had this on preorder since Feburary and was most miffed when it was delayed a few weeks ago. I'm really looking forward to snuggling down with this (though not tonight - wild horses couldn't keep me away from Derren Brown's Events!). And Guitar Hero 5 has also arrived; strictly speaking A's birthday present but I'm looking forward to having a go on that before too long.

That said, I have been struggling with RSI recently - hence all the baking, reading and making rather than crocheting. Through the rest of the week I've also made a seat cushion, and used the granny squares I got from Sam at Incy Wincy Stitches on a personal project (will show you next week when it's finished!), made yet more crochet cake components (almost there) and started work on one of the pieces for the 80's Fantasy Move Craft Swap, with three more things planned out in my head. Oh yeah, and term starts on Saturday so I've been buried under paperwork for much of the week too!


Next week I promise to blog about the beautiful necklaces I received recently from Steam Punk Glass and Epheriell Designs - I've wanted to do this for at least a week but haven't been able to sit and do them justice - and hopefully review Note to Self: On Keeping a Journal and Other Dangerous Pursuits, which I'm reading for Woolly Wotnots' Bookclub at the moment. Until then I'm going to stuff myself with bread and jam, coo over all the lovely new babies starting class this term, listen to K reading (she's so close to being fluent now!) and, you know, just keep everything ticking over in the last of the sunshine...have a lovely weekend!

Iraqi Bundles of Love

What are you doing this afternoon? This weekend? Stop whatever you're doing for half an hour and destash. That's all it takes to get involved with this absolutely brilliant project. Face it, if you're a crafter you've got too much stuff. It's true of us all, whether you live your crafting life out of ugly plastic boxes like me, or have a full-on studio and all points in between. You know you've a yard of cotton or a handful of fat quarters doing nowt, that never fit into any project you can think of. I'm plenty sure you've a boxful of buttons, maybe some beads or sequins, an extra pair of scissors or some knitting needles you'll never use. Oh, and those spare balls of yarn that don't match anything, and short ends of ribbon? Grab them too, because whilst you don't really need them, there are plenty of women who do.

Iraqi Bundles of Love (yes, I know it's a little cheesy but bear with it) was set up by a serving soldier with the US Army in Northern Iraq. I found the link via SouleMama. He's from a family of quilters and clearly his mum (and his wife, natch) brought him up right because he knows crafters are generous people. Aren't we just? And that when we hear of fellow crafters not even having enough material to make their own clothes and keep themselves warm, we can't help but spring into action.

Here's the story from the horse's mouth, but briefly:

Iraqi Bundles of Love is a short-duration project, set to last about six weeks, originally intended to surge fabric and sewing (and knitting!) materials into the area around which I live in Iraq. It is timed to coincide with both Ramadan, and the departure of my units from Iraq. If you’re reading this, well — it’s kind of grown. It’s going to help a little bit more of northern Iraq than just the area around where I live.

It is intended to be a simple project, requiring little effort and little expenditures from those wishing to participate. It is based upon my assessment that sewing fanatics and quilters and knitters tend to have stashes that far exceed their actual needs, and that sewing fanatics and quilters and knitters are passionate both about sewing / quilting / knitting, and about sharing with others.

The stated intent of this operation is to put sewing and quilting and knitting supplies into the hands of two types of recipients: locals who desperately need such things, and local sewing co-ops and other small businesses who have received grants or loans (typically to purchase sewing machines, rent space, etc).

Got it? So you're already thinking about what you don't need, aren't you? Start digging. Here's the sort of stash needed and here's how to put it together. Rope your kids in, if you've got 'em, your cat if not. Or both.

HypnoKitteh sez "DESTASH NOW!"

Enslave small child to sort buttons (her idea, actually)

Now, if you're in the US (hello!), the mailing methods are within the last link; you'll be sending by APO and it'll cost you about $12 or so. Easy peasy. Hop to it - leave a comment on the IBOL blog anywhere to get the address. You need to get your parcel in the post by Tuesday. If you're in the UK or indeed anywhere in the EU, just find yourself a box that's roughly 12x12x5.5ins - ours was a bit longer and flatter, but you're looking to get somewhere between 1-2kg of stuff in there, ideally. Wing it - no excuses. Then leave a comment on the IBOL blog, making sure you write where you live, and you'll be emailed back with an address in the Nederlands (sadly there's no UK address) who will forward it on to Iraq for you. Now off you go to the post office. I sent ours by airmail, it was 1.9kg and cost me just over £10; obviously it'll vary depending on what you put in it - I included some heavy upholstery fabric so that did push it up a bit.

Here's our box:

First some fabric...

...then some yarn...

...got any notions?
We added beads, buttons, sequins, fasteners, scissors, needles and knitting needles

Now tie a bow - bonus cute kid

Optional going to town on decorating the parcel

Why do it? Because we, collectively, have made a right bloody mess of Iraq for years and years, first of all. Because it SUCKS not to have enough to even make your own clothes or blankets for your kids. Because this is something we can do, right here, right now, which will make a difference. Because winter's coming. Because it's practical - this is not your salary falling into a bottomless pit of charity donations, when you're never sure if your hard-earned pennies are going on office pencils or school textbooks. Because it's EASY.

This is sharing love - human to human, crafter to crafter, woman to woman, mother to mother, child to child. This is human. So get on with it. You've got a day or two before the deadline and it only takes half an hour, if that.

Fair Trade Fabrics

Whilst I try, at the moment, to use as much old/unwanted/second-hand material as I can for my projects, it can sometimes be difficult to get exactly what you need. I've found bag linings a bit of a challenge, for example, because you need something fairly sturdy for every day use and I am very hard on bags myself. Many of the things I'm making at the moment are occasional-use bags so I'm not too worried, but at some point I'm probably going to need to buy material. Or I'll want to make something from new for K and so on. I've been fretting a bit about how to source fabric which is ethical - it's such a minefield; should you go organic, look for environmentally-friendly dyes, or go Fair Trade? My head hurts just wondering about it.

Anyway, this morning I was perusing Georgie's parenting blog
Motherland, and she happened to mention her BIL's Fair Trade blog. Lo and behold, there's an entry on Fair Trade Fabrics. Just what I needed! So many thanks to Paul for that, it is much appreciated by this crafter and I hope other readers will take note too. I will also take the opportunity to note these Fair Trade buttons from Debbie Cripps again as well.

Now...anyone know if there's any such thing as ethically sound interfacing?

Circular References

I don't really dip my toes into the "blogging world" much - who has time to read? But there are a few crafty blogs I try and keep up with - notably the lovely Ali at Craft Matters, who is as eclectic/random as me, and the very interesting u-handblog, which has brilliant tutorials (thank you!).

You may have noticed a small lick of paint around here too - I am not very good with the whole Blogger front end business, but we have a new title and little pic (which is actually nicked from my Tarot site), and a wee counter from Crafty Blogs. Not entirely sure what I've got into there, but it's led me to a few more interesting blogs such as Crafty Storage, Little Cotton Rabbits and the sweet Flossie Teacakes. I doubt I'll ever keep up but it's nice to see what others are up to.

Not been doing a great deal lately - still on holiday-hangover from being away over the Easter weekend, I think, and a cracking 72hr headache isn't helping. I picked up an old Linea project, a silk scarf with backstitch embroidery, and have got it much closer to completion - there's only a couple of flowers to stitch and then a load of beading and it's done. I have botched it horribly, though - when I first started I didn't realise that the ready-made scarf was actually two layers, and you were supposed to only embroider one layer so that the back of the stitching was hidden between. I charged in and went straight through. I'm in two minds as to what to do with it, now...keep it as a scarf and try to find some matching silk to hide the back? That could be a very long job, I don't often get chance to go fabric shopping. On the other hand, there is probably enough fabric to turn it into two embroidered bags, or a bag and pillow case, I'd just need to find some cord to complete it. And I'm not sure about how they'd stand up to wear and tear. Perhaps a jewellery roll? I really need one at the moment. What do you think?