Agh, Blogger ate my almost-finished post, stuff that, I'm going to bake a cake.

And there was a sloth in my post, people, a sloth! It will have to wait. Meantime, here is a picture of a happy face I found in my gin and tonic a week or so ago. That makes me feel better.

- Jane x

the cat pyjamas

Back at the beginning of summer, my pyjama options were in a state remarkably similar to my ironing board cover. (By the way, thanks for all the lovely comments on that post. I'm so glad to know I'm not the only one who puts off these very very simple but yawn-worthy projects.)

I made a wearable muslin with some stash fabric (majorly adjusted commercial pattern), made a couple more adjustments and then moved on to The Chosen Fabric.

 I am 43 years old and I reserve the right to sew and wear pyjama pants with flowers and kitties and ruffles. Because seriously, look at those kitties. This fabric reminds me of my 70s childhood.

 I became acquainted with my sewing machine's mysterious-looking ruffler attachment, which I was quite pleased with. I dare say if I played around with it some more and looked up some actual instructions, I could eventually get a far more even, neat result. If, you know, I wanted to put ruffles on more stuff.

I also used, with reasonable success, the narrow hem foot. Go me!
And three cheers to my husband who didn't bat an eyelid at the idea of me wearing such pyjamas. Although mind you, he hasn't seen the end product yet since he's overseas for a week. Boy is he in for a treat :D

- Jane x

New year, new ironing board cover

As they say in the classics.

The truly shameful thing is how long I procrastinated about this job. Visual evidence below.

The old cover. In some great barkcloth that I got from... somewhere... and had my Mum stitch up into this cover. That's how long ago it was made: before I got seriously into sewing and still asked my Mum to whip up things like this. It's a minimum of six years old and in vintage fabric, it started disintegrating a while back. A fair while back, cough cough.
The new cover is just the shape of the top of the ironing board, traced with about 10cm added all around, edges overlocked and turned and sewn down to make a channel for 1/2" elastic. The sewing is really slapdash, because it's all under an ironing board, possibly the least interesting place in the world for anyone to ever look. And the top looks all smooth and lovely!

The fabric is just a quilting cotton from my stash so I'm not counting on it lasting forever. But maybe, having done it once, I will make a fresh one sooner next time.
I rewarded myself with a slice of this hazelnut cake I made yesterday:

Recipe here - I followed it exactly, using un-roasted nuts with their skins on, and then added sliced fresh strawberries in the centre along with the cream. Could go even more strawberries next time, and considerably shorter cooking time or lower heat in our oven, since it was slightly overcooked by about 45 minutes. Very light and delicious and not over-sweet, and really very simple. I would recommend this to impress a bunch of guests (or just scoff as a hungry family).

Now, I'm off to iron a bunch of stuff.

No, not really.

- Jane x