Jubilee Mmmmmmmmnesssss

Hi Everyone,

I'm sure you're aware that here in Britain our wonderful Queen is celebrating her Diamond Jubilee.  Union Jacks and bunting are festooned everywhere you look, and we are all enjoying an extra long bank holiday to add to the celebrations.  So, to keep to the jubilee theme, my union jack cake tin is muscling in on all my pics today, so the least I could do is fill it first!

Custard Shortbread mmmmmmmmmmmmmmness; recipe link here.

These shortbreads really do melt in the mouth; they are much more like viennese biscuits than shortbread really with a yummy vanilla custard taste. (but none of that piping nonsense).

So, tin full, time to unearth my sewing machine...

(can you spot tin?  It's turning into where's Wally!!)

I love my machine.  I think that I have mentioned before that I was taught to sew (and bake, knit and  crochet) by my fantastic Nanna.  As my parents worked in the afternoons, my brother and I would always go to Nanna & Grandad's house after school, where there was always scrumptious home baking and wonderful grandparents who had endless patience.  Nanna, although retired had been a trained tailor, and she taught me to sew, initially with an old, very small singer machine that produced chain stitches when you turned the handle (when it wasn't jamming, which I remember was often), and then on her electric singer sewing machine.  Years later I inherited that sewing machine, which sat in it's own table and I had it for quite a lot more years, until I started to make noises about wanting a more modern machine and my husband bought me a new one.  This was a toyota, and a good machine, but a few years later, now separated from said husband, I started to yearn for a machine that I had actually chosen myself, just to suit me.  And so I bought this one...

A brother; I remember we used brother sewing machines at school (where I made a floral blouse, nice, and a pair of navy cord peddle-pushers, I know... I've always been a special trendsetter...  or maybe just special...)

Overall I am still very pleased by my choice (the only downside is there are only two needle positions, on the left and the middle - no right, which you would think wouldn't matter until you want to sew in a zip without bothering with the zipper foot!!  But it does do one-step buttonholes!

And what did I dust my beloved machine off for I hear you ask?  Well, I have been tempted with some fabulous sewing tutorials on pinterest (where else!).  This one here, particularly caught my eye.  Brilliant tutorial and a great blog.  And this was the result -

Not bad eh...  lovely clear instructions; this is slightly smaller than the one in the tutorial, as I made up my patchwork rectangle first and worked from the size the patchwork was rather than the precise measurements from the pattern.  I then added wadding and quilted this first before making the rest of the bag.

Inside is lined with some gorgeous aqua gingham, and I covered the raw seams with some white bias binding.

When I make another one I'll take the time to sew the side tabs instead of lazily using some ribbon (the result of which is a bag that is sticking it's tongue out a both sides and blowing a raspberry...)

On a roll, I also thought I'd quickly try out this pattern.  This also is a lovely blog, with some great free tutorials and also a few patterns to buy.  This was a quick make and produced this-

Very nice, as long as you don't look too closely at the outer seams and corners...  So I'm off to make up some more to redress the coaster defecit in my house.

Happy crafting everyone!

Karen
xx