Zip it, flower! A recycling tutorial

My mother could mend anything and if she could not mend it, then it was saved just in case, which would explain why, when she was knocked off her bike in her 70s and had stitches, she was able to find a sterile stitch cutter in her sideboard so I could take her stitches out.  


Now you will remember that the quality and capacity of her button jars were legend along with her useful bits of twine collection, however I am wishing that I had kept a hold of her zapped out zip collection because that is just what you are going to need to today to create these edgy, flower corsages or hair barrettes.

You will need:

A zip, of between 18 - 24" long depending on how big you want the flower to be

Needle and Thread

Scissors... not your good dressmaking scissors
Glue gun

Brooch backing
Felt 
Buttons (optional)
Matches or a lighter
Shot glass
Cardboard

Take your zip and cut the bottom of it off, this may be quite difficult if you use a heavy duty zip but I really like to use these as the flower looks really edgy.  Then using your matches, flame the end of your zips to ensure that they will not unravel, a gentle burning will seal them shut.

Take one side of your zip and fold it to make petals as is shown in the picture.  

Now there are two ways to sew this together with a double thread, you can make all five petals together and hold it in place with a couple of pins... but remember you will be sewing through 10 layers, which is possible although you should know that I managed to stab myself with the needle, so be careful. (I wonder if this counts as an industrial injury?)  

However with the next layer, as the petals will be shorter and therefore there will be more layers so catch each pattern individually.  There are a number of ways that you can finish your flower...


With my larger heavy duty zip, I left a couple of inches over at the end and rolled it up like a rose, and oversewed the edges and then sewed it through to the base.

For the lighter zip, I went through my buttons and beads and sewed them into the centre of the flower.

Cut out two circle of felt using the top of the glass and then one circle from the cardboard using the base of the glass which will be smaller.  Sew the larger flower into the centre of one of the felt circles.


Heat up your glue gun and dob your glue on the centre of your big set of petals, then place the smaller set of petals into the middle... then hold it in place of if you are doing several use a clothes peg to hold it together.

Glue one of the felt circles to the base of the flower, then smear a little glue onto the  cardboard and place it on the middle of the felt disc which has the flower attached to it.

Sew the brooch pin onto the remaining felt circle.  Place this disc on top of the other disc attached to the flower, now you could just glue it but we are going to do a superb finish by using a small blanket stitch to sew around the edge... just like the one we learnt back in January.

Now find a garment that is lovely enough to attach your fabulous flower corsage  and then whilst you are thinking about that, off you go an look at the crafting loveliness that is Handmade Monday.


And while I think about it, let's all send get well soon wishes to Little Harriet who usually contributes to Handmade Monday and is in hospital utilising some heavy duty antibiotics to tame her CF... mind you, I think she may have taken her fabulous crochet in with her, so I am expecting great things from her in the weeks to come. :)

Friday Night Fish Pie - Foodie Friday

My mother and the Catholic Church in concert tried to make me loathe fish but they failed miserably!  As a child, we always had fish on Fridays... usually cod and tolerated because of my mum's marvellous chips fried in home-made dripping.  However, worse than this was the invalid's food... a piece of fish poached/drowned in milk with any semblence of flavour removed.  This pie is the total antithesis of this,  it's tasty and filling, and should feed four hungry adults.


Below is a pic of my local wet fish shop, taken this this morning, all I can say is Mattacks for marvellous fish!

You will need:


1lb (500g) A fish mix (use your local fishmonger if you are lucky enough to have one and he will make up a mix for you), containing some of the following: cod, salmon, hake, monkfish and if you want a smoky flavour a small proportion of smoked haddock
4 oz (120 g) Cooked Prawns
A small onion
6 Closed Cup Mushrooms
1 Hard boiled egg
1/2 pt of Milk  
2oz (50g)Plain Flour
2oz (50g) Butter
Parsley ( l like to use curly as it has a stronger flavour)
A knob of butter or oil to 
4 good size Potatoes 
4 Spring onions


Cook your potatoes, I popped my egg in with the potatoes and whipped it out after 10 mins, remember to dunk it immediately into cold water so you do not get the nasty black ring around the yolk. Then mash them up, adding a slurp of milk and butter.  Chop up a couple of spring onions and add them to the potatoes and set aside.


Melt a knob of  butter in your frying pan and add the finely chopped onion, you do not want the onion to go brown but just to become translucent, then add your sliced mushrooms and cook these through.  Pop these into a dish on the side.


Now put your fish mix (which will be in bite sized chunks) into the pan so that it is just one layer and cover it with milk (don't worry we are not going down the invalid route), cover the pan and let it simmer really gently for 3 - 4 minutes until the fish is cooked through.


Whilst this is happening, make your roux by melting an ounce of butter in a saucepan and adding plain flour and a pinch of salt, mix the two together until it resembles ear wax and then cook it on the hob for a minute to make sure the flour is cooked, set it aside.


With a slotted spoon remove the fish mix from the milk... if you spot bones, now is the time to go after them and remove them and put the fish into your bowl with the onions and mushrooms.  Chop up your hard boiled egg and add it to the fish mix.  Mix gently and place into your pint sized, put your cooked prawns on top of the mix or you can use smaller dishes to create individual pies and freeze any extra.


Decant the liquid left in the pan into a jug, and add it slowly to the roux you have just made, to thicken it bring it up to the boil and add the chopped parsley, stir it in gently and then taste it, if you need to adjust the seasoning.

Pour the sauce over your fish mixture.  Then cover it with your mash... now some of you will be artistic and pipe out the potato but I am a demon with the dinner fork and have gone for the rustic look.


If you are going to eat this immediately you will need to put it into a pre-heated oven at 180', 350 F or Gas mark 4 for 12 - 15 mins or, if like me you have made it in the morning to be eaten for supper it will need to cook it for 30 mins at the same temperature.

And here is something to listen to whilst you are cooking your fish pie, the legendary Louis Jordan with "Saturday Night Fish Fry."

Oh Knickers! - The Knicker Bag Tutorial

Yes, you read it right, this is the knicker bag tutorial and is I think the very first bag I ever made way back in the early 70s when the craze for them hit the Convent.  It was such a great bag for carrying books and files to school, although I never quite managed to get the Peak Freens biscuit tin in there for Domestic Science!

As you can imagine the design is based on an outsize pair of knickers, with the gusset becoming the handle and the waist being sewn across to create the base of the bag... now before you think I have lost the plot I can tell you that no lingerie will be harmed in the making of this bag, so let's get started.

You will need:

A heavy cotton for the outside (32" wide by 28" long)

A lighter lining fabric ((32" wide by 28" long)

Cotton

Pins, needle, tape measure, cotton and scissors or rotary cutter, ruler and mat

Water soluble Pen

(Greaseproof paper)

Side plate

Iron and ironing board

Sewing machine

Iron your fabric, then fold it in half verically (you need to fold your pattern vertically as if  you do this horizontally you will end up with one side of your fabric headed in the wrong direction!).  Measure up 14" and draw a line across with your pen creating an oblong 16" wide by 14" long.  Make mark 2" in on both sides on your square, then move to the top of the fabric and mark it at 5 1/2"  and mark again at 5" from that spot.  Draw a line 7" down from the top, the place your side plate against the end of your 7" line and against the spot 2" in and draw around the plate to create a quarter circle curve. 

If you do not feel confident doing this directly onto your fabric, then use greaseproof paper to draw your template on.   Now cut out along these lines - DO NOT DISCARD THE CENTRE SECTION - we are going to use that to create your pocket in the bag.  On the bag, cut along the folded edge.

Using your top fabric as the template, place it on your lining fabric and cut around it.

Now sew down the side, across the bottom,  and up the other side using a 5/8" seam allowance.  Press the sides seam open so that they lie flat.  You need to create a right angle (the corner of a square and get the seam to bisect it at 45', which will be slap bang in the middle).  

Measure an inch from the corner on each side and sew across which creates a triangle and cut just above your seam allowance.  

This will create the base of your bag so that it will sit nicely when you  put it on the floor.  Finally sew the handle together at the top and turn the bag the right sides out.

Using the centre section, measure 7" down from the top and cut straight across, you should have a piece of fabric measuring 10" x 7".  

Press a seam all round of 5/8"... now we are going to mitre the corners, this is really easy to do if you follow the pics below.

First fold a triangle across the lowest point of your square.

Now, fold one seam across to bisect the triangle and repeat it with the other seam and look at the lovely sharp point corner you get, pin them both down.  

Now run a seam across the top of the pocket.

Pin the pocket in 3" on both sides and 4" up from the bottom of the fabric.  Sew around the pocket.  Then divide the pocket up (I use my mobile phone so that I have a place for it) and sew another seam up the pocket.  Now sew up the lining just as you did with the outer fabric.

Leaving your lining inside out but turn your outer fabric so that it is the right way.  I now want you to turn the raw edges under 5/8"... you will notice that on the curves this is really difficult, which means we will need to ease the fabric by cutting triangular notches, just short of the fold, makes the fabric much easier to manipulate, doesn't it?

Now match up the seams at the top and at the side and pin the lining to the outside of your bag, using your machine top stitch it 1/4" from the edge, I find it best to use the edge of my foot as a guide.

Finally if you feel that the lining is a little bit loose, catch it with a little stitch on the corners at the base.

Now off to Wendy's Homemade Monday for the first in Year Two's offerings!

And finally this week's tute is dedicated to Marion's ageing crafting hippies in their home down in Wales, let's hope they shake their Zimmers to the infamous Big Panty Woman posted below:

Bet it made you smile :)

Sometimes Lemons are the Bestest Fruits - Lemon Curd for Weekend Brekkie or High Tea

Before we start you need to know some things about my family.  My mother was a marvellous plain cook, she could make proper pastry... you need to have seen her making puff or flaky pastry at 10.00pm on Christmas Eve in the days before frozen pastry, or pursing her lips at at a recalcitrant steak and kidney pudding that was refusing to leave its bowl.  However, her  major forte was the jam making BUT this was done on an industrial scale... for weeks, nay months we would collect the jam jars and she would smuggle extra bags of sugar used to convert Summer fruits into Autumn and Winter jewels into the larder.  


We are moving towards the Spring... so what better to make for Breakfast or High Tea on Sunday than some really special Lemon Curd and just enough to fill a couple of jars rather than trying to set up as alternate to the Tiptree Jam makers?

You will need:
2 lemons - unwaxed
2oz / 50g Unsalted butter
4oz / 110g Caster Sugar
2 Eggs and an egg yolk (use the left over egg white for meringues)

Equipment:
Weighing scales
Lemon Juicer
Grater
Tea strainer
Bowl
Wooden spoon
Jug
Small saucepan
Fork or whisk
Kilner jars or other jam jars... but have a small Colman's Mustard jar on stand by


Turn on your oven to gas mark 4, 180'C or 350F, wash your jars and pop them into the oven for at least 15 mins to sterilise them unless you enjoy scooping through nasty looking blue mould and spending some time courtesy of your local hospital.


Beat your eggs together, and then strain them through your tea strainer, yes, I know this sounds odd but you want to to get rid of the squirly white bit called the Chalazae (bet you want me on your pub quiz team now) and putting the beaten eggs through a tea strainer is the most efficient way of doing this.  Put the eggs on the side and now start in earnest.


Grate both your lemons and squeeze the juice from them into a jug.


In your pan melt the butter gently, then add in the sugar and stir it in.


Now gently stir in the lemon juice and zest of the lemon, smells  great doesn't it?  Now add the eggs and stir them in... make sure that the heat is really low as you do not want to end up with lemon flavoured scrambled eggs


Over a low heat and using your  wooden spoon  keep stirring it... don't be tempted to wander off, keep stirring and you will feel it start to thicken.  You may also notice that the mixture is getting shiny, this is the oils from the lemon zest releasing themselves into your mix as it warms up. You think it will never thicken but stick with it and do not be tempted to turn it up... it will start to thicken, and what you want it to do is coat the back of spoon and not move... bit like a teenager who will not be moved from a sofa.  


Pour it into your jars and leave it to cool. This is where that little Coleman's Jar comes into its own for leftovers/tester pot.  Do not be tempted to put the lid on when the jar just feels warm because this will just allow condensation to form, which will create another mould related to the blue stuff mentioned above.


When it is cold, seal the jars, label it up with the variety, the date and your name.  Then pop it into the fridge and see if it will last the weekend!  The curd should last a couple of weeks.

You can make a lime curd, using four limes and more sugar (taste it to make sure) but same amount of eggs and butter.  Only warning is that it is not a pretty colour, a bit khaki if I am honest, so consider cheating with a touch of food colouring!


I doubled up the mix as I have a couple of friends, who have asked for a jar which will be doled out tomorrow. 

And just to help you stir your mix, here are Peter, Paul and Mary singing Lemon Tree.

Winter Wonderland

Can you believe it?  I am looking out of the window and it is only trying to snow again, so I wondered if I put up my pictures from my jaunt out in the snow on Sunday if that would make it stop as we have had our share for the Winter?

First you have to actually get out of the house... I loved the way that the snow had filled in the spaces in my gate.  When I was little I really wanted a gate, our house did not have one, then I moved to London and lived in flats so it was not until I turned 40 that I had my very own gate. And the reason why I wanted a gate was a children's TV show called Sarah and Hoppity and she swung on the gate... the first night I spent in my new house I crept out surreptitiously that evening and swung on my very own gate... it was worth the wait, I promise you!

If you walk round the corner, you see the view that makes me smile every day, across the graveyard, you can see the estuary and in the distance the coast of Kent.

As you can see it is not just children who get excited, I spotted these three twentysomethings headed down to the cliffs to try out their brand spanking new sledge... not  for them the tin tea trays of my youth... bet they never had a go cart made from the wheels of a Silver Cross pram teamed with a real tea chest!

This is one of my favourite trees in Leigh, it is a Monkey Puzzle tree, it look beautiful in the Summer but oh my, doesn't it look makestic covered in the snow?

I wish that you could hear how quiet the snow made the world seem here on Sunday, even the church bells at St Clement's which were pealing seem really muffled.

And finally, here is the view down Church Hill, I love the way the snow has caught on the balconies, it looks fantastic a night when the Victorian lamps are lit.  And best of all is the mix of Victorian houses, juxtaposed against the the Essex clapboard houses... when I grow up I think I would like to live down there:)

Love to Cook - Rumer's Cookery Book Tutorial

I have a friend called Rumer, she likes to cook, mind you she also likes to knit, sew and play on her DS, which is not a bad thing considering her mum runs our local yarn shop.  When I saw her today, she said she wanted to make lemon drizzle cake and then we started talking about her granny's amazing chicken soup and I thought now is the time for her to start collecting her family recipes in her own cook book which is why we are going to make her very own book to gather up the recipes.  I wonder if like me and my mum you have recipes books filled with hand written little scraps of paper with your beloved family recipes, if you do then this is the perfect project for you start on.

Let's gather up all the bits and pieces that you will need:

Two contrasting fabrics
Wadding
Book
Ribbon
Buttons
Cotton, pins, thread, tape measure and scissors or rotary cutter, ruler and mat
Iron and ironing board
Chop stick
Box of matches


First measure your book from the top of the cover to the bottom of the cover and add 1 1/4" + 1" - write it down, now measure from the front edge, over the spine and across the back to the other side, whilst the book is closed add 6" + 1 1/4" and write it down.  Now press your fabric before cutting them out to the size that you have written down and make sure you have the fabric running the right way... remember to check twice and cut once.

Now pin the wadding to your top fabric, find the centre point on your fabric at the top and pin a piece of ribbon to the fabric (it should be the length of the cover plus an inch and a half) and if your ribbon has a pattern put it right sides together when you pin it in.  So that that you don't do something really stupid, pin the loose end of the ribbon up so you don't catch it when you are sewing the cover up and sew the front fabric and wadding together using a 1/4" seam.  

Now we are going to decorate your front cover.  I have decided on a heart design picked out in buttons because Rumer loves to cook, so I will be tracing around a heart-shaped biscuit cutter.  Your design will need to be at least 5" in from the right hand side and 2" above the bottom seam (I left it a little tight on mine... *sniffs* I believed my eye and not the tape measure!)  

You might want to use fabric paints to stencil on a design and stitch around it, or do some applique.  You  can work the design within the following dimensions to fit it on the front of your cover.

Now pin your backing fabric to the wadding , pin it all round, leaving a 3" gap on one of the sides and sew them together using a 5/8" seam allowance.  Now cut across the corners to give you sharp pointy corners.


Turn the cover inside out and press the fabric together, tuck in the 3" seam and press it closed.  Now sew the down each side with a running stitch.


Place the book in the centre of your square, now fold the sides in so that they tuck snugly around the book. Do not assume it will fit, you need to check.  Pin the folded fabric in place.  

Cut two pieces of ribbon to act as your ties for the book cover, place it in the middle of the side seam with the right side facing the fabric.  To ensure that the ends of the ribbon do not fray, light a match and gently flame the ends which will melt the ribbon.  Now using either a running stitch or an embroidery stitch, sew all the way around the rectangle you have created.


When you put the cover on your book,  fold the cover back to slip the cover on... a bit like when you get small children to stick their arms back to get them into their coats.

Propped up with an avocado... well it is a cook book!

Now tie the ribbon together and pass it on to someone to fill the book with their own secrets.  You could change the topic of the book to be a gardening book, a journal, a design inspiration book or just as something gorgeous to give to your loved one to be filled with dreams.

I am not sure if you have noticed but there are loads of amazing entries on Handmade Monday and I think that this week will be really special as it is week 52... I have not managed to do everyone but the one person who has is the wonderful Wendy who hosts this great crafting blog party.  So let's hear it for Wendy... Hip, hip... Hurrah!


And finally just to show that I am not a lazy bones, here's a pic I shot while out before 9.00am this morning, our local church St Clement's in Leigh-on-sea, just before the bells started to peal.

To Everything There Is A Season

Today was a really sad day for me, I went to the funeral of one of my oldest friends, he was a consultant anaesthetist and I have known him for over 30 years.  He was a wicked friend... I am sure that he chose the music for the funeral as it started at the Crem with Bach's Air on a G string.  I am secretly hoping that someone hid a pack of Hamlet cigars under the Fedora hat on his coffin.

Here is part of a letter I wrote to his daughter:

I first met him properly at The London Hospital, initially working behind a number of bars for the weekly Wednesday night grope fests known as College Hall discos when your dad would amaze people with the number of plastic beer glasses he could collect, creating Whitechapel’s very own leaning towers of plastic.  However, his greatest feat at that time was managing The Hostel Bar.  This illegal unlicensed bar ran in the Medical Students Hostel for twelve days over Christmas (to cover the Christmas review) and culminating in a last night on News Year’s Eve - the bar opened at 8.00 pm and closed at 8.00 am – Clint was the first person to ever run the bar at a profit which he claimed was solely due to his superior culinary skills with the cheese and ham toastie, served from 5.00 am, it was a masterpiece of taste.

When he left the London and I went off to UCH, I did not see him for many years until 1989, when I bumped into him in the Thomas Neale with Ian, we started to chat and when the pub closed, Ian promised he could get us all into The Feathers (another London Hospital establishment, infamous for the Feathers twitch when everyone’s head swivelled at 10.00pm to see which nurses had walked into the bar) but the bar was shut so everyone piled back to my flat and left at 4.00am.

About a week later there was a knock at my door and there stood Clint, “I couldn’t remember which no. was yours, but I remembered your name and checked the electoral role... got any coffee going?”  And thus began the second phase of your friendship and one of the happiest times of my life.  Clint lived with PJ in a block of flats just across from mine, and when he was studying for his final attempt at his Final Fellowship in Anaesthetics, I used to get calls, “I see the lights have just gone on in your flat, so I know you are in, got any gin?” or “I need a bit of your anatomy, can I borrow your foot, arm or neck?”  And over he would come, drink a G&T, drink even more coffee, sit and smoke on the balcony and we would both set the world to rights whilst watching the East End sky line.

His estimation went up immensely when one of the locals had a heart attack and was rushed into Newham Hospital, or ‘Nam as he referred to it.  Peter was indeed a walking heart attack, smoking, drinking and eating, he was lying on a trolley when Clint approached him, “I know you, you’re Clint... so you really are a proper doctor, I thought you were just one of the boys!”  At which point he arrested but  several weeks later he was back in the pub buying a pint for Clint.

I can remember a Sunday morning when you fell over and were taken to hospital... Clint was beside himself, “I don’t know what to do, I usually fix people... not sure I can do being a dad on the sideline.”  The one thing that I know is that he could never be a dad on the sidelines because he loved you so much and was inordinately proud of you.  I remember him ringing me up when you got your A level results, chuffed to be bits that you had got into Uni.  In fact when he came out to dinner with my sister and her husband, they reckon that he glowed when he spoke about you.

He was one of my oldest friends, I realise I have known him over 30 years, he was there to find out which surgeon had the best results with hip replacements when my mum had hers done, he was deemed to have a lovely bedside manner by my neighbour who he anaesthetised and he would even answer the phone to me at an ungodly hour and offered to come over when another friend had an asthma attack and would not go to hospital.  He was also the best kind of friend who did not need constant cultivation, it could be left a few weeks or months and still when the phone rang it would be as though we had only seen each other yesterday.

The last time we went out together, we went to the Jazz Club at the Mayflower and he was pretty poorly then.  For some reason there were very few people there and at the end just the two of us, so Digby Fairweather played his last number “for just you two kids!”  Hmmm... in your 50s that is kinda flattering I think.

As we walked very slowly back to my house, we discussed the fact that in all the time I have known Clint, we never kissed hello or goodbye... frankly, he was my mate and more like a brother which always confused people as they tended to assume that we were more than that.  When the taxi came to take him home, he kissed me goodbye and then said, with a glint in his eye, “Well that another good story ruined!”

I shall miss him dearly, the man who introduced me to Bombay Sapphire Gin, the joys of Ry Cooder, the thought that yes, dressing up is for grown ups, the wicked glint when playing cribbage, he proclaimed “And one his knob!”, one of the few people I know who could leapfrog a post box and one of the brightest, wittiest friends I shall ever have.

So can you now, pour yourselves a G&T and  as you listen to the Byrds, please raise your glasses to my friend Dr Clinton Buckoke, doctor, bon viveur and wit.  God bless!