Weekend Round Up 23rd-24th

I've had so much fun this weekend, getting messy and spreading my projects throughout the house like I did when I was in uni! I'm working on a project from Mollie Makes and have been dying some fabric to get the perfect shade of green I wanted, so the bathroom became my official drying space.

I then spent today mixing up the dye for my final pieces of fabric and while they were drying I played around with a new wooden stamp I'm hoping to use to add an extra unique detail to the project.

Hot chocolate in a colour coordinated mug was a must.

All pieces cut out, ironed and ready for printing then sewing!

It wouldn't be the weekend without home made pizzas, candles and girly movies with friends either!

Not to forget, home made (unconventionally shaped) Churros, cinnamon sugar, dipping chocolate and cream.... definitely overindulging!

(Delayed) Sunday Round Up.....

SO after my fabulous weekend in Bristol I was supposed to put up some pictures of my lovely new dress in action.... 

However Bristol turned out to be so very fabulous that A) I managed to leave said pictures in Bristol (they are keeping my camera company which I also left in Bristol) and B) Bristol left me feeling so very un-fabulous on Sunday afternoon that I didn't have the energy to put together a post detailing said fabulousness.

I persuaded my lovely sister to take a few quick snaps of the dress and this is the best one (not a comment on lovely sister's photography skills but more a comment on how photogenic I am...turns out not very as it took 12 pictures to get one good one!) BUT the dress turned out just as I'd hoped, so simple, yet a perfect fit, super comfy and it looks good dressed up with heels or casual with woolly tights, boots and a nice jumper! The pattern was adapted from this book, I used the pattern for the bodice, but altered the neck line. For the skirt I took a rectangular piece of fabric and put a loose running stitch along one long side and pulled the stitching a little. This caused the fabric to bunch up and I then stitched it onto the bodice ensuring the bunching was even all the way around.

The bonus of making your own clothing is you can make it fit your body shape absolutely perfectly so it is much more flattering than an oddly fitting dress creating awkward silhouettes.

It also thoroughly enjoyed being out and about in Bristol being wined and dined!

I hope everyone else had the most delightful weekends too!

That Friday Feeling...

Is there a better feeling than knowing tomorrow when you wake up you can do whatever you want to? I've been cramming some sewing machine time in over the last two days, trying to finish one of this week's projects and tomorrow morning I'll be putting the finishing touches to my vintage dress, very excited. So far the fabric has been lovely to work with so I'm hoping it'll look good once finished. Check back Sunday to see the finished piece!

I'm also planning to test my new road bike tomorrow, I've only been out on it twice since I bought it as we've had enough snow and wind to put off even the hardiest of cyclists so I'm very much looking forward to that!

Saturday means Bristol for the evening for food, wine and excessive jollity in the company of beautiful people. I can't think of a better way to spend a weekend than crafting, cycling and catching up with friends.

Is anyone else up to anything exciting in the run up to that annual February Love fest?

Pasta perfection

Dinner parties with friends are some of the best possible fun. There's wonderful food, copious amounts of wine and hours and hours of mindless chatter and catching up with each others' lives. The most magical thing about them is that even though they happen so irregularly, when the company is right it is always as if you've hardly been apart. To make a magical dinner party even more perfect, this time we made ALL our food from scratch especially the pasta....

Cooking a fresh meal is satisfying on its own but hand making pasta was something else! I won't lie it was a long process (and due to certain guests insisting the wine be opened before we started, it certainly took even longer than planned!) but it really was so much fun! Combining flour and eggs is all there is to it, then there is lots of kneading to be done and having many hands makes that a quicker process.

Then there's the rolling.... a pasta machine makes this an easy process but again a long one! Rolling pasta however is not only great fun, involving everyone in the kitchen as each chunk of dough gets stretched out to be about 2 metres long, its a lovely thing to play with. It feels like soft leather in your hands, it is so thin in the end, but still it feels strong and almost waxy.

On our first attempt at slicing the pasta we rolled the dough up and just roughly chopped it then tried unrolling it. This wasn't so successful as it all stuck together....it also didn't produce the most beautiful pasta! It certainly looked home made!

Our more successful attempts used the tagliatelle cutter on the pasta machine and this produced such beautifully even strips of pasta that we continued to use it for the final chunks of dough. All the pasta was then hung up on the drying rack to crisp up before cooking.. a hilarious sight to see in the middle of the kitchen!

Most importantly.... the taste. Fresh pasta is amazing, I'd never had it before but it is so light, fresh and juicy I really would recommend making your own! If you don't have a pasta roller, you could easily make ravioli rolled with a rolling pin and chopped up with something tasty inside. Our beautiful pasta was served up with a lovely home made tomato sauce, goats cheese and meatballs. Simple. Delicious.