New but vintage

So as previously stated, I bought some fabric at the V&A exhibition, some of which became a dress for my niece. Some became a dress for another girl-baby-to-be:

Same pattern, this time in 'Coral' with same lining. Excellently cute pattern.

I had a day off yesterday, again with both boys busy at work/nursery, so spent the day gardening/sewing/preserving artichokes. I finished this:

which is the shirt from Heather Ross' Weekend Sewing, in fabric by Michael Miller. And yes, he does now have matching shirt & shorts :) Poor child. I have to say, I didn't much enjoy sewing the shirt and it isn't especially tidy around the collar, but it does look fantastic on, especially now that summer is about again.

The first free Friday

Its a long story, but B has had two Fridays at nursery (when he is usually home with me), meaning I had two Fridays to myself! Luxurious. The first Friday, I went to the V&A quilt exhibition, which was outstanding. I got a bit teary at the Changi quilt and was wonderfully surprised to see the transportation quilt at the very end. I have seen this quilt before, and it is a wonderful record of the women transported from London to Van Diemen's Land. This quilt reminds me of how lucky I am that I can choose to move between these two places as I wish, not as someone else commands.

Anyway, I bought some of their lovely fabric at the end, some of which ended up as this:

The pattern is the Itty Bitty Baby Dress from Made by Rae. Its a great, free pattern and looks super cute. I also got the ric rac from V&A - they sell everything in their amazing shop! This is for my new niece in Western Australia - hopefully it gets to her while it still fits. Speaking of babies - we are expecting another one at the end of the year, which kind of explains the crying at the quilt exhibition and the current lack of knitting. It'll be back, I'm sure.

Long Shorts

There has been less knitting than sewing going on here lately. For example - new shorts for B. (sorry about the first pic - I guess he's just movin to fast).

Based on a pattern from Ottobre, using Michael Miller's 'Zoology' print. I think these will last for some time - the elastic is too big (based on my guesswork rather than measuring) but hangs on thanks to cloth nappies :) My guess is by next summer they'll fit as regular shorts.

Deliciousness

So in my long list of imaginary posts, there are several about food. Spring produce has reinspired me to cook more interesting things, and so there has been a list of new hits and revived favourites. So, my current faves:

Raspberry Shortcake (pictured above): Apparently this is called Louise cake in NZ. Whatever, it is delicious (even if this version is blackcurrant, not raspberry). It turns out I was a little overzealous in my jam stashing, so there is a little extra to use up at this end of the jamming year - this is the best use of it! This was one of my favourite cakes as a kid, and just one mouthful takes me straight back to childhood.

Asparagus pasta: I came up with this last year in an effort to use all of the asparagus I was buying, not wasting the ends. With asparagus season on us again, it has returned to the repertoire with vigour. Basically, you take your snapped-off ends, take the worst woodiness off them, pop them in the base of your steamer to boil. After 5 minutes add some peas, and put the rest of your asparagus in to steam. Take it all off when your good asparagus is cooked. Blend up the ends, peas, some oil, herbs (mint is nice, or basil) and maybe a squeeze of lemon. Stir your pasta through with this sauce and top with your asparagus. Doubling down on the old asparagus there, yummo. You can lighten the sauce with some creme fraiche too, if you like.

Pancakes: So I found some buttermilk and bought it to make the American pancakes from Rachel Allen's Home Cooking (a new acquisition). They are totally delicious. I'll never use my old recipe again.

Corn Bread: In an effort to use left-over buttermilk, I made cornbread - great for sunny Sunday lunch, and I took some to a neighbourhood barbeque too, went very well.

My other experiment at the moment is getting a sourdough starter going. It all seemed to be going well, but now it smells - well, fairly unpleasant. And its stopped bubbling so much too. But fingers crossed.

Times a changing

So it turns out I haven't blogged since March. Which is in some ways surprising, both as I was sure I had posted more recently, but it turns out these were all imaginary posts, which are fairly common, and because in April & May we were back in Australia getting married. Which, as you can probably guess, took some small amount of time and organisation just prior to the event, and some celebrating just after. For those that couldn't be there, we had a fantastic day with glorious weather and lots of family and friends to celebrate with. These pictures give you and idea of what it (and I looked like). One of my favourite things of the day were the flowers - the florist (Cristina at Flower Flower) was absolutely brilliant and made something I love without me knowing what I wanted! And I love how they look on the cake my wonderful mum made.