I’m really sorry if you were expecting fluffy bikinis and hot pants, it’s not that kind of accessories! It is however what every discerning Women’s Institute member would obviously make to take on a crazy weekend clubbing in Magalluf isn’t it? I did stop myself from making a matching passport holder, I think I might have been banned from the hen do. I’ll see you all on the other side.

So, what have you finished this week? Some craft, a book, the crossword. Join up so we can all come ooh and ahh.

I’d seen these headbands on Pinterest a while ago, and they are great for using up a little bit of leftover fabric from another project.

I used the flap from the pillowcase I used to make pillowcase dresses from. The tutorial is brilliantly put together and easy to follow.

You turn your back and even small boys have taken a fancy to them.

Last week My Gorgeous Boys posted about a fantastic sock monster linked to a sharing books with children course. A great tutorial if you are looking for inspiration.

Merry had finished a beautiful cardigan for her niece Nina. I love it.

Photo Credit: www.patchofpuddles.co.uk

So, what have you finished this week? Some craft, a book, the crossword. Join up so we can all come ooh and ahh.

p.s There probably won’t be a FIF post next week as I’m going away on Friday morning until Tuesday, on a hen do, to Magaluf, with 30 others, and no children – yikes!

This week I felt I was in danger of finishing nothing again. So much going on in the house and garden demanding attention and the small matter of a little boy’s birthday – today! However, I gave myself permission to have a good sewing session yesterday afternoon. I wanted to get another pillowcase dress finished. From the leftover bits of the pillowcase flap and some other small fabric pieces I made some tissue covers. Hugo has had a bit of an obsession this week with marbles. He carries them round everywhere with him, tells me what he is doing with them and generally keeps them in his pockets. Poor washing machine has been hammered this week. So I decided to try and fashion a little drawstring bag for him to keep them safe. Here’s the results.

Love the concentration on these two – Open & Closed

So, what have you finished this week? Some craft, a book, a hot cup of tea (elusive in these parts). Join up so we can all come ooh and ahh.

Before I reveal this weeks Weekly Bake Off entry, I have to say a huge thank you to Amy and Leta for choosing me as the winner of the last weeks bake Ultimate Chocolate Roulade. I jokingly said on Twitter to Amy that it’s the best thing I’ve won since the three legged race in Junior 3, but really it is. I’m such a stressy baker, I make a huge mess in the kitchen, I have to read the recipe 20 times and double check everything as I’m really good at forgetting a VITAL ingredient, you know like an egg or 4! So it really did mean a lot, as the standard of cakes is fabulous.

Anyway, Sunday has turned into a bit of a bake a cake tradition now thanks to Weekly Bake Off. This week it is the turn of Treacle & Ginger Traybake from Mary Berry’s 100 Cakes and Bakes.

We loved this. My 8 year old ‘helped’ me weigh and measure everything, and as it is a bung it all in a bowl affair, it was a great cake for kids. I put the stem ginger through the garlic press to save finely chopping 3 bulbs. It worked really well. I also saw Sarah at Tilly Mint Boutique was ahead of the game on this and suggested using a bit more icing, which we did. So voila:

Isn’t it great when a plan comes together? It’s even more spectacular when you can see the end in sight of something that was a little glimmer of a wish way back 3 and a half years ago. It’s eventually all started to come together in less than 3 and a half weeks. Anyone other than my family, who have been following the progress of the garage conversion, will see a huge improvement in the pictures from last week.

We now have a flat ceiling. The ceiling that was in previously must have been what they let the apprentice practice his artex skills on. My 8 year old was very distraught that it has gone, apparently she really liked it!

I think I prefer flat with a touch of coving.

We’ve still got to decide what to do with ugly utility leftovers such as the boiler and the water inlet. We’re thinking the best way to deal with them is a cupboard or two from a cheap kitchens supplier. I’m sure with a bit of genius joinery a kitchen cupboard will masquerade the offending articles.

There is also the matter of disguising the fuse box which is in the middle of the wall on the right hand side. I jokingly suggested a large oil painting that could be slid to one side with the touch of a button, but maybe I’ve been watching too many episodes of Columbo? The modern equivalent being suggested by my husband is a flat screen TV. He’s just after turning it into a den where he can hide away and watch golf.

The kid’s suggestion of running an ice-cream parlour from the front hatch has now been put paid to, with the installation of the window. I squealed when I saw this had gone in. I’ve been really humbled by all the tradesmen who have helped pull this together. You hear such horror stories about people being messed around and let down by builders etc, but considering this is such a small project for anyone, all the trades – builder, plumber, electrician, plasterer, window manufacturer and fitter have done us proud. A rather fitting end to #gratefulinApril.

Next exciting instalment: Paint colour for walls and flooring.

It’s hard to believe that a year has gone by since the launch of World Book Night last year. I was really proud to be part of the first giveaway and even more delighted to take part again this year.

World Book Night 2012 is held on 23rd April, which is UNESCO’s International Day of the Book and Shakespeare’s birthday.

2012′s event will see one million free books given away by passionate readers to other members of the public across the UK and Ireland.

I chose to giveaway Dodie Smith’s, I Capture the Castle and I can’t wait to share it with our new Women’s Institute ladies. I love recommending books to others and hearing what they thought of it.

I have to admit, when I looked at the recipe for this week’s Weekly Bake Off, I thought how can you make a cake without flour? That will never work, but good old Mary Berry knows her stuff, surely?

So with only these ingredients, who knew you could make a chocolate roulade – oh with the addition of double cream (I had to nip out for this whilst the cake was cooling as OH got single cream *rolls eyes*)

You will notice the dark chocolate was courtesy of an easter egg I had stashed away. I think it’s 70% cocoa solids was a tad rich for me, and the recipe only asks for 39% but the rest of the family loved it. Particularly the younger two, which surprised me. Will definitely be making this again.

Pre-baking:

I had the dog unhelpfully bashing an oversized tennis ball into my ankles the whole time I was in the kitchen.

Just out of the oven. Don’t be worried if yours has lumps and bumps like mine, it doesn’t matter. The hard bit is leaving it to cool.

Mary says ‘don’t worry about cracking’, it’s part of the cake’s charm, so here is my utterly charming chocolate roulade. A perfect Sunday tea pudding.

Have you heard of the Dress A Girl Around the World project? Or pillowcase dresses? If not you can check out the whole story over at Sewscrumptious, who is the UK co-ordinator of the project.

Our new WI is going to get together this Wednesday to see what we can do to help the project and hopefully get a few more finished. This was my practice one I made to make sure I knew what to show people at the demonstration.

I’m really pleased with it, I’m not a great sewer and a few techniques, e.g. bias binding had me baffled a little along the way. The tutorials are really straightforward though and you just have to take it step by step.

You can make the dresses from a pillowcase by cutting away armholes and finishing off with either elasticated neckline or ribbon threaded through. I chose to get the equivalent fabric requirement and make from scratch.

So tah-dah, the first of many I hope.

I was quite pleased that I got the contrast band seams to join up.

I should really have used wider bias-binding and will do this on subsequent dresses, but I managed to get away with what I had (I think).

I wanted to add a contrast piece to the floral fabric, to add a bit more interest.

In the last FIF, Dillytante linked up her very highbrow crafting, she says “I’ve tried to put some psychology into my crafting, I’m combining my passions to create Psychraftology. Craftology. Psychcraftisvism. Psychocraft.”

You have to visit to see and read the three pieces she has completed and the story behind them, I particularly liked her cross-stitched Rorschach ink blot. What do you see in it?

Photo credit: http://dillytante.wordpress.com

So what have you finished this week? Some craft, a cake, a book, the crossword? Leave a link below so we can have an ooh and an ahh.

There has been a Twitter trend this month #gratefulinApril and the above transformation is what I’m most grateful for at the moment. I was stood in our ex-garage at 7am this morning in my dressing gown, cup of tea in hand, appreciating this new space. I know we shouldn’t really be grateful for material things but this represents a 3 year plus wait for a solution to two of our children sharing a bedroom.

I suspect my 8 year old daughter will be the most grateful when she can return her bedroom to a little girl’s haven and rid it of dinosaurs, dolphins and other 2 year old brother’s paraphernalia.  The garage conversion is enabling us to free up the fourth bedroom upstairs, currently used as a computer room.

We’ve had really exciting deliveries (in the eyes of a two year old), like bricks, sand and cement mixers.

The concrete floor was wheelbarrowed and then shovelled in.

The internal shell is now ready for electrics, plastering and flooring. I’ve done the usual thing of letting my imagination run away with me of what Orla Kiely wallpaper I’d like, and what a beautiful office/craft room/lounge it’s going to be. The reality will probably see the room being commandeered by my teenager as her private TV room and the younger two adorning it with their toys.

The ‘to do’ list to get it finished is still quite long, including things like getting the broadband moved downstairs, we’ll definitely be putting BT to the test on keeping up with the gadget demands of our house. It’s astonishing how quickly small people become reliant on wireless internet for iPad dinosaur hunting.  There is also the small matter of a window. I now know so much about energy ratings of double glazed windows and Georgian decorative options, including astragal bars that I could start cold calling to sell it, I’m sure.

So what are you grateful for in April? I’m bursting with gratitude for our ‘west wing’.

With one auntie (my husband’s sisters) in New Zealand and one mainly on the South Coast, this is our attempt at keeping them up to date with all our rivetting news and antics. Feel free to move along if your aren’t Auntie Cheryl or Joanne.

You’ll be really proud of your brother (and nephew) when you see what a great job he’s done of replacing the old fences. Hugo was dashing around ‘helping’ with his plastic Black and Decker tool kit. They roped my Dad in too, and spent a lot of to-ing and fro-ing to B&Q – that’s what bank holiday weekends are all about, yes?
Hugo has a new best friend, thanks to the lovely people at Warner Bros PR who found this hiding in a cupboard and knew he’d love it. It is Winter from Dolphin’s Tale and like the real Winter has a detachable tale, which keeps turning up in the weirdest of places.

 We had a fantastic two weeks off school and in between gardening and getting ready for the garage conversion did indulge in lots of chocolate eating, courtesy of Easter Bunny and Nick Junior, who kept us entertained with Easter episodes of Dora, Ruby and Max and Team Umizoomi (are you familiar with their work)? Cheryl, I did send you some of this chocolate – this is what was rifled from your parcel – so here’s what you nearly got.

I’ve tried to do a bit of film education in the holidays too. Introducing Chloe and Amelie to some Oscar winning classics such as Gone With the Wind and Casablanca. I’m not sure that they lived up to the competition of Hannah Montana or things with Vampires in, but I had a lovely time working my way through this collection, kindly sent by Warner Bros. Amelie was rather taken with my box set of Margaret Rutherford as Miss Marple, so all is not lost.

Chloe started a new job on Good Friday, as a waitress at the new Saints Rugby ground. I’m sure she did a great job as she has been taken on for all the home games. She didn’t have a clue which team had won though, so lets hope they never test her on her knowledge or enthusiasm for the sport.

She spent the rest of the holidays getting everything ready for her final coursework textiles submission for year one. Look at some of the additional samples she’s produced alongside the original photographs for inspiration.

(Sorry tried to insert slideshow and it wouldn’t show so uploaded all for now).

Amelie also got some textile practice in too, from a wet felting workshop we went to. She drew a design and then produced this.

The last two weeks have flown by, thanks Jo for the chocs, they’ve disappeared. Cheryl, we hope Jack had a fab visit. Skype you soon x