Flossie Teacakes

My version of the Colette Beignet skirt

noreply@blogger.com (Florence (Flossie Teacakes)) — Wed, 25 Jan 2012 12:47:00 +0000

Some things you eventually accept might never happen and making the finishing belt loops or belt for this skirt may just be one of them. It almost goes without saying that this skirt has been made using the Colette Beignet pattern - I think it may be one of the most instantly recognisable and well-used sewing patterns ever produced - and every single version of it that I've seen fits wonderfully and looks fantastic.

I loved making this skirt - it's made up from about six (or is it eight?) highly shaped panels and seeing them come together is really quite magical; it's pattern-cutting awe in action. If there was ever a pattern that didn't just sing, but shouted, that the female form is not a two-dimensional shape it's this one. Its design is just so incredibly clever and feminine that it was worth making to witness that alone - every pattern piece depicts a nipped in waist and a curvy hip and bottom area.

When I made it last summer I was a little heavier and it was a perfect fit, it's slightly less so now, but still perfectly wearable and it remains the only item in my entire wardrobe that makes me feel a little Joan Holloway when I put it on (no, the resemblance isn't instantly apparent...but it's there in my head, damn it).

The good things: I like the style; it's a sartorial statement of my ability to line twelve buttons up in a row (yes, this does require celebration - I may hang the skirt from a flagpole outside my house despite the fact that only other obsessive stitching types would understand the point of it); it fits wonderfully with room to spare for a chocolate orange, so what's not to love? Mmm, actually quite a lot.

I think that most of my height (or what little there is of it) is in my legs. For someone not much taller than an eleven year old with little torso to speak of, I worry that a high-waisted skirt has the unfortunate effect of accentuating this uneven distribution of height and makes me appear to be a tube of leg with a head stuck on to the top of a couple of inches of body, which has only been added in for connective purposes and to save the inhabitant of the said body from having to carry her heart and other essential organs around in a rucksack. I'm not sure that could ever be a good look. Circumnavigating this by not tucking in one's top, thus lengthening the appearance of the torso and ability to house internal organs, feels like too great a crime to commit. I've tried it and my inner Joan Holloway flows straight out of my body and is replaced by a feeling that can only be described as 'unhappy grapefruit' (visually and mentally). With this in mind, I think it's more of a wearing around the house kind of skirt, but I still feel pleased that I've made it, particularly as I now harbour hopes (having studied the promo photos for the pattern once again just now) that if I had the belt loops and the self-fabric belt in the same colour as the skirt (rather than the brown plait belt in the photos) it would be an altogether more unbroken look and may work...what do you think?

Florence x

I made a winter coat

noreply@blogger.com (Florence (Flossie Teacakes)) — Fri, 20 Jan 2012 13:24:00 +0000

I actually made this coat in October, but somehow it's taken me nearly three months to photograph it. It's based on a coat that I bought from Jigsaw Junior several years ago (that's one of the perks of being only 5ft1). The original coat is made from a cotton drill and it's one of my favourite garments, but it's never been especially warm, and so is more suited for Spring and Autumn wear. For the last few years I've longed for a warmer winter version and, finally, here it is.

It has a small funnel collar, princess seams back and front and a double breasted fastening. It only took an afternoon to draft the pattern, as I followed the dimensions of my beloved Jigsaw coat very closely, then a day and an evening to make the coat and around two months to finish hemming the lining...how can a person lose their momentum like that?

I quibbled over what to line it with, and in the end decided to steer clear of my usual sartorial conservatism and went for a bright cornflower blue.

Here it is on Miss Evangeline - I think she wears it well. And, unlike me, she does not have to be photographed without her head for fear of revealing what very strange expressions she wears upon her chops, due to her having only a faceless stump.

To me, making a coat feels similar to learning free-motion quilting. It's been an elephant in my sewing room that I've wished to surmount (yes, there's a possibility I could end up in the loft with my head through the ceiling if we think about that too literally). I'm not sure it's possible to get rid of the elephant in its entirety, for it's always there with new challenges - and I love that - I love that one can never really master sewing, because there's always some area left in which I feel incompetant or which needs retreading in different ways (both making a coat and free-motion quilting both very definitely still needing retreading).

There's every chance that I may go around inappropriately flashing my coat lining at people now. Once you've added in a colour like that, the temptation is to wear it inside out, rather than to appreciate that a part of its loveliness comes in the not-quite-enough glimpses of it, or just knowing it's there when no one else does. But you know now too!

In retrospect, the thing that I wish that I'd done differently was to make this coat in black wool suiting, instead of navy. Almost as soon as I'd finished it (but unrelated to the finishing of it; I'm not intentionally contrary) I suddenly only wished to wear black,with a few bits of grey around the edges. In more flighty moments I've considered piling it into the washing machine with a box of black Dylon...but as this coat is dry-clean only I've refrained.

On the subject of dye and colour. I tend to re-dye my black jeans every few months (as you can see...they are ready for this). Despite washing them insideout, at 30 degrees and with non-biological detergent they still seem to lose their colour. However, this morning a link to an article showed up in my Twitter feed in which Jean Touitou (founder of APC jeans) recommends washing jeans in Woolite Extra Dark to retain the colour. Do you use this? Can it be found in England?

Wishing you a wonderful weekend. Our own will be a contrast of digging mud by day and going to a party by night. I love it when a Friday holds the promise of a weekend of good things.

Florence x

Thinking about handmade clothes

noreply@blogger.com (Florence (Flossie Teacakes)) — Wed, 18 Jan 2012 09:47:00 +0000

Have you seen the new patterns that Figgy's have launched since rebranding themselves? I'm quite in love. The promotion photos have a feeling of Japanese pattern book about them, with their stylish prints and minimalist backdrops.

The garments themselves are full of crisp, clean lines and subtle styling details that give them a very modern feel. I love the the little shoulder puffs on the dress, and the curve that sweeps down either side, ending in slanted pockets.

To me, they feel like big-girl patterns and as though they've been drafted to produce the perfect garments to fill in the chasm that I worry may open as my children grow older: that of a mama who still wishes to make a few garments for her children; and her children who wish to look fashionable and may feel self-conscious wearing designs where the styling may make them appear overtly homemade. These are exactly the kind of clothes I can imagine my daughter wishing to swoop up in Zara.

You can find these patterns from Figgy's new range for sale here in Alice's lovely shop, Backstitch.

Thinking about children growing up and minding their clothing appearing homemade: is this an issue for those with children older than mine? Or is this simply a perceived issue that's come from my growing up in a generation that, for a time, rejected the handmade to the extent that it was seen as a symbol of poverty, rather than creativity? I wonder whether this generation of children has entirely cast off these negative connotations?

I remember as a young teenager going to a school disco where one of the girls wore a dress that she'd made herself. I can't recall what the dress looked like, but I do remember that the boys ridiculed the dress loudly in the corridors, while many of the girls whispered and giggled over it in the cloakrooms. Shamefully, I wasn't so filled with confidence at that age that I felt able to defend her bold move, or even to let her know that I thought she looked rather super, so I said nothing and just wondered at why anyone would intentionally put themselves in such a vulnerable position (she was clearly a year or two ahead of me in watching Molly Ringwald in Pretty in Pink, where her character arrives at the highschoool prom in a homemade pink dress and went on to serve as a fiesty independent-spirited role model for every young girl growing up in the late 80s. If I'd already seen this myself I may have had more awareness that she'd just outfoxed the entire school with her own coolness). Instead, I remember lying in bed that night feeling guilty and worrying over whether she might be lying in her own bed crying. My school was large with several classes in each year group and I barely knew this girl -I now wonder at how much I probably would have loved her as a friend if our paths had ever properly crossed...I may have branched out earlier from my undercover knitted glove-puppet making, which was my speciality aged 13. My memory of these creatures is of them being rather fine...which leaves me wondering at what point in time the ability to knit proficiently decided to leave me.

Florence x

Company style blogger awards 2012

noreply@blogger.com (Florence (Flossie Teacakes)) — Tue, 17 Jan 2012 12:22:00 +0000

It is with rather a large gulp of surprise that I've found myself on the list of nominees for Company magazine's Style Blogger Awards 2012. Company actually wrote to let me know last week, but the email ended up in quarantine and it was only when a reader (Joelle) very sweetly left a comment on my last blog post saying that she hoped I won, that I looked into it and first saw the nominations page and a few days later discovered the original email letting me know about it.

For those not based in England, Company isn't actually a sewing magazine at all, but rather a magazine predominantly based around fashion and beauty. However, it's interesting to find that they have a small craft section in their nominations (entitled Best Blog for Crafty Girls)...something that would have seemed unimaginable in a mainstream magazine five years ago, but now signifies quite how wonderfully popular sewing has become.

If you'd like to vote, you can find the online voting form here...where my own blog name sits alongside a few of my favourite reads (Hurrah! You'll find Marmalade Kiss in the 'We love Vintage' section) and lots of others that are completely new to me and will no doubt be added to my overflowing list of blogs to read once I've had a chance to take a proper look around.

Category winners will appear in the April issue (out in March) of the magazine, but I'm very happy indeed just to be on the nominations list.

Florence x

On the bookshelf

noreply@blogger.com (Florence (Flossie Teacakes)) — Thu, 12 Jan 2012 20:36:00 +0000

For Christmas several people gave me books: one of my very favourite gifts to receive. For the last few years my sister has given me cloth-bound copies of Penguin's classics and this year my Mama continued with this loveliness. These books are such a wonderful gift, not only for the obvious reason of them being the type of book that leaves you reading late into the night, but also because they look so lovely on a bookshelf: they are almost like a double present.

On the fiction and poetry pile I have: The Woman in White, Persuasion, Wuthering Heights, Tender is the Night, The Bees, Happenstance and The Apothecary. I can't speak for the Apothecary yet, but if you haven't yet discovered Maile Meloy's books then she's most definitely worth reading. I read Liars and Saintsseveral years ago and have loved her ever since, devouring every book she has to offer. I lent her book of short stories to my father when he took my little boy swimming each week thinking that they were the perfect length for such an interval...unfortunately one of them wasn't so perfectly sized and he only remembered to pick his grandchild up when the last word had been read - testament to what an engrossing storyteller Maile Meloy is, I think, although the reader was thoroughly reprimanded for good measure anyway!

In sewing related literature there is Kaffe Fassett's V&A Quilts, the wonderful Colette Sewing Handbook, Sarah Fielke's Quilting: from little things..., a fiction book entitled Knitting and The Colette Clover pattern so that I might make some of my very own trousers. Not strictly a book, but it seems to have ended up with them anyway. I first dabbled in trouser-making here, but I love the look of these slim-leg cropped trousers and can't wait to try the pattern out - they remind me of the ones below from EmersonMade, which I've fallen hopelessly in love with. Unlike the top halves, past evidence tells me that the bottom half of Colette Patterns tend to be a perfect fit for me, so I'm even thinking that I may go totally wild and leap in without making a muslin).

Did you get any wonderful books for Christmas? I'd love to hear what you've been enjoying recently.

Florence x

Pants interrupted

noreply@blogger.com (Florence (Flossie Teacakes)) — Tue, 10 Jan 2012 18:58:00 +0000

This cushion should have been a pair of boxer shorts. I'd bought the fabric from Liberty months ago when the Edwyn Collins Ornithology line first appeared - I fell in love with the china blue background, the stunning bird sketches and the story behind the fabric. In December I bought Kwik Sew 1672 as I had too little time to draft my own pattern. The envelope showed the kind of fit I was imagining might make for a good pair of cotton boxer shorts, but when I came to cut out my fabric I discovered that boxer shorts require more fabric than I'd envisaged. A short is not a mere slip of a garment, but more a hungry, fabric gobbling item that rendered me lacking a rather vital 1.5" of fabric...so near, yet so very far from pant production. My husband was able to console me when he glanced at the pattern envelope: was it really safe to transform my dear Papa into something akin to the image on the packet?

Perhaps not. And so my father unexpectedly became the recipient of a cushion, rather than the long-planned boxer shorts.

I made piping to border the cushion edge.

And for the cushion back I used my favourite midnight blue Venezia fabric that I have been hoarding greedily because I love it so much.

To leave two of my most favourite fabrics uninterrupted on both sides an invisible zip in one of the seams was called for. I've never installed an invisible zipper in the same seam as piping before...it wasn't an installation entirely without error, but it was,at least, easier than I'd anticipated it might be.

I gave my father a little sheet detailing the story behind the bird sketches and a copy of Edwyn Collins' biography, Falling and Laughing: The Restoration of Edwyn Collins, which I'm planning to borrow back after he's read it. In case you didn't read about it at the time, here's a little background for you. You may remember Edwyn Collins from the 90s - he had a hit single with 'Never Met a Girl Like you Before'. Seven years ago, still a young man, he suffered a series of strokes which left him with brain damage; unable to feed himself, walk, talk, read or write, and paralysed down one side. He was forced to relearn all these tasks with the added complication of having to master holding a pencil in his left hand, having been right-handed all his life. As part of his later rehabilitation he drew a sketch of a bird each day: it's these sketches that feature in his Ornithology fabric prints for the Liberty Rocks collection. That story leaves me completely moved, particularly when you consider how incredibly beautiful the fabric is in its own right. I think my father thought so too.

Florence x

On party shirts and other things...

noreply@blogger.com (Florence (Flossie Teacakes)) — Mon, 09 Jan 2012 11:20:00 +0000

My husband normally dresses from a conservative colour palette of greys and blues; the shirt above is something of an anomaly in his wardrobe. I bought it nearly a decade ago from French Connection having fallen in love with it purely as a piece of fabric...in reality seeing someone actually wearing this rosebed of a shirt wasn't as delightful as I'd first hoped as it tends to overpower the face somewhat. However, despite my reservations, it's a shirt that my husband took to with an unexpected zeal and enthusiasm and he has brought it out at every opportunity where one might find oneself dressing with the anticipation of celebration. I will often walk into a room in a flurry of house tidying, preparing for a party or guests to arrive, and find that instead of my usual husband, I find a man wearing this raucous shirt with a wicked grin on his face. It has become known as his party shirt.

This weekend it was his birthday - when he opened the door to greet our friends for lunch, they squealed at the sight of the shirt and instantly assumed that I'd made it for him. Shirt analysis decided that the word for it was 'jaunty' and debate established that I, Florence, felt it had a little too much 'jaunt' about it. However, despite the fact that it hurts my eyes, I'm quite delighted by his wearing of this shirt. It feels like the popping of a champagne cork in terms of what it represents when he chooses to put it on. I remember from childhood that my father also had a party outfit: he used to don a white tee-shirt with a large, pink, floral mushroom silhouette that my mother had appliqued onto it (apparently to cover a hole) and some super-wide denim flares whenever my sister or I had a birthday party. He would be particularly devilish when he wore this outfit and I secretly wished that he'd wear it all the time. I think my mother was relieved that he didn't.

I took these photos of his shirt this morning...like all good party shirts should the next day, it looks a little crumpled.

This year I made my husband a non-traditional birthday cake. It retains the standard two layers of sponge, although in this case they are highly flavoured with the juice and zest of lemons, while inside there is a thick layer of lemon curd and the cake is topped with an enormous dome of gently brown meringue which obscures the top layer of sponge entirely. I adapted this cake from a recipe for cupcakes which I saw in the very wonderful Primrose Bakery Book. I also whipped up just three or four of the cupcakes too, so that my little boy could take some with him when he went visiting grandparents briefly.

I love the way these look when cut in half, even though I don't advocate sharing these cakes. I used Duchy Originals Lemon Curd which was excessively good and makes me want to write to Prince Charles himself to congratulate him on such a winning recipe.

I had a book voucher given to me for Christmas and was drawn instantly to this recipe book. I've owned it for far less than 72 hours, yet I may also have referred to it to make some chocolate cupcakes topped with a very thick layer of caramel icing for a different set of visitors which were declared by my husband as being one of the best things he'd ever tasted and didn't stay intact for long enough to be photographed. It is the most glorious baking book and I am having to quash my impulse to work my way through the recipes in just one short week for fear of making my beloved guinea pigs, less guinea, more piggy. If you wish to have a copy on your own kitchen shelves, you can find it here.

I should also say that the day before his 36th birthday, my husband, gave up the two days a week that he'd retained at his old job (following the initial leaping) and is now working five days a week for himself, designing apps. An event worthy of some rosebed shirt wearing. All that remains is for him to clear his desk and say goodbye to over a decade of work, which is what he is doing as I type. I'm feeling entirely positive about what the new chapter may hold.

Florence x

Ps. And in a blatant and unashamed piece of husband promotion, I hope you won't mind me mentioning that if your child is of the age for learning or practising their times tables, a very wonderful app sits in the Apple app store to help them do so. Just search for 'Squeebles' in the app store to find a creature-led educational learning system for iTouch, iPhone and iPad. I think that it would be 69p / $1 very well spent. Yours, promotionally, Florence x

Sewing Industry Reflections and Predictions

noreply@blogger.com (Florence (Flossie Teacakes)) — Thu, 05 Jan 2012 11:01:00 +0000

Sew, Mama, Sew are currently inviting people to contribute to their posts on Sewing Industry Reflections and Predictions. They're welcoming anyone to join in and as I enjoy reading these posts coming from others so much, I thought I'd add my own (and just in case you're wondering, the above photo shows two of my favourite fabric samples from 2011).

Looking back at the 2011 sewing scene, what trends stand out in your mind?

Dress and photo by Wild Thing Dresses

Foxes stand out in every way as being a creature that skulked out from the beneath the bushes in 2011 to shine in all their red, bushy-tailed glory. Ever since seeing Jennifer Moore's wonderful foxy print for Mona Luna last summer, I've noticed them popping their noses up at every opportunity in both fabric designs and items being handmade by independent seamstresses. I've shown the dress above before, but it's too lovely not to share again. And this morning, I discovered that grown-ups can have their own foxy fun. While it's not something that I'd wear myself in reality, I must implore those with more of a sense of fun than me to go and look at Isabel Knowles' shop and blog as the staging of her clothes is exquisite, as you can see in the images below (her shop holds a dress similar to these ones dotted with Mona Luna foxes).

Dresses and photo by Isabel Knowles

What were some of your favourite things related to sewing this past year?

Image by Artisania

For me what's thrilling is almost equally divided between quilts and clothing. I've loved some of the more pictorial quilts that I've seen, as well as those that use fabrics other than quilting weight cottons (as pictured above); quilts that have used tiny, tiny pieces like Sarah Fielke's Hanging Lanterns quilt; and then those that seem to glow because of the incredible use of colour; and those that combine pattern and colour to seemingly create entirely new patterns and colours within the quilt.

In dressmaking I'm more than a little inspired by anything involving a Peter Pan collar, clean crisp lines and detailing that retains a chic, uncluttered look; anything that pins down the essence of Audrey Hepburn or Jackie Onassis tends to make my heart beat a little faster and inspires me to sew. For me this means garment fabrics are more about texture and drape than pattern. If I'm looking for inspiration in blog form, Sew Tessuti is the place where I love to spend time. Their blog is based around their eponymously named shop (which sadly for many of us is in Australia) and is an ever-changing parade of wonderful garments made and modelled by their dressmaking fashionista customer-base. Fabric details and pattern numbers are usually included in every post, making it a treasure trove of accessible makes.

Image from: Les Composantes

What did you make that you’re most proud of? (Share a photo in your post!)

At the risk of bizarre his and hers handmade garmentyness, I think it would be the Negroni shirt that I made for my husband and the toile version of the Miz Mozelle dress that I made for myself. The muslin isn't actually wearable as the keyhole was too big, and the inexpensive fabric smells oddly of chlorine and swimming costumes, but it made me feel fabulous the moment I put it on (in a slightly poolside kind of way), which is, of course, the ultimate dressmaking goal.

What sewn projects have you seen this year that you absolutely love?

On the dressmaking front, I adore most of the things made on the Little Betty blog - I often love both the fabrics and patterns that she chooses. Very Purple Person's Novita always looks completely fabulous in all her makes too.

I think I may need to seek out more dressmaking blogs in 2012, as I still find that I gain most garment inspiration from shop-made clothing and I love looking at the design details of Banana Republic, Boden, Orla Kiely and EmersonMade, and collect snippets of their loveliness on my Style board on Pinterest.

By contrast, when it comes to quilting I feel so overwhelmed by inspiration that I'm constantly forming and then re-forming what my own tastes actually are as I'm so easily distracted by the endless myriad of colour, pattern and piecing variables. You can see some of what I've found wonderful from 2011 on my Quilting Pinterest board.

Do you have a favourite sewing book or pattern from the past year to recommend?

From 2011, for dressmaking I'd recommend The Colette Sewing Handbook; for quilting, Jane Brocket's The Gentle Art of Quilt-Making may be a little basic for quilters who favour intricate piecing, but for pattern and colour inspiration I can't think of a more perfect book.

Are there any trends you’re over and done with?

Um, not really. I always favour what feels to me to be classic, timeless and lovely - be it a quilt, fabric or clothing. Some passing trends might be things that appeal - I'm all for foxes - but they're things I would have liked anyway but just happen to be more widely available, so it ceases to matter too much if they fade from popularity.

What are your thoughts about social media? How is it going for you? What do you love or hate?

I read an article a few years ago questioning why we bloggers would transfer so much of our readership over to Facebook when it's a platform that could shift the boundaries without consultation, lose your way of communicating with your readership base overnight with privacy worries or suddenly claim rights over our images. This made sense to me, so I've kept things pretty much here on my blog. However, I really enjoy Twitter - I love how instant it is and sometimes it feels like an easier way to catch up on other people's most recent posts, as I often avoid my Google feed reader if it's overflowing with unread posts. I'm also fairly poor at inbox management, in part because I want to reply to everything at length which life doesn't always allow for; Twitter forces me to be concise in 140 characters and so means I'm more able to maintain a conversation with people.

Did you have a favourite fabric collection or print in 2011?

Not really a favourite collection, more the odd print that I fell for. The above is a Liberty print silk Georgette called Combe. At £45 a metre it felt a little on the expensive side...but I still think of it occasionally and wish that I had some in my drawer (it's now out of print). The Cloth House always has fabrics that I swoon over, but they don't tend to be on bolts that come from named designers. However, I did love many of Anna Maria Horner's Loulouthi small scale voile prints and I'm still considering a dress made from this one.

What do you predict for 2012 in the sewing industry?

I think my expectations are similar to those I had last year: that fabrics will be printed on a wider variety of substrates, particularly ones that lend themselves to dressmaking or quilting in a more adventurous way...or perhaps that should be a more traditional way: once many of these substrates were widely available but it seems that we temporarily lost them for a while as the home sewing market shrank - it's exciting to see more voiles, lawns and shirtings being reintroduced in beautiful prints.

I also feel that generally, people probably have a little less money to spend this year and those that do have some to spare are being more circumspect in their purchases: it sits less comfortably to be constantly acquiring mountains of fabrics and I think there will be an emphasis on stash busting, rather than stash building (this isn't meant to sound puritanical: I'm all for splashing out on fabric that makes your heart beat faster, I just think that people's mindset may alter almost unconsciously, which will have the benefit of fabric houses only printing the very best collections).

Can you tell us what to expect from you in 2012? Any big projects or life-changing goals?

No big goals, just a wish to use my time more efficiently in every way, so that I can fit more of everything in: making more clothing and quilts, writing more sewing patterns and tutorials, blogging more frequently and sometimes more concisely...

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What do you think? Do you have any dressmaking blog suggestions that you love to read? Do you agree or disagree with what I'm imagining might be a part of 2012? Are you going to add your own post to the SMS opinions collection? Can you recommend something to help me sleep?

I should say that the latter question comes as a result of my having had coffee yesterday (for only the third time in my life). It's now 10.20am and I still haven't been to sleep. Yes, I have been awake all night. I have got so much work done, which feels rather lovely, and I would now be entirely justified in sleeping all day long, but I'm yet to feel even the faintest bit tired and if my last run in with coffee is anything to go by (in which I was sleepless for several days after...how could I have forgotten that?) I could be stuck like this for some time...lawks. Just think of the amount of actual sewing that I could get done if only I had a sound-proof room.

Florence x

2011: the iced gem moments

noreply@blogger.com (Florence (Flossie Teacakes)) — Wed, 04 Jan 2012 13:49:00 +0000

It's January 4th and even now it feels a little belated to write a post looking back on 2011...one has been swirling around in my head for much of the Christmas, but in reality my thoughts about the year don't fit into one blog post...or even two. The big picture of 2011 for me is that it was a fairly grim year, and yet the smaller details that I've picked out and shared here throughout the year, and those which I haven't but which stay sparkling and cheerful in my memory, tell me that 2011 was also a rather super year.

When I was small, my grandmother used to give us little bowls of iced gems - did you have these? - I used to pick off the rather dull biscuit bases and put them into her kitchen pedal bin, so that I was left with a little dish of pastel coloured sugar drops. I never saw this as a waste - starting with a dish of the lone sugar drops wouldn't have been nearly so exciting - it was the presence of the biscuit bases that made me savour the tops all the more; and in this way blogging is a little like eating iced gems. It seems important to say this, as I have no wish to present the false illusion of a 'perfect life'; there was more than a fair helping of biscuity bits this year, but the fact that they were there only makes the other bits seem yet more brilliant. And so, in the interest of being concise and not mawking publicly over unwanted biscuits, I've decided to whittle my 2011 down into 30 bite-sized iced gem pieces - 10 general, 10 sewing-related and 10 aspirations for 2012 (oh, and above are some of my favourite makes from 2011).

My top ten general moments of loveliness from 2011

1. After ten years without a shower, standing in our sparkly new bathroom looking at the fabric of our blinds (one of my favourite fabrics ever) and feeling water beating down on my shoulders has been something that I'm yet to take for granted: I still feel delighted by it every single morning (for those worrying over what went before: we did have a bath, just no shower).
2. Following a post in August, where I'd nervously left my children to bake alone, my daughter has catapulted herself into independent cake-making with a proficiency that has left me feeling surprised, delighted and with a cake tin that is rarely bare. I can't believe that post was only five short months ago.
3. In February, taking the first tentative press of my snow mobile's accelerator pedal, because I so didn't want to take it, but something inside me overrode my fear and propelled me into an adventure that will be etched on my and my family's memories forever (precis: -40 degrees in a dense Swedish forest after nightfall having lost our instructor, with a child suffering from the first stages of frost bite...but we were fine, all was well and elation and delight quickly flooded our cold extremities as soon as we were safely back in our cabin that night).
4. Lying in a very deep bubble bath at The George in Rye, cocooned by happiness and a feeling that all would be well. And from the same weekend: treading across a smooth wood floor in my bare feet, feeling the course grits of sand between my toes brought back from the beach; watching my family eat ice creams on a bench in the sunshine; racing the tide with my daughter to get off the island we looked up to find ourselves on in the minute before it was entirely cut off from the shore; lying on the grass in a graveyard watching a plane cut through a perfect blue sky; sharing paper bags of fudge; listening to music from our student days in the car.
5. On one of the bleakest days I've ever lived through, I sat in a cafe with my sister drinking deliciously good hot chocolate, laughing about something random that I've now forgotten the details of, and knew that life still tasted very good.
6. Waking up on the first morning my husband worked from home after leaping from the life of old and seeing that he was putting a shirt on with his jeans, rather than a cosy jumper. A subtle, unexpected choice, but one which said so much about his attitude and intentions. Whoop! Actually, everything about that day was a highlight in my year.
7. For the first half of the year, watching my father take my little boy off to his swimming lessons on a Monday night, knowing that he had cycled all the way over to us and given up two hours of his time, just for the joy of spending what amounted to about twenty minutes with his grandchild: that is being loved.
8. The cosiness of playing board games with family.
9. Sitting around a table with good friends, warmed by their singing and silly drunkenness and wishing the evening would go on forever (and hurrah for 2012 when every one of the people at that table will be living closer by).
10. Lighting candles in Exeter Cathedral for my father-in-law as a visiting choir began to sing. Their singing was so perfect and ethereal that it left us with goosebumps.
10½. Listening to my husband read to all of us: it has been the backdrop to 2011 for me. This year he has read aloud all of the Harry Potter books and much of Michael Morpurgo's vast back catalogue as I've sat sewing and the children have draped themselves over beds or sofas. After one rainy weekend extravaganza of Enid Blyton's Famous Five we came up with the rather jolly hockey sticks and tongue-in-cheek phrase of 'Oh, do read on, Daddy!', which has been said over and over in chorus whenever he claims his throat is beginning to feel dry or he wishes to stop reading for the day. And invariably he always has read on.

Top Ten Moments of Sewing Happiness of 2011

1. My year began making a Colette Patterns Negroni shirt for my husband. It's still my favourite pattern I've ever worked from and I often recall how much I enjoyed pressing every seam and checking and rechecking every crease and fold during the making of it. Making another is one of my priorities for this year.
2. Making the Love Emblem quilt for dear friends represented new, more challenging adventures in quiting for me, as well as being bolder with colour. It's one of the things I've made that I love the most.
3. Free-motion quilting a throw that I made for one of my nephews (yet to be shared here) was one of the most exhilarating sewing highlights of my year...it's something that had foxed me for so long and although the results weren't perfect, they were good enough to make me feel giddy with the avenues opened up by learning this new skill.
4. Somehow I haven't written an official review of it yet, but Jane Brocket's The Gentle Art of Quilt-Makingsticks with me as one being one of the most inspiring books I opened last year and I aspire to use pattern and colour with a fraction of her flair.

5. Working with different fabrics: 2011 has been the year that I've worked with more non-quilting weight fabrics than cotton quilting weights....and it's something that's delighted me every time I've felt the luxurious hand of silk, the soft drape of a knit, the fluid butteryness of a voile or the thin crispness of lawn.
6.It was spine-tinglingly lovely to find that my own blog was in the recommended websites section at the end of the wonderful Colette Sewing Handbook- I didn't mention it when I reviewed the book for fear of it seeming boasty, but it goes down as one of my most surprising and unexpected moments of sewing-related happiness for 2011, because for me Colette is the ultimate dressmaking pattern company. It was one of those moments when I felt instantly transported back to feeling rather geeky at secondary school: um, me? Are you sure?

5. Making a fully-lined winter coat (again, yet to be shared). Something that's long been on my list of things to do, I found the whole process from drafting the pattern to hand-stitching the lining utterly enjoyable. The only flaw with it in retrospect is that I made it using a navy wool coating...just at a time when suddenly the only colour I want to wear is black with a hint of grey.
6. Working my way through the Desert Island discs archive as I sew...a combination of things that sometimes makes life feel as though it couldn't get any better.
7. Seeing the things people have made using one of my patterns or tutorials - it never fails to make me stop what I'm doing and feel more than a little touched that someone has invested their trust in following my instructions. And then seeing how it's been made in very much their own style...I feel that others have more than made up for my own lack of glorious Heather Ross fabric prints.
8. Discovering Frixion pens could double as iron-away fabric markers - their precision lines have transformed marking things out for me.
9. Changing the feet on my sewing machine...from piping feet, to applique feet, from zipper feet to 1/4" feet...even though many of them I've had for several years, it never fails to delight me how much easier the right foot makes everything feel.
10. Sewing with the Edwyn Collins Ornithology Liberty fabric print - it's the most wonderful china blue that I never tire of looking at, the drawings are exquisite and the story behind the fabric leaves me feeling inspired. I made my father's Christmas presents from this fabric, but am yet to share them with you here.

Top ten sewing-related aspirations for 2012

I am one of those people who runs in the opposite direction when tied down by resolutions, so instead these are my aspirations, a term which, to me, seems more hopeful and open-ended.

1. When I look back at previous years, I realise that I only get around to blogging about half of the things that I actually make - it would be nice to document a little more of this as my blog is very much a record of my year and it feels odd to have so many gaps and holes in it.
2. Ditto, thoughts and inspiring things that I've seen elsewhere that I'd like to post about, but that get swallowed up and disappear into a space in my head filed under 'to be blogged about': it's an imperfect filing system and things get lost. So I'm hoping to make more on-paper lists and to write posts that are (sometimes) shorter and more concise to make sharing those things more possible.
3. I'd love to make another Negroni shirt for my husband and another Miz Mozelle for me...and one for my sister too.
4. I've worn a kingfisher blue silk dress over Christmas a lot that I'm absolutely dotty about - I'd love to try and create my own version.
5. I already have a few lined up that are nearly finished and just waiting to be tested, but I'd love to add many more patterns and tutorials to my blog in 2012.
6. At the beginning of 2011, Katy inspired me with her stash pact resolve (clearly I'm like a moth to a flame when it comes to sticking to other people's resolutions). While I didn't embark upon a complete fabric-buying ceasefire, my attitude to purchasing has been very restrained - I've only bought fabric I'm about to use when I didn't have any other suitable alternatives already sitting in my drawer and this more frugal, less consumeristic approach means that I've had a guilt-free year of sewing when it comes to fabric purchases. I'm hoping to continue with this in 2012.
7. I'd love to make more time to use patterns written by others - every time I do this I learn something new and it shows me that I don't always have to be a control freak and oversee every aspect of each sewing project I undertake from beginning to end: sometimes it's relaxing to be led by someone else.
8. Having sewn with my daughter at the end of the year, I'm aspiring to tidy as I go. I could scarcely believe how little tidying up there was to do when we got to the end of making their bears' patchwork blankets. It would seem there's a way of working that doesn't leave one covered in thread.
9. More clothing, more quilts, more things for the home using delicious upholstery fabrics. I want to do more sewing of everything. It's a source of delight to me that sewing still feels like an addiction that I will never have had enough of. We watched Bridge to Terebithia over the holidays. In one scene Leslie's parents paint a room gold and try to finish it in time for the setting sun to cast its glow over the walls. I'd also love to paint a very small wall gold in between sewing things.
10. This may seem to contradict point 9, but actually, I think it's just about using my time in a better way. Last year my working hours were split between sewing and blogging...this year I'd love to split my time three ways between sewing, blogging and non-sewing-related writing. I find it difficult to make time for the latter, as in many ways it feels like a self-indulgence, but it's something that means a lot to me and which I think is entirely possible if use my time more efficiently.

Dear readers, you may now breathe: it's soon to be over. Perhaps like me, this leaves you wondering at the size of the 'post that never was' if this is the concise option! I hope this is not an indication that list-making won't work for me....

Wishing you a sparkly, wonderful 2012, with your own iced gem tops appearing at every turn,
Florence x

Melting Moments provoked nostalgia

noreply@blogger.com (Florence (Flossie Teacakes)) — Fri, 23 Dec 2011 08:19:00 +0000

Last week I made these with my little boy. He'd been asked to take in some biscuits at short notice. 'I think normal people just have packets of biscuits and crisps in their cupboards all the time' he told me, when I broke it to him that we didn't have any. I wonder who these normal people are and what it's like to be one of them: I want to see inside their cupboards (actually, I have. I think by my little boy's definition this would make own mother entirely normal, for she is prepared for any eventuality on the biscuit front). In the absence of normality in our own pantry, we decided to bake and a tub of glace cherries was our inspiration.

The moment I saw them for some reason I was transported straight back to arriving at my grandmother's house. When we were small she lived alone in a little row of terraced houses beneath the care of an enormous church whose bells chimed every quarter of an hour, even through the night. As we neared the end of our four hour car journey and drew closer to her house my insides would feel like they had butterflies in them as I imagined actually seeing her and being in her lovely little house which smelt of baking, furniture polish and grandmotherly goodness. I genuinely believe that she had butterflies too, because no matter how delayed our arrival was, as soon as our car pulled into her street, her front door would fly open and she would dance up and down in one of the half-pinnies from her huge collection and the moment our car doors were open she would gather me and my sister up and say over and over: hello my little poppets, hello my treasures, in her high-pitched, squeaky voice. And once inside, I knew that cooling on the baking rack there would be Melting Moments with glace cherries on top along with Crunch or Sog (her name for flapjack).

I must have made Melting Moments with her several times, for when my little boy had pressed them onto the baking tray and topped them with cherries, my chest felt tight with how deliciously familiar they looked, even in their unbaked state. We didn't make these using my grandmother's recipe, but found one on the internet as we were hurrying. I must ask her for a copy of her own recipe at Christmas. She no longer bakes, which makes me feel rather sad as for so long it defined her, but she does revert into that lively ball of wonderfulness the moment she's around my children and I can tell that my little boy feels the same way that I did as a child whenever he sees her.

Anyway, the cushion in these photographs is for her, made the day after the Melting Moments on the last day of the school term. I loved picking out the fabrics for it and piecing them together as I sorted through old memories of midnight feasts, playing horses on her Chesterfield, daubing talcum powder from a huge powder puff (deliciously exciting because we didn't have talcum powder at home) and snuggling to either side of her to listen to stories told from her head and then later, because we were essentially tasteless and she indulged this with wild abandon, racing to the television after bath time to watch Dallas and Dynasty by her side.

This will probably be my last post before Christmas, so I really want to thank you so much for reading this year. Thank you also to those lovelies who take the time out from the busyness of their own lives to leave comments, email photos and links to interesting things, buy my patterns and generally make sewing feel very much like a group activity.

Wishing you the merriest of Christmases,

Florence x

Sewing with the small ones

noreply@blogger.com (Florence (Flossie Teacakes)) — Wed, 21 Dec 2011 07:11:00 +0000

Yesterday we spent almost the entire day sewing blankets for my children to give to their bears as Christmas gifts. By rights it should have been a pyjama day, but unfortunately I was already dressed by the time I realised that the day would take on such homebound levels of cosiness...meaning that it was all conducted with an unusual air of respectability and a lack of fear over potential parcel delivery and knocks at the door.

It's a while since I've sewn on the machine with either child and in the interim my daughter has developed a strong perfectionist streak and I knew that she'd no longer be satisfied with making something with mismatched seams. However, it ended up being a completely stress free and happy sewing session for everyone, partly because the following made everything so much easier:

It was only a day earlier that I'd read about Lynne's daughter making a wonderful pinwheel cushion and had remembered that Lynne had brought out her Accuquilt cutter so that all the pieces could be cut by her daughter with total accuracy. This is such a good idea for children, and the appeal of laying the fabrics on the dye and then cranking the handle round to send them through the machine doesn't seem to fade with repetition and it made short work of cutting the fifty 2.5" squares used for these blankets.
They used a 1/4" foot as a seam allowance guide, so their seams matched up really well.
We changed the footplate on the machine to one with a very small needle aperture, to eliminate any potential problems with the tiny fabric pieces being sucked down into the feed dogs.

I was shocked to find that my daughter's general approach to sewing has naturally become one that I've always aspired to: fabrics were packed away as soon as they'd been used, pin cushions were taken along to wherever pins were being removed and thread tails were cut off only when near a bin. What a strange and delightful creature this child is to me!

To finish they backed their bear quilts with a deliciously soft Anna Maria Horner flannel - they sewed the backing and the top face-to-face and then turned them right side out, rather than worrying about bindings (I don't think they would have actually found the bindings worrying...it's more that I'd run out of energy by that point and so didn't present it as an option).

My little boy chose fabrics almost identical to those that I used in the oak tree quilt that I made for my husband last year, while my daughter chose fabrics that remind me of Opal Fruits (now called Starbursts).

After hours of such careful, thoughtful work, both children became completely loopy as soon as they'd completed their quilts and the photo at the top of this post is the only in-focus vision of the finished quilts that was captured. Unfortunately they can't be modelled with the bears in case they detect the softness of the flannel backing and guess what their own Christmas presents are. Obviously.

It's not yet 7am, but I'm already excited about our plans for today. It is a rare thing to force your children to watch television, but today I will be pinning them both to the sofa and insisting that they watch Freaky Friday with me. As children, my sister and I watched this repeatedly and for a while it was our favourite film. Today they are showing the original and very wonderful 1970s version. For my English readers, it's on today at 11.30am on C4...for everyone else, I would implore you to go to great lengths to snaffle a copy out if you haven't already seen it*.

Florence x

* It should be said noted that this is a recommendation from my ten year old self - having not actually watched it for nearly 25 years, it could be dire, but my memories of it are of it being a cinematic masterpiece. A girl wakes up to find herself in her mother's body and the whole day (yes, it's a Friday) becomes totally freaky...it's a wonderful premise for a film, no?

And just in case you missed it the first time, my PDF sewing patterns currently all have 20% off, which will automatically deducted at the checkout. This runs until midnight on Christmas Eve, for those doing any last minute sewing.

Cushion-making & a board game guide

noreply@blogger.com (Florence (Flossie Teacakes)) — Mon, 19 Dec 2011 11:16:00 +0000

Last Friday I started making a cushion for my grandmother who I'll be seeing on Christmas day. I chose tiny floral prints that, to me, feel wintry and snow-speckled, but that I'm hoping will look fresh and spring-like later in the year: I'm full of changeling perceptions and I'm hoping she will be too. The darker turquoise print that you can see is part of Denyse Schmidt's Hope Valley collection and is one of my favourites and a print that I'm hoping gives this collection of colours a bit of umph...as I fear that without it they could be rather wishy-washy.

Friday was one of those days when I loved the different processes of everything I was doing and revelled in the fiddliness of the tiny pieces from cutting them out, to piecing them together, snipping the loose threads away and pressing the seams. Notable, because some days I just feel frustrated by these things and race through them burning my fingers on the iron as I go: pressing the seams open on 2" squares has ample digit-burning potential in the wrong frame of mind!

Unfortunately, the light had gone by the time this last photograph was taken, hence the rather hideous colours. I've always pressed seams to the side in the past, but pressing them open has been something of a revelation. It seems to give a neater finish and, once sewn seams have begun intersecting one another, also makes a smaller task of unpicking a small area to realign things. And yes, it makes me post photos of things from the back instead of the front (those are photos for another post, as I haven't got around to photographing the finished cushion yet).

Which leads me to board games (yes, something of a non sequitur to cushion making). In the winter we tend to play a huge amount of them and I'm always on the look out for new suggestions. I thought I'd put together a list of some of our own favourites, just in case, like me, you're trying to winkle out some new ones to play over Christmas.

When our children were much younger my sister-in-law bought us what we refer to as 'The Crow Game' but which is actually called Orchard and is made by the wonderful Haba company. The playing pieces are small, coloured wooden pieces of fruit, dispensed from tiny wicker baskets. It's a wonderful game for colour recognition and counting and, because you work as a team against the crow, there's none of the tension associated with other games if you're playing with a very young child who is prone to nose-planting their face into the carpet and howling if they lose. We played it often until our youngest child was about 6. It feels like a very special heirloom quality game and it's now been safely packed away into the loft to be brought out if and when we have grandchildren. A miniature, more inexpensive version is now available too, but as an indulgent gift, the larger set is will be very much treasured.

We've also passed many happy weekends playing Post the Most from Orchard Toys, a game where you take on the role of a postmaster or mistress and race your way around a 3D island delivering letters and parcels. At first the rules seemed very complicated, but they're worth persevering with as once you've learnt them it's a wonderful game and is loved by everyone in our family. It's recommended for age 6+, but we've played it from about 4+ and it's only recently that it's started to feel as though they've outgrown it.

The game that I remember playing with my own father, right through childhood and the sulky teenage years, is Othello. It's a wonderfully simple game, but one which, with age, can be played with increasing levels of strategy and planning, thinking several moves ahead. We have our own set now and our children love the black and white shiny counters, which somehow make me think of after dinner mints, as much as I did at their age. Unfortunately my husband won't play this game with me, as my years of training have made me unbeatable and I tend to take on my father's highly-competitive and high-spirited persona when I play against him.

Our most recent board game purchase is Harry Potter Cluedo. We bought this in September for my daughter's birthday and the fact that we are now photocopying clue sheets, having worked our way through those that came with it, I'm guessing that we must have played this nearly fifty times. It's played in the same way as the traditional Cluedo, but has been fully Potterised in a way that works wonderfully. Players apparate through fireplaces to get to different locations, paying to do so with pinches of flue powder and a whole host of other Pottery details have been added in to the way that the game is played.

For times when I'd really rather curl up with a book and have some peace and quiet, I suggest playing the traditional Chinese Checkers.We all seem to get caught up in our own strategy during this game and the room becomes an oasis of calm. Perfect. In the same vein, several years ago, my sister bought my daughter Mice and Cheese Peg Solitaire. It's the perfect game to play alone, but we frequently play together too by taking it in turns to eliminate a mouse. It's the most adorable set and I believe there are other animals available too.

By contrast, noisier games that we love are Don't Say It, which I believe may be similar to Articulate (does anyone have both and know which is better? And is the adult version of Articulate playable for children?), Pass the Bomb and Pictureka Game, which we play a lot.

Every Christmas Eve, I give my family a pre-Christmas gift - a small something that the three of them can share. This year, on Nancy's recommendation, I'll be giving them the award winning game Carcassonne. I'd love to hear what your own favourites are.

Florence x

My PDF sewing patterns: 20% off until Christmas day

noreply@blogger.com (Florence (Flossie Teacakes)) — Fri, 16 Dec 2011 10:54:00 +0000

Thank you so much to everyone who took part in my small corner of Sew, Mama, Sew's giveaway week where I gave away six copies of my patterns - it was so lovely to have so many entries and to hear who you might be sewing for, as per the SMS rules, winners have been announced on the original giveaway post.

For those who didn't win, you might like to know that from now until midnight on the 24th December (just in case there are any elves working up until the last minute) all my patterns will carry a 20% discount that will automatically be applied at the checkout.

Reductions are as follows:

Tabitha Bag - was £6.50 / now £5.20

Lis iPhone Holder - was £6.50 / now £5.20

Cocoon Laptop Cover - was £6.50 / now £5.20

Three Bears' Sleeping Bag Pattern - was £5.00 / now £4.00

Nesta Herb Teabag Holder - was £4.50 / now £3.60

Sesame Doorstop Pattern - was £3.50 / now £2.80

Slouchy Make-Up Bag Pattern - was £3.50 / now £2.80

Happy Morning Hair Accessories Board - was £3.50 / now £2.80

If you'd to buy, or see more of my patterns, simply go through to my patterns page and either purchase directly, or click through to the relevant place for more information about each pattern. The discount won't be mentioned on the individual pages, but as soon as you are taken through to PayPal you'll see that it has been automatically applied and the reduced price is the only thing you'll see.

Thank you so much to anyone who has bought one of my patterns this year - I really appreciate it! Wishing you a lovely weekend (and after my low-level grumblings yesterday about lack of festive weather, snow is now swirling as I type! I hope you have whatever weather you have been hoping for outside your own window),

Florence x

An apron for my daughter

noreply@blogger.com (Florence (Flossie Teacakes)) — Thu, 15 Dec 2011 10:50:00 +0000

You may remember that I'd been bemoaning the lack of time to make my daughter an apron for her Christmas stocking (as she has outgrown her old one). It was an idea I'd decided to put on a shelf for another time, but then we had a conversation about bags, which wouldn't naturally make you think of making an apron, but read on, because in my head it became the only adequate response to such a conversation).

My daughter was trying on my handbag in the mirror one morning (not handmade, but rather, Radley, whose handbags I adore) when we began discussing her compulsion to try it on every time I'm not actually attached to it. I was happy about this as one of her Christmas gifts is a little bag (not Radley, as she's only ten), when she said that she loved the bags that I make myself more than anything else though and dreamt of having a miniature sized one for herself. Ouch (although yes, there's an element of delight in discovering that my child loves the bags that I make, more than those made by Radley). I had considered making her a bag, but then had bought one due to the many other gifts I've made this year and the need to sleep at some point. However, the bag-related guilt induced by this conversation, meant that it suddenly felt absolutely imperative that her apron, at least, should be handmade by me.

She has begun stealing my own apron when she bakes, so I knew that I only needed to scale it down a little to have a perfectly sized one. I considered making it in practical home dec. weight fabric with an intense Amy Butler pattern which would camouflage evidence of baking mishaps...but frivolity won out (not least because that morning a friend had dropped in the Liberty Home Sewing book that I'd lent to her and I remembered all over again the loveliness of an apron with splashes of Tana lawn). So here it is, to my own design & pattern: it uses some Kaffe Fasset green shot cotton, and some Liberty Tana lawn for the bindings. It has little floral-bound welt pockets at either side, a detail that I'm completely loopy about.

I would like to keep it for myself, which is a good indication that she will love it, as over the last year she seems to have developed very similar tastes in clothing.

The above photo gives the appearance of my skulking by a wall....I don't recall actively skulking, but I'm quite delighted to find that it may have happened inadvertently while photographing the apron (purely because I like the word. It also appears that I am skulking in a strange top that causes me to bear a close resemblance to a human blueberry...in reality it is a soft heathery grey).

In other thoughts, I, and the rest of my family, are feeling distinctly unChristmassy. Having been spoilt by recent Christmases which have had snow to either side of the actual day, the unseasonably warm weather this year is meaning that it's difficult to adopt a festive mindset. We are at the stage when even a morning frost is being longed for. It makes me think of a Christmas from my childhood when my family lived in Melbourne, Australia and my sister and I paddled on our new stripy fabric lilos in the sea at Brighton beach in the sunshine on Christmas day. It was really lovely, but to an English person - used to dark nights and the glisten of frost at Christmas - distinctly odd and unfestive. I don't remember having a tree that year and seem to recall that the presents came from pillowcases, rather than stockings (I'm guessing that this had something to do with us having recently moved there, as I'm sure that Australia celebrates Christmas with just as much enthusiasm as anywhere else might). What kind of weather do you associate with Christmas...and do you think that it does colour your festive spirit?

Florence x

Sew, Mama, Sew Giveaway week...

noreply@blogger.com (Florence (Flossie Teacakes)) — Tue, 13 Dec 2011 10:13:00 +0000

For the last few years Sew, Mama, Sew! have run a giveaway week (or day) and on every occasion I've missed it. This year, by a strange quirk of fate, rather than any spectacular organisational feat on my part, I'm delighted to be find that the week isn't yet over and that I still have time to join the many other sewers giving things away.

I've chosen two of my patterns to give away and will be giving away three copies of each. The first might appeal to those with small children in their lives: The Three Bears' Sleeping Bag PDF pattern will help you make either a Baby Bear, Mummy Bear or Daddy Bear sized sleeping bag depending on the size of the creature needing a warm bed! I've given so many of these as gifts, as well as making them for my own childrens' bears, and they always seemed to be received with complete delight. If you'd like to investigate further into the kind of animals these beds will accommodate, you can see this post, entitled Unwieldy Antlers and Other Sizing Issues. Or if you'd like fabric inspiration, then you might like to head over to my Flickr pool, where you can see some of the lovelies that other seamstresses have whipped up using the pattern.

The second pattern being given away is the Slouchy Make-Up Bag pattern - it's attractive enough to be left out on a dressing table and is lovely to give as a gift (or to make for yourself in a moment of self-gifting). Unlike the Three Bears' pattern, I have no post detailing the size of make-up brushes that can be squeezed into this bag, but I find it to be cavernous and that it's slouchy form when opened allows for easy rummaging!

Whether you've come over from Sew, Mama, Sew or are a regular reader, just leave a comment below letting me know which pattern you'd like to win and I'll draw the six winners as soon as giveaway week has closed. Remember to either check back to see if you've won or leave an email address if you don't have an active Blogger profile.

As this is a PDF that will be emailed to the winners, it is of course, open internationally.

Florence x

UPDATED: WINNER & PATTERN SALE ANNOUNCEMENT

Thank you so much for all your entries. The proportion of people who chose the Three Bears' Sleeping Bag was so high, that it seemed fairer to choose four winners for that pattern and two for the slouchy make-up bag. Congratulations to the winners - your patterns have now been emailed to you (except for Elaine - I'm having trouble finding an email address for you), so please do let me know if you haven't received it for any reason.

The Three Bears' Sleeping Bag PDF pattern:

Tess of Two Hippos

Nikki of Sew Quine

Archie the Wonder Dog

Elaine of Dashasel

The Slouchy Make-Up Bag Pattern:

Katey

Rebecca of Our Busy Little Bunch

For those that didn't win, you may like to know that my patterns all have 20% off from now until midnight on the 24th December (for elves working up until the last minute). The discount won't be shown on the individual posts relating to the patterns, but as soon as you click through to pay, you'll see that the reduced price is automatically displayed - no need for a discount code.

Thank you so much for entering and thanks also to Sew, Mama, Sew for a brilliantly organised giveaway week. Comments on this post are now closed.

Florence x

On sweet things...

noreply@blogger.com (Florence (Flossie Teacakes)) — Mon, 12 Dec 2011 12:56:00 +0000

In between all the sewing, there's been a lot of baking going on in our house. My daughter recently bought The Great British Bake Off Cookbook; a book which she took to bed with her for several nights, so captivating were its pages! She's made several things from it, but when we had some friends coming over for dinner one evening, I snaffled it away for myself and made these chocolate and pistachio smothered brandy snaps.

I hadn't made brandy snaps before and they were featured as Mary Berry's 'Technical Challenge' in the book. There's a lovely process to make them: starting with making the mixture, then baking small flattened balls of it in the oven in small batches....

...before unpeeling the cooked mixture from the tray and wrapping it around an oiled wooden handle before it cools.

And finally, once hard, they can be dipped in melted chocolate and rolled in crushed pistachio pieces. They were simpler and far more fun to make than I'd expected, however, I made them again this weekend and, distracted by having lots of people in the room, I forgot to flatten the balls down and they didn't look as appealing as these ones, so perhaps I had some beginner's luck the first time.

However, taste wise, I'm not sure that the recipe for the Wholemeal Honey Cake that Hugh Fearnley Whittingstall shares in his Guardian column can be beaten - my daughter made this a few weeks ago on Nancy's recommendation and it is a cake that left a grown man nearly weeping with happiness as he ate it. I have bought her the River Cottage Cakes handbook as one of her Christmas gifts on the basis of how well loved this cake was (the recipe was devised by River Cottage's head chef).

In amongst other things there may have also been some chocolate mice...

And some stained glass window biscuits - again, made by my daughter.

Have you found yourself carried along in a floury frenzy of Christmas baking? This time of year always makes me feel particularly kitcheny...

Florence x

A finished quilt and some random thoughts

noreply@blogger.com (Florence (Flossie Teacakes)) — Mon, 05 Dec 2011 21:37:00 +0000

You know that strange feeling when you walk back into your house after arriving home from holiday and it feels strangely chilled and unlived in? Sometimes it can feel like that when you arrive at your blog to begin writing when you've not been there very much (although the lovely comments that have arrived in between times make me feel as though someone has been keeping it warm, even if it's not me - thank you!).

The last month has been almost solid work (including weekends) and blogging has taken an unwelcome backseat. The lovely old cherry wood chair that I sit on at my sewing machine has a hole in the wicker seat that I haven't had time to fix and I've now been sewing perched on the edge of the chair frame for over three weeks. I'm actually going to inherit the chair above from my daughter's desk soon, but first I have to sand and wax the chapel chair that I have waiting in the garage as a replacement for her. I am so looking forward to finding the time to do this. The other thing that hasn't happened was making the advent calendar - the pieces are still all cut up waiting to be sewn and I don't think that will be finished until January now...I was so excited about what I was going to fill it with that I'm now thinking I may have to think of something that can be counted down to in January. Actually, just writing that has given me an idea for something that I know I definitely will make in January. Hurrah! I love it when inspiration strikes like that. All week I've been using an orange pencil that my friend Jenny bought for me that is embossed with the words: 'all good ideas arrive by chance', and now I'm in total agreement).

In between other things though, my mother's quilt has finally been quilted and bound and eventually found its way up on to the picture rail to be photographed. I have only just discovered the wonder that is the picture rail when it comes to displaying things - you can temporarily stick pins into the wood right at the back, without this activity ever being visible and it's a fantastic way to view something mid-sewing to see what is and isn't working.

This silk was a real delight to work with. It came from The Silk Route stand at the K&S show at Alexandra Palace and for the most part is Indian silk dupion. It is, I think I may have said before, mixed with some Liberty tana lawn bought at the same show from the Fabrics Galore stand.

It's not at all the quilt I'd imagined it would be - the Liberty print was only ever intended for the back, but I found that I hadn't bought quite enough silk and so it was introduced to the front of the quilt, which then lead to the flower head appliques in the centre and it being hand-quilted with flower silhouettes. I feel apprehensive now as to whether my mother will love it when she's already fallen in love with the simplicity of the quilt I made using Katy's Kona Radiance bundle (I took the quilt on holiday with us in October and she admired it covetously at every opportunity - at the time I was secretly delighted as I thought her quilt would end up being very similar...now I just feel worried. I know that she'll love it because I've made it especially for her, but I wanted her to also love it because it was a quilt that she'd adore irrespective of who'd made it).

And finally, a quilt patch:

These are the other random things that spring to mind as things that need saying:

I commissioned someone to make something for my husband's Christmas gift which I am so wishing that I could share it with you now as the person who made it is so incredibly talented and makes his things with such care - it arrived the other day and I'm head over heels in love with it. I loathe how cloak and daggers things must be - Christmas is most unconducive to blogging (my lovely mother has been asked not to come visiting by the way, just in case you had been wondering).
Only days after Melanie told me that her cat had brought a mouse in and unleashed it in her house, my cat has done the same thing. I had thought mousing season was over! This evening saw my daughter and her friend trying to winkle a live one out of the house for me as I stood pathetically on the sidelines. While this makes me feel awful I'm pleased that she's so completely no-nonsense about things in the face of my squeamishness. She actually giggles during an activity like that....oh to be more of her ilk.
Finally, after several years of looking, I've found a pair of leather boots that actually fit. After a search that looked like it would end with another bootless winter (well, not entirely as I do have two suede pairs, but they're not overly practical for wintry walks), I came across Duo Boots. Every one of their boots comes in a range of twelve different calf sizes from narrow to wide and the website even tells you how high the boot is so that you can measure whether it will bang into your kneecap when you walk (I'm 5ft1, so this is a fundamental problem with many boots. For a while I bought children's boots, but they tend to only come to mid-calf which doesn't provide the type of warmth that I'm looking for). Oh and every boot has customer reviews saying how it really fits, which I found insanely helpful and appealed to my tendency to over-research every purchase in life. Do go and have a look as they offer worldwide free delivery! I'm not crazy about the heel on the pair I bought, but I feel my reasons for that are possibly slightly loopy, so I shall just say that in every other respect I like them and they fit perfectly.
This morning I needed to dig out an old video for something relating to another secret Christmas present (yet again, I'd so love to share this with you). When we bought our very first bottom-of-the-range digital camera nearly ten years ago our little girl was tiny and we seemed to use the video function on it a lot to try and capture all her loveliness. It produced silent, jerky footage that even at the time looked magical and old. When I looked through some of the videos this morning I actually kept sighing and gasping out loud (I never talk to myself or even sing out loud when I'm in the house on my own, so it felt noticeably odd, but they were so lovely that I felt utterly overwhelmed looking at them). It suddenly made me wish we took more video footage...I love taking photographs so much that the recording function is almost completely redundant.

I'd love to hear if you have any of your own random thoughts to share,

Florence x

A fledgling conquership & a request

noreply@blogger.com (Florence (Flossie Teacakes)) — Tue, 29 Nov 2011 14:59:00 +0000

As you may be surmising from my lack of posts this month: I am either sewing like a little dervish or have disappeared into a pit of despair that prevents me from even having the will to turn my laptop on. Luckily, it's the former. And despite all the busyness (or perhaps that should be because of) I am having so much fun and have found myself throwing in unnecessary challenges that could make things go very horribly wrong, but seem to be landing sunny side up.

I'm currently writing a quilt pattern - yes, the one that I started over a month ago that has seen me spending days drawing shapes for the applique element of it and more days learning to use Adobe Illustrator properly so that I can digitise all my pieces. It's a pattern for a quilt top, rather than the whole quilt, which means that I won't be instructing on how to quilt or bind it (if you're looking for help with that though, you can see my tutorial about how to make a patchwork quilt from beginning to end). So when I finished the quilt top last week it should have been a case of quilting it in my usual, safe way with lots of straight lines and then getting on with writing the pattern up. But for some reason I decided to potentially ruin the freshly made quilt top by giving free-motion quilting another try (in the past my brief attempts have left me feeling a little like I've been having a conversation with someone in Spanish; a language which I don't speak). I wonder if the need to try again came out of a sense that I had no right to be writing a quilt pattern if I was still shirking the free-motion issue after four years of making quilts. But either way, I know that I've felt constantly frustrated that it wasn't in my repertoire of sewing skills.

So I pre-wound several bobbins worth of thread, decamped to the dining room table where there's more space and began the adventure. To a seasoned free-motion quilter I have little doubt that there will be a hundred visible flaws in the curves and swirls that I've produced...but for me it was something of a fledgling success that I adored doing and can't wait to improve upon it. It made me feel slightly giddy when I stood back and looked at the entire quilt: I had finally conquered something that I'd thought impossible for me.

In between making this quilt and writing the pattern, I've also finally finished my mother's quilt which I'll hopefully show you soon. There has been an awful lot of hand-sewing as I've finished off the bindings for both quilts, which for me means that I get to watch television - something which I very rarely do. Last year, on my father's recommendation I started reading The Slap, but abandoned it half-way through as the characters didn't have enough redeeming features to make reading the rest of the book feel worthwhile. However, when Karen said that it had been serialised for television and that it was actually very good, I suggested this to my husband as the thing that we might watch while I did my sewing in the evenings. We have gobbled up all five episodes on iPlayer and now have a painful wait for each to be aired weekly in real time. The characters are only marginally more likable than those in the novel, but it's somehow very compelling viewing. So lovelies, especially the UK-based contingency...do you have any recommendations for what we can watch on iPlayer or 4od while we wait to keep us going? Every time we watch television we wonder at why we don't do it more often as it's so incredibly relaxing and provides some much-needed mindlessness (and I don't mean that in a derrogatory way or in a way that's a comment on the actual programme - I more mean that being passively entertained is a very good way of switching off). As my husband said to me last week after we'd been pondering over a problem: I'm coming to believe that thinking could be a very overrated thing.

Florence x

Half-finished

noreply@blogger.com (Florence (Flossie Teacakes)) — Fri, 25 Nov 2011 10:39:00 +0000

It was only when Nina very sweetly emailed to ask if all was well that I realised that I'd taken something of an unintended blog break. Time has galloped away in the way that it so often can in the run-up to Christmas. However, it's a time of year that I love and although I'm a little overwhelmed by the number of things I'm hoping to achieve in the three weeks before the Christmas school holidays begin, there's also something lovely about the cosy chaos of industry, and even the unsightly mound that begins to form on top of my wardrobe as a stash of gifts begins to stack up.

The two pictures above are part of a project that's taken up the vast majority of my time. It is a gift for one of my deliciously lovely nephews, but from the moment I dreamt it up (or half dreamt...actually I woke up one morning at 4am and spent two hours planning it out in my head) I also decided to write it up as a pattern...for that reason it's taking several times as long as it might.

Unbelievably, for it now seems like a lifetime since I began, I am still working on my mother's silk quilt. I've been trying to fit it in around around other things and so last weekend hand-quilting the flowers took place during the visits of two different groups of lovely friends. Obviously, this way of working isn't ideal...it's only in retrospect that I can see that my stitches may not have been quite as neat as they appeared in the cosy fog of good company and a few glasses of wine.

And then there is the advent calendar tutorial that I'd hoped to write after a few requests for it following my handmade calendar from last year. Even though much of the work has been done and templates and pattern pieces have all been completed, somehow I think this may be one for next year as there's little point to an advent calendar tutorial shared on the 1st December. My only hope is that I will at least manage to finish the sample calendar so that it can be used from December 1st. I'll let you know who it's for and what will go inside it if that actually happens.

I have so many things still to do and make over the next three weeks that a few days ago I even found myself looking into buying new aprons for my children, because they have outgrown the ones that I made for them and I don't think that I'm going to find the time (and by this I mean that of course the time does exist, but possibly in a way where in finding it I may also drive myself slightly loopy) to make them myself...this feels quite foreign and most unreal...how can there not be time to run up two little aprons? And then I discovered how difficult it is to find aprons for older children that are over 3ft high. Just in case you find yourself in the same predicament I found some goodies on Not on the Highstreet here and also here (they have a fantastic selection for older children with non-babyish aeroplanes, apples and elephants on). I still haven't ordered them yet as I'm finding the idea of buying something that I should really make a traumatic one...and just in case you're wondering if I couldn't have whipped a few up in the time it took me to search on the internet for them, I've just wondered that myself, but then remembered that the bulk of my searching took place at around 5am one morning. A search that was somewhat more sociable than the roar of my sewing machine springing into action for an early morning wake-up call.

On the apron front, have your children (if you have any) been utterly inspired by the Junior Bake Off? We weren't aware it was airing at the time, but we have since fallen in love with it (as well as the adorable and very accomplished winner, Freya) while watching it on iPlayer. It has set off a flurry of independent baking in our house and my children are currently devising their own in-house bake off for this weekend where parents must try and out-bake their own children and vice versa. Judging by the appearance of the scones that they rustled up earlier this week I would be a very unlikely winner (scones are my weakness: they never rise and rarely look tempting. By contrast, my children's looked golden, delicious and well-risen on their first attempt). Oh and does anyone have Mary Berry's Great British Bake Off: How to Bake? Is it wonderful and full of baking secrets?

Florence x

Quilts & creaturefying babies...

noreply@blogger.com (Florence (Flossie Teacakes)) — Tue, 15 Nov 2011 11:06:00 +0000

Hello lovelies, here's a little more of the silk quilt that I'm making for my mother. The quilt is basically squares set on point around a central panel. Some of the squares of silk are interspersed with a delicious Liberty lawn, so I chose to recreate the flower heads from the Liberty print in the central panel.

I recreated the flower heads by cutting up tiny misshapen pieces of silk and then appliquéd them using a closed zigzag stitch.

I never normally put my appliqué work in a hoop, but on my last visit to the local haberdashers I found that they had very inexpensive spring-bound hoops (I think they were priced around £4) and one found its way into my basket. Although it's not strictly necessary, it's nice to have the fabric so well stretched out and it felt like a little less work to move the hoop, rather than the fabric. Unlike an embroidery hoop, this hoop allows the fabric to sit flat against the bed of the machine.

Appliqué has found its way into my projects less and less over recent years, perhaps because my children have become older, but every time I use this technique I remember how very much I love this way of sewing and how incredibly satisfying it is.

While we're on the subject of children, I feel compelled to share with you something I came across on Pinterest last night.

This photo is the property of Wild Things

I find these dresses almost unbearably cute. As I said on Pinterest, when I look at them I find myself wishing for another baby purely for the purpose of being able to squeeze her into one of them. For those of you that have a real life baby to creaturefy, you can find the clever Etsy seller who makes them here. Delightfully, the shop name is Wild Things, which will hold double appeal to any fans of the Maurice Sendak book.

On the subject of children dressing up as animals, this was something that once they reached toddlerhood, both my children delighted in, but as babies, my husband and I took the rather peculiar stance that dressing them up as animals without their agreement was infringing on their dignity...I now wonder at all the fun we missed out on, as I now think they would love looking at photographs of their baby selves dressed as all sorts of forest creatures (we were very young when we had our first child and somewhat earnest in our approach to our new role as parents...just thinking about this now makes me laugh). Are there any things that you decided upon for your babies that you now look back upon with bemusement?

Florence x

Half-finished offerings

noreply@blogger.com (Florence (Flossie Teacakes)) — Mon, 14 Nov 2011 10:47:00 +0000

Posts were thin on the ground last week as I'm finding it difficult to fit them in around the other things that I'm doing at the moment. I rarely have unfinished projects lying around, but now, added to the coat and skirt that I talked about last week, the time scale of things means that I'm hopping between writing two patterns, a tutorial, making several Christmas presents, and learning to use Adobe Illustrator properly....so you may be seeing a lot of half-finished things appearing here over the next few weeks.

These silks are being used to make my mother a quilt for Christmas. My mother has wanted a quilt for a long time and has taken to stealing my father's in the evenings, while he sweetly freezes next to her (although she says that he is always too warm, so this isn't actually as quilt-greedy as it sounds). When I discussed the idea of making her her very own quilt we decided upon a large, blousey floral scheme that I'd spotted in a stunning quilt made by Jane Brocket, largely drawing on the collections of Kaffe Fassett, Philip Jacobs and Martha Negley. I made several attempts at narrowing down my choices, but became increasingly worried that they might not be quite right once they arrived - the prints tend to be on such a large scale that it's difficult to tell from online swatches what they may be like in reality. Eventually, I decided that I'd rather work with plain silks in varying shades of English sea - mostly brooding and dark with occasional hints of light in amongst them. My mother's always loved the sea and I knew that even though it might not be as bold a quilt, it was a safer option which felt more as though it would properly reflect 'essence of Mama' within the fabrics...and I've realised as I write that it's very similar colours to the velvet ribbon cushion that I made for her a few years ago. I bought these silks several weeks ago at the Knitting and Stitching show....without consulting my mother over this fabric u-turn...which will mean that she may find this a surprising quilt to unwrap on Christmas day.

Having now worked with silk several times I felt I had more of an idea of how I could best work with the slippery eels. These are Indian silk dupioni which give a deliciously crisp rustle, which in the end I decided to retain by not pre-washing them....so it will now be a dry-clean only quilt. I interfaced every piece with ultra-soft interfacing and then bought a pinking blade for my rotary cutter so that the edges would be even less prone to fraying. Finally, I've been sewing with a 1/2" seam.

I love that I have learnt something that felt a little mind-blowing making this quilt. I've always been a pressing-the-seams-to-one-side kind of girl, but for this quilt I chose to press them open. I know that quilters tend to be split on which is the best way...but for me pressing them open was rather a revelation; I couldn't believe how much neater and more perfect everything looked and I actually thought it gave a much nicer finish from the right side too. So I have leapt over to the other side and will never press to the side again (except on especially lazy days, as I do believe that this way requires more frequent pressing).

In my next post I'll show you a little more of this quilt as the quilt top is now finished and I'm busily hand-quilting it with hand-drawn flower motifs whenever I get a spare moment....I can see that I may still be hand-quilting it on Christmas eve.

How is your own Christmas sewing going?

Florence x

A conversation with Sarai Mitnick

noreply@blogger.com (Florence (Flossie Teacakes)) — Tue, 08 Nov 2011 07:55:00 +0000

Today, I'm completely delighted to be a stop on Sarai's blog tour to celebrate and publicise the launch of her book the Colette Patterns Sewing Handbook (which I reviewed yesterday). When Sarai asked me if I'd like to be involved, my mind instantly leapt to all the technical pattern drafting questions I'd like to ask her. However, I've realised that they somehow got lost once I'd begun reading her book - partly because it answers so many questions, but also because lots of new, non-technical questions bubbled to the surface in response to her writing. I hope you enjoy reading our conversation. Photos throughout the post are by Colette Patterns.

Hello Sarai, I’m so delighted to be a stop on your book tour. At the time of typing these questions I’ve just finished your book and it’s wonderful! It’s the book that I’d hoped it might be when I learnt that you’d written one, and then so much more. But it’s left me wondering how you managed the last year of keeping your pattern company and blog running without any visible sign of being distracted by writing what is, not only an incredibly comprehensive sewing guide to dressmaking, but also a deliciously lovely handful of new patterns that have been carefully designed to showcase the skills you teach within the book. How did you do it all?

I'll be honest, it's been a challenging year! I tried to approach the whole enterprise in a very organized way. I knew I'd need a lot of limits to keep my sanity in check.

While writing the book, I divided my weeks roughly in half and spent three days a week working on writing or editing or pattern making or illustrating for the book (yep, I did all those things), and three or four days a week on my pattern business. It was a bit grueling at times, but it helped to know that the book was a limited time project and I'd be able to return to a relatively normal life when it was complete. Of course, that hasn't quite happened yet!

I also got more help during the time I was writing. I brought in more guest bloggers, and had an extra pair of hands in the studio to help me write tutorials for the blog. It also helped that I have an extremely supportive partner. That can't be underestimated!

The book feels very different to any other I’ve ever read on dressmaking. Your tutelage is given with an affirming voice that embraces the many different body shapes to be sewn for with kindness, warmth and acceptance and an awareness that body image is (or at least should be, if it’s to be most successful) inextricably intertwined with dressmaking. Has this positive voice grown and come about as a result of your dressmaking journey with Colette Patterns or was this ethic rooted within you even when you were working in an entirely different sector in an earlier life? And if it was, who was the lovely person who taught you to think in this way?

Like most women, I've struggled with body image my whole adult life. Actually, even before I was an adult, which is so sad thinking back on it! I think it was probably when I was about 18 and started reading feminist classics like Naomi Wolf's The Beauty Myth that my eyes were opened to how women are surrounded by images that reinforce our negative feelings about ourselves.

At one point, I remember thinking, wow, this is the only body I will ever have and I'm wasting my best, healthiest years feeling bad about it! It's just ridiculous.

I think sewing your own clothing forces you to confront your body in a way that can be a little painful, if we're not careful and loving about it. I think it's important to remind ourselves that body variations are normal, healthy, and part of what makes women beautiful! No one looks like the model on the cover of Shape magazine. Not even she does.

I love that throughout the pages, the psychology of dressmaking is touched upon, as well as the skills and techniques needed to make it all happen. For example, as a result of reading your book I rethought the way that I shopped for fabric and realised that I’m often guilty of buying materials that I like to think I’d wear, rather than being honest with myself and admitting that if it’s not minimal, navy (with the occasional hint of mustard) and rather plain, then I probably won’t wear it. For me, the dressmaking psychology aspects ended up being just as essential reading as the more technical chapters. Did you waiver over whether to include the less conventionally covered dressmaking issues, or did you begin writing with a very clear idea of what you wanted your book to be?

I think I had a pretty clear idea. A lot of those topics came from my experiences blogging. With a blog, you have a chance to have a real conversation with other sewists, not just instruct them on techniques. I've found that a lot of us encounter the same types of issues, and that they're just as important to our creativity and pride in sewing as the stuff that's normally covered in books.

Blogging really was essential to coming up with the concept for the book as a whole. It really filled me in on where a lot of us struggle, the questions we have, and the pitfalls we face. I really wanted to address the big issues in sewing, rather than write a straightforward reference book. I think there are a lot of great options for that out there.

I love that the book doesn’t give any illusions that a pattern should just fit without any tweaking, whether it be a Colette pattern or anyone else’s, as such an expectation often leaves one feeling as though the hours of hard work have all been pointless due to ultimately finding that one is in possession of an upsettingly non-standard body shape. The book explains the many fit issues in a clear and simple way, covering everything from full and small bust adjustments, to sway back or large waist. I remember the very first time I made something from a pattern and on discovering that it didn’t flatter me when I’d carefully chosen which measurements would fit me from the back of the packet, I felt a little cheated. Have you felt that this beginner’s naivety is a hurdle that does need some educating or do people generally seem to come at a project suspecting it may take a few toiles or at the very least a seam-ripper to get the fit right?

That's exactly why I included so much information on fitting! Normally, it seems like fitting is considered sort of a big, scary topic that's left for more advanced sewists. But the reality is that most patterns could use a little tweaking here and there to fit properly, and if a beginner recognizes this up front, she'll have a lot more options.

A lot of it just comes down to confidence. I wanted to show that, while fitting can be a complicated business, often you just need to learn to make a few tweaks that you can use over and over! For example, I'm quite short waisted. Shortening bodices before sewing is a really easy fix to make, but it took me years to realize that this was something I should do. I felt "safer" following the pattern somehow.

I just wanted to tell others what I wish I'd learned as a beginner: It's totally fine to play with your pattern until you get it the way you want!

The Colette Patterns brand aesthetic (that sounds terribly corporate – sorry!) is now a very recognisable one: pastel colours, full lipsticked lips, wonderfully feminine and often with a strong feel of vintage boudoir glamour running through the photo shoots. Are these the colours, fabrics and feel that you’re drawn to when putting together your own personal wardrobe or is it an aesthetic that’s come about as you’ve created a brand image for Colette? I suppose what I’m also trying to ask is, is your vision for Colette Patterns a direct extension of your own personal style and taste or are the two things very separate?

That's a really interesting question. I would say that generally, it comes from my own personal style. I love bright pastels (is that an oxymoron?). I think of them as ice cream colors. In my own wardrobe, I tend to temper them with a lot of black and white to cut the sweetness a little, but I can't help but love really pretty, saturated, feminine colors.

I also like clean sort of styles and graphic patterns like stripes and polka dots, so I use a lot of that. I think it would be really hard to create a brand that didn't connect to your own personal aesthetic. But of course, my taste changes a bit, especially with the seasons.

You and your husband have recently moved into a new home together…do you find yourself tempted to dive into making quilts and soft furnishings or is your mind entirely dominated by dressmaking when it comes to sewing?

Oh gosh, yes! I just made my first quilt this year (a baby quilt for my cousin), and recently made a blanket from Pendleton wool. But I have tons of home sewing projects lined up in my mind. I just don't have the time to do them right now!

I think it would be really fun to move into some home sewing and craft topics. I am a really domestic gal at heart. I love most aspects of domestic life, from DIY decorating to cooking. The only thing I'm not so much into is cleaning.

Photograph by Clever Nettle

I only recently discovered that Colette Patterns is named after your cat, Colette, who is named after the writer. I haven’t actually read any of Colette’s writing, but when I did an internet search for her, I found that she was strong, passionate, French, took part in controversial performances at the Moulin Rouge and wore her sexuality on her sleeve. About.com offered me this as an opening line in explanation of who she was: Colette was a writer known for her novels in which women were depicted as full sexual beings. And somehow it all made perfect sense and I could see how your Colette photo shoots give a nod to this spirit. I found little to précis her work in more detail, however, so I’m wondering was it her writing or her person that drew you to name both a cat and a company after this spirited woman?

I adore Colette as a writer. It isn't just her depictions of women, but her recognition of the beauty and pleasure of life in general. When you read Colette, you can't help but remember that there is so much wonder in the world.

Colette was also an animal lover (as I am), and in particular she loved cats (as I do). She said, "There are no ordinary cats." So it was a fitting name for my very elegant, demure black cat.

You write beautifully and clearly have a voice that has much to give outside the parameters of sewing as well as within them. Did writing this book ignite a desire in you to write more widely on other subjects too? Are you able to tell us what might be coming next (aside from a well-deserved rest)?

I've always loved writing, and it's really flattering to hear you say such kind things about my writing style! I've been thinking up other ideas that I may explore more next year, after a break. I am really interested in domestic life, as I said, and sewing has always been connected to that for me. I think creativity in everyday life is such a wonderful antidote to the harried, rushed, money-oriented lives most of us have to lead. I'd love to explore the ideas around creativity and self-sufficiency in different ways.

Finally, while I have this opportunity to ask away, I wonder if you can fathom a fitting issue for me that my covert studies suggest is a problem that many other women struggle with too. The denim (or corduroy) jeans skirt. I love that it can be dressed up or down and look feminine without having made too much effort. However, I am yet to find a skirt that has this conventional jeans fly zip at the front, where it doesn’t cause an odd stomach pouch to form the minute I begin to move. It bulges out over my stomach in a way that jeans never do and it doesn’t matter if the skirt is too big, too small or just right…they all seem to produce a fly that won’t lie flat the minute I start walking. Do you have any idea of why this style so often doesn’t seem to fit and if it can be made or bought in a way that would solve this issue?

I can see why that is. I've had denim skirts that do the same thing.

I think the issue is that, with pants, you have a lot more shaping at the center front seam. That seam really curves around your stomach and between your legs. A skirt can't have that much shaping at the center, though. The seam is meant to go down toward the floor rather than form all the way around your body.

When you bend at the waist in pants, the seam that goes all the way from the center front to center back stays pretty much the same. There's no need for it to bunch up because your legs can move on either side of it. However, in a skirt, the fabric around your legs is connected to the center front seam, so the seam HAS to bunch up when you bend.

This can be an issue with a fly because it adds so much bulkiness. It wants to buckle if it's not held in place. Think about the way a zipper will buckle on a dress sewn in a really lightweight material.

I can't think of a way around it! If it bugs you, I'd say to try eliminating the fly front and using a side or back zipper!

Thank you so much for answering my questions and giving me a sneaky peek at your wonderful book. I hope that you take sewing onto the best-sellers list with it!

Thank you so so much, Florence!

If you'd like to buy a copy of the book you can find it here. You can follow Sarai and her book on the rest of their blog tour below:

Nov 2: Craft Buds – interview and giveaway
Nov. 3: Gertie’s New Blog for Better Sewing – lace insertion tutorial for the Licorice dress
Nov. 4: Sewaholic – book excerpt
Nov. 8: Flossie Teacakes – Interview with Sarai and book review
Nov. 8: A Fashionable Stitch – book excerpt and review
Nov. 9: Pink Chalk Studio – Book review
Nov. 10: Craft Gossip – Interview with Sarai and giveaway
Nov. 11: Bolt Fabric – book review
Nov. 14: True Up: Fabric Fives with Sarai
Nov. 15: Frolic! – On styling the book’s photos
Nov. 15: Threads Magazine – Giveaway
Nov. 16: Whipstitch – book review
Nov. 16: Honey Kennedy – Styling ideas
Nov. 17: A Dress a Day – Interview with Sarai
Nov. 18: Not Martha – book review
Nov. 28: Casey’s Elegant Musings – Project Planning, book excerpt and Casey’s thoughts
Nov. 29: MADE – giveaway
Nov. 30: Sew Weekly – book review
Nov. 30: Oh! Fransson - Elizabeth’s version of the Taffy pattern
Dec. 1: Sew Mama Sew – Guest post from Sarai on grainlines

I hope you enjoyed reading.

Florence x

A review: The Colette Sewing Handbook

noreply@blogger.com (Florence (Flossie Teacakes)) — Mon, 07 Nov 2011 14:07:00 +0000

This book review will be relatively concise (for one prone to verbosity, at least) as tomorrow the book's author, Sarai Mitnick, founder of the wonderful Colette Patterns, will be visiting as part of her book launch blog tour. I think that in many ways the questions that I put to Sarai are a reflection of my thoughts on the book, so I won't repeat myself too much here and you can look forward to hearing Sarai's take on things tomorrow. So, briefly (ahem!)....

I think the publication of the Colette Sewing Handbook may be one of the sewing-related highlights of a dressmaker's year - I know it has been for me. But it may also become that for those who are at the stage of only nervously contemplating and procrastinating over making their first garment, for as with the individual patterns, this book teaches complex things in an incredibly simple way making turning out beautifully-finished, well-fitting garments a possibility even for the previously uninitiated. It's such a good aid to diving in and giving it a go; the combination of patterns and technique explanation means that you will have someone holding your hand at every step during the making of the five patterns included with the book. I remember as I stood on the precipice of jumping off into the adventure of making my first dress it felt like an oddly terrifying thing and my fears of failure were great. Everything felt overwhelming: even the rustle of that first thin tissue paper pattern that once unfolded could never be squeezed back into its envelope again and seemed to tear with alarming ease left me feeling jittery. I wish this book had existed then.

The book is structured around what Sarai pinpoints as the five fundamental elements necessary to produce a successful garment and woven within each of these chapters is all the dressmaking expertise and know-how you might need, illustrating points by using the five sewing patterns that are provided with the book.

The first of the five fundamentals is 'a thoughtful plan'. Here the book explores the psychology of dressing, discussing the chasm that so often exists between what we imagine we'd like to wear and what we actually choose to wear on a daily basis in such an insightful way that since reading it not only have I chosen or drafted patterns and selected fabrics in a different way, I've also kept Sarai's words in mind when buying ready-made garments.

The book also discusses how we feel about our bodies and how this is intertwined with the clothing that we make for ourselves; because the aim should be to make clothes that make you feel fantastic. Sarai's writing in this area is particularly thoughtful and it's an incredibly affirming, embracing book, in keeping with the ethos of the Coletterie blog, but somehow I felt surprised and delighted to find this positivity sprinkled over a book that essentially falls under the blanket of 'text book'. It's done with such a lightness of touch that you find yourself feeling warmed as you read through the pages of the book contemplating new techniques and skills. It is also done with unexpected humour at times - one of my favourite lines in the book was this:

There are many female body types. Yes, sometimes it’s helpful to have the shorthand of saying that you are “pear-shaped” or “apple-shaped.” But when you get down to it, most of our bodies have numerous quirks beyond what a simple fruit metaphor can represent.

The second fundamental given is 'a precise pattern' - here, you're walked through the basics of how to use a dress pattern, from preparing and marking your fabric to finally cutting it out.

The book then moves on to talk about the importance of 'a fantastic fit' as the third fundamental. Sarai is emphatic that for a garment to fit well, any pattern will almost certainly need to be fitted to your shape and I found this to be one of the dominant and more technical themes covered by the book. It offers an extensive reference to redrafting patterns to accommodate every type of imaginable body quirk you may encounter (my own being a short body and a small bust - thankfully I don't need to factor in my large-for-my-frame bottom as this is already taken care of as Colette patterns are cut to flatter curves). Here, the book doesn't simply instruct you as to what steps should be taken to remedy these pattern issues though - it actually teaches the theory behind the steps too - it's this that fosters a more adept, intuitive seamstress who can think around a problem for herself and it's a complete delight to find a book that does this so well.

Finally, 'a beautiful fabric' and 'a fine finish' are covered as the two remaining fundamental elements and you'll find an in depth discussion concerning how to make a successful fabric choice to suit your intended pattern and style, along with a variety of seam finishes,bindings and lining options.

On the basis of those that I've already used from the Colette range, I had expected to love the patterns that come with the book (three of the five provided have already left me thinking about which fabrics I'd use to make them up in); to find the instruction clear; to learn new sewing techniques; and to feel delighted to have so much dressmaking expertise all nicely wrapped up in one place on my bookshelf. The book fulfils all of my expectations - what I hadn't anticipated was that it would be a book that I'd fall in love with beyond the confines of sewing. It marries technical teaching with philosophical thinking around the subject of clothes and dressmaking making it a warm, affirming cuddle of a book that is entirely unique within its genre.

As I said at the start of this review, tomorrow Sarai will be visiting here as part of her book launch blog tour, I do hope you'll check back then when you will be able to read some of the questions and answers we exchanged when I interviewed her a few weeks ago.

If you wish to buy the book in the meantime you can find it here. I can't recommend it highly enough.

Florence x

How to build your own pizza oven

noreply@blogger.com (Florence (Flossie Teacakes)) — Fri, 04 Nov 2011 07:53:00 +0000

If you've arrived here expecting fabric and stitchery, please be reassured that this is just a brief diversion and the needle and thread have only temporarily been usurped by bricks and cement.

It's now several weeks since my husband finished building our pizza oven and you can read more about my take on the whole thing and see our first pizzas here. I'd originally asked my husband if he'd like to step in to do a guest post on the building process as so many of you said you'd be enthusiastic to share such a post with your own husband (or even take up the tools yourself). However, when he started writing about the process he quickly realised that it was something that may not fit into one blog post. Twenty-two pages later, complete with diagrams and measurements, talk of pizza paddles and sourdough starters we've decided that it's really more suited to being offered as a downloadable PDF than a guest post.

So if you'd like to read more you can download it free of charge here.

I should say that while I consider my husband to be stunningly multi talented, he has never put up a shelf or wielded power tools around our house, so hopefully this will reassure any man (or woman) who lacks a passion for DIY that it's perfectly achievable, as long as you have a strong perfectionist streak and a stomach craving pizza to propel you onward.

As projects go though, there's nothing quite like it to gain the respect of men who do possess this ability. In his building mission we have accompanied my husband to reclamation sites and builders merchants and I began to notice that it's a project that commands instant respect. On our family entering a trade-only builder's yard we were viewed with visible bemusement and curiosity. However, after my husband had requested some materials they enquired what he was building...it was like watching moths to a flame as the men gathered around him and the visible shift in how they viewed this obviously non-trade amateur builder was quite something: every man we've come into contact with declared this to be their own dream project and instantly become animated on the subject of how to retain the necessary heat, potential construction methods and building materials. Which makes me think that this is one of those projects that burns inside a man waiting to get out.

If you follow any part of my husband's how-to, then we'd love to hear how you got on, or if you have any of your own hints and tips for building or pizza making then do feel free to share them in the comments section. Again, you can download the 'How to build your own pizza oven' PDF here.

Florence x

Ps: I should also add as I don't think my husband has mentioned this in the PDF: our sleepers will weather down to a more aesthetically pleasing driftwood grey over the winter - we decided to buy new sleepers rather than find reclaimed ones as they're something that often will have been creosoted in their past life...it's not a chemical that you might want in your garden or around food.

The joke about the wide-mouthed frog

noreply@blogger.com (Florence (Flossie Teacakes)) — Wed, 02 Nov 2011 10:55:00 +0000

You might remember my post earlier in the year about Ed Emberley's wonderful drawing books for children. He's now released a line of organic fabric with Cloud 9 and I don't think I've been this excited about fabric designs for children since I first saw Monaluna's foxes (I eventually made the baby bear's sleeping bag from that and am closely guarding the scrap that I have left over).

There's something fresh and vibrant about these prints and they look baby-friendly while maintaining enough dignity to appeal to older children too - and I think that's quite a hard balance to achieve. It's a tricksy task to find a fabric that's suitable for younger children, but that has the longevity not to be cast aside as they grow older.

These wide-mouthed frogs are a complete delight and instantly took me back to my own school days. Do you remember the joke about the wide-mouthed frog? I'm not really a jokey sort of person, but I love this joke. I wonder if Mr Emberley remembered this from his own schooldays when he was designing all those frogs. I showed my daughter the fabric and then performed the joke complete with stretched-mouth and adorable frog voice (it sounded adorable in my head anyway, perhaps partly because when I tell this I'm imagining my boyfriend aged 13 telling it to me....he was quite adorable, especially in frog-mode). My daughter looked bemused and said that she really liked the fabric (Ed's fabric 1: wide-mouthed frog joke 0. Go Ed!).

For those who've forgotten it and wish to impress their own children or friends with it, here's my version (for those that haven't heard this joke, the punch line is in the changing mouth shape at the end of the joke, so it's essential that you tell this joke with a fully-stretched mouth at the relevant places!)

There was once a wide-mouthed frog who decided to venture from his pond and go in search of friendship. He leapt off through the grass until he came across a large black and white stripey animal with a handsome mane and four spindly legs.
Wide-mouthed frog: (Stretch mouth out with fingers and adopt adorable frog voice) Hello, I'm a wide-mouthed frog, who are you and what do you eat?
Zebra: (normal mouth, slightly horsey voice) I'm a zebra and I eat grasses and plants.
Wide-mouthed frog: (Stretch mouth out with fingers and adopt adorable frog voice) Oh, that's nice.

He hopped off hoping to meet someone who would share his enthusiasm for eating insects. Eventually he came across an enormous bird with talons as pointy as knitting needles.
Wide-mouthed frog: (Stretch mouth out with fingers and adopt adorable frog voice) Hello! Who are you and what do you eat?
Eagle: (normal mouth, squawky voice) I'm an eagle and I eat little birds and mice.
Wide-mouthed frog: (Stretch mouth out with fingers and adopt adorable frog voice) Oh that's nice

The wide-mouthed frog wasn't really so sure about that though, so he boinged away and continued to leap until he came across a bearded white animal with kind, curious eyes.
Wide-mouthed frog: (Stretch mouth out with fingers and adopt adorable frog voice) Hello! Who are you and what do you eat?
Goat: (normal mouth, gruff voice) I'm a goat and I'll eat all sorts. I especially like shoes and old car tyres though.
Wide-mouthed frog: (Stretch mouth out with fingers and adopt adorable frog voice) Oh, that's nice!

The frog leapt away feeling slightly puzzled by the goat's food choices, but didn't like to judge. He finally stopped when he came across a large, scaly green animal with lazy eyes and fearsome teeth.
Wide-mouthed frog: (Stretch mouth out with fingers and adopt adorable frog voice) Hello! Who are you and what do you eat?
Alligator: (normal mouth, deep voice) I'm an alligator and I eat wide-mouthed frogs
Wide-mouthed frog: (turn mouth into very small 'o' and adopt high-pitched voice) Oh! How nice, you don't see many of them around here, do you!

Do you love that joke as much as I do?

Oh, and the Cloud 9 goodness doesn't stop with Mr Emberley...do take a look at this post here to see the other collections on the horizon. Fabric tastes are so varied and subjective that not every collection will appeal to every person...which is why I find it so amazing that I love every single one of these collections and from the response on other blogs, that feeling seems to be universal.

So many lovely new lines were launched at quilt market in Houston last week - which new collections have you fallen in love with recently?

Florence x

PS. In other news - have you seen that Colette Patterns are giving away five patterns of your choice and a copy of Sarai's new book to celebrate its launch? You can enter here, where details of the book's blog tour are also shared - I'm so delighted to be a stop on the tour and on the 8th November I'll be sharing an interview with Sarai here (and a book review the day prior to that...too much goodness to cram all into one post).