She really wanted something in a stretch velvet so we found this beautiful emerald green stretch velvet in Tessuti. She didn’t want it to be completely one colour, so we thought it would be good to do a skirt-top style dress. We thought a top out of this black stretch tuelle with black embroidered flowers would be stunning. I also got some green silk to go under the mesh top.

When I got home I draped the fabrics onto my dress dummy & sent this photo to mum as an initial idea. The colours are a bit off in the photo, in real life the velvet is a much better match to the silk & not as blue. Mum’s coming round this weekend to start making the dress with me – I’m really excited, it’ll be a lot of fun to be sewing with Mum again.

Then my birthday came round and I got my wisdom teeth out and I’d always heard that when you get your wisdom teeth out you should eat lots of jelly.

I think you can guess where this is headed…..

To celebrate my birthday (and my gaining of wisdom by losing 4 teeth), I threw a party & made jelly shots.

All of these jelly shots are based on cocktails. I made Mojitos, Cosmos, Whisky Sours, Gin & Tonics, Pina Coladas & Vodka Watermelons.

Without a doubt the best & most popular were the whisky sours & the mojitos (pictured above). The gin & tonics (below), pina coladas (below) & vodka watermelons were OK but I would make a few minor tweaks before making them again. The cosmos were way too boozy & I wouldn’t make them again without a totally different recipe. Given that the mojitos & the whisky sours turned out the best, I thought I’d share my recipes for them with you.

Before I start though, a little note on gelatine. Gelatine is the gelling agent used to set jellies. It’s sold in powered form & in leaves, I have included the brand information for the gelatine I used, but unless you’re using exactly the same brand/grade of gelatine, I’d suggest you do a trial run to get the consistency right. A couple of nights before the party I made 3 x 100ml batches of 1:1 sugar syrup & booze (the cheapest bottle in my cupboard that was about 40%). I put different amounts of gelatine in each batch, (1.5, 2 & 2.5 times the recommended amount). The following morning I checked the results to work out which was the best option for me.

Also, I shouldn’t need to say this, but I will anyway, these jelly shots are particularly delicious & if you don’t watch yourself you’ll end up eating a whole heap & then wonder why you’re drunk. Don’t be fooled, these recipes contain a fair amount of booze so be careful & drink responsibly.

Whisky Sour Jelly Shots
(makes 20 30ml jelly shots)

240ml Whisky (I used Chivas Regal for the party, but I normally make Whisky Sours with Big Peat)
240ml Lemon Juice (strained)
120ml Sugar Syrup
30g McKenzies Edible Gelatine
1 egg white
1 tblsp caster sugar
Maraschino Cherries

Bring the lemon juice & sugar syrup to the boil. Add the gelatine & stir until dissolved. If you’re using powdered gelatine make sure you stir the mixture while slowly sprinkling the gelatine in, otherwise you’ll end up with yucky, clumpy bits. Allow the mixture to cool to about the temperature of a warm bath – basically cold enough that you can dip your finger in & not get burnt. Stir the whisky in & pour into moulds – I used ice cube trays. The jellies should set in 6-8 hours.
Once the jellies have set, pop them out of the moulds onto a plate. Whisk the egg whites until soft peaks form & add the caster sugar. Put a little dollop of egg white mix & a cherry on the top of each jelly & serve.

Mojito Jelly Shots
(makes 20 30ml jelly shots)

150ml White Rum
150ml Lime Juice (strained)
300ml Sugar Syrup
30g McKenzies Edible Gelatine
Bunch of mint + a few leaves to serve

Roughly chop up the mint (keep some for serving thought). Put the lime juice, mint & sugar syrup in a saucepan & bring to the boil. Strain the mixture to remove all mint leaves. Add the gelatine & stir until dissolved. If you’re using powdered gelatine make sure you stir the mixture while slowly sprinkling the gelatine in, otherwise you’ll end up with yucky, clumpy bits. Allow the mixture to cool to about the temperature of a warm bath – basically cold enough that you can dip your finger in & not get burnt. Stir the rum in & pour into a slab tray. The jellies should set in 6-8 hours.
Once the jelly has set, slice the jelly into cubes & arrange on a plate. Chop up the remaining mint & sprinkle over the top.

The extra fabric wasn’t going to arrive until after my birthday, the only problem was that I really wanted to make a new dress to wear on my birthday & I had my heart set on a wrap dress. I’d even gone & bought McCalls 5974 specially. The only solution was to pulled some silk jersey out of my stash & use it to make McCalls 5974. That’s how this dress became my back-up birthday dress.

I can see why this pattern made was number 1 in Pattern Review’s Top 10 Patterns of 2010. It’s super easy to make & it looks fantastic. The instructions were easy to follow – the pattern was really forgiving & didn’t require any tricky fitting or finicky details. The only modification I made was to leave out the zip as there was enough stretch in the fabric. It only took me an afternoon to make too.

The silk jersey it just divine. I love it. I think I’ll make a few more dresses like this for travelling, the silk jersey doesn’t crinkle & is really comfortable. In fact I cannot complain about this dress at all. I can wear it to work, Sunday lunch, Friday night drinks, summer holiday… the list goes on. Every seamstress should have McCalls M5974 in their pattern stash. If you don’t have it – buy it. Now. It’s one of those classic patterns that you’ll make again & again & again & again & again & again…

I’m trying to think what else I can say… Oh yeah, I got new hair – you like?

It was my birthday & then it was my Dad’s birthday, family lunches, Hopak in the Park, Hopak in the Park afterparty, early morning taxis, recovery.

My birthday party, days of testing & planning & cooking & baking for the party (more on that later), more recovery*

Mother’s Day dinners & lunches & shopping trips.

In between all of that – work.

And of course Pinterest… How is it that I can possible spend 3 hours on Pinterest?! On more than one occasion! Ludicrous! But seriously… if you’re that lucky girl who has oodles of time & doesn’t know what to do with it – check it out, before you know you will have spent 7 hours re-organising your random assortment of bookmarks into a neat visual library, (what me? – never). If you want to stalk me on Pinterest – you can find me here. I mostly use pinterest for fashion & food inspiration, but there’s some other random stuff there too. Also I’m always looking for new people & boards to follow – let me know if you have any recommendations!

Pintesrest & social obigations aside, I did manage to get some sewing done – just no posting. I’ve also been planning so many new dresses. I can’t wait to share all of it with you. This weekend is the first time in ages that I’ve been home for more than a few hours.

* There’s a new cafe where I live that not only has nice coffee they make a pretty good croque monsieur – not as good as The Supper Club, but I can’t complain given they’re wandering distance from my house.

So, on Wednesday morning my fabric arrived in the mail. Then it spent another couple of days sitting on my sewing table taunting me while I was confined to the couch. What else can I do but sit on Pinterest & search for inspiration. Here’s a few of my favourites.

Kelly Green Wrap Dress, (available here on Etsy)

Tibi belted wool wrap dress.

Geometric print shirt dress (source: The Sartorialist)

Whilst I love the last option of the shirt dress, dresses like this really don’t suit my body type. The 2nd option though is perfect. I’m thinking of using McCalls 5974 as a basis. This pattern is for stretch fabrics (which my fabric is not) & so I will need to make some alterations to account for the lack of stretch in my fabric, but I think this design will be nice.

What do you think? Can you recommend any good patterns for wrap dresses with non-stretch fabrics?

Funny story that. Two months ago I didn’t think I had wisdom teeth. I’d been to the dentist years ago with pain in my jaw thinking that my wisdom teeth might be coming through. The dentist took an x-ray & told me she couldn’t see any wisdom teeth & that I must just be clenching my jaw. That sounded reasonable so I stopped worrying about it. Two months ago I was in serious pain & could chew anything. Every time I bit down on something my teeth really hurt. I thought I must have had a cavity so went to the dentist. Turns out my teeth were fine, no cavities, it was just that my wisdom teeth were breaking through.

Oh, and they also looked like this:

Anyway, on Monday I went to the hospital & the surgeon pulled them out under general anaesthetic (so much better than the dentist’s chair) and now I look like a chipmunk.

I’m recovering pretty well, but because I cant’ really move my jaw much & my gums are pretty swollen, I’m limited to eating only soft or liquid foods. It’s really boring. So on Sunday night & Monday morning I baked up a storm & prepared a fridge full of soft & liquid foods that I would actually want to eat (I’d like to think that I’ll eat anything, but as my husband will attest, I can be very fussy about food). I made cantaloupe (rock melon) & coconut jellies, pumpkin soup, tomato soup & poached quinces. I also got a heap of my favourite soft foods from the store – like my favourite greek yoghurt.

I thought I’d share with you the recipe I like to use to make poached quinces. I wanted quinces this week because it’s mid-Autumn here in Australia at the moment & quinces have started appearing in the stores. They really are a lovely fruit. This method is from Stephanie Alexander’s book ‘The Cook’s Companion” & is super easy to make;

Poached Quinces

6 quinces, peeled & washed
2.25L sugar syrup
Juice of a lemon
1 vanilla bean (split open with a sharp knife)
Muslin cloth

Pre-heat the oven to 150C. Core the quinces & cut them up into quarters. Wrap the cores up in a muslin cloth. Place the vanilla bean, quinces & the cores wrapped in muslin cloth in a heavy cast iron pot.

Pour the lemon juice & sugar syrup into the pot. If the liquid doesn’t quite cover the quinces, top it up with a bit of water. Cover the pot & put in the oven for 4-8 hours. I find the easiest thing to do is just leave them cooking in the oven overnight (for about 8 hours). Not only do you get lovely warm poached quinces for breakfast but the house smells beautiful & fragrant when you wake up.

One last little thing. After you’ve made the quinces don’t throw out the poaching syrup. It’s beautiful, I love to use it to flavour custard. This recipe for quince custard (also from Stephanie Alexander) is divine. I really like the soft subtle flavour of the quinces, it makes for the perfect autumn dessert.

I used McCalls 4424 as a basis for this dress. I modified the skirt slightly to have a petticoat instead of the skirt trim. The dress is made with a printed cotton from Spotlight. I’m normally not a fan of Spotlight fabrics, they tend to be lower quality at a higher price. BUT recently they have had a lot of really pretty & cool vintage printed cottons. This was one of them. Like most little kid’s clothes this was really quick & easy to sew.

I’m really happy with how this turned out, it’s really cute.

Or this one:

18 months ago I even bought some fabric that would be perfect for a trench coat while I was in Shenzhen. And then I spent ages tracking down a pattern, (it’s ridiculous how hard it is to get a pattern for a classic trench coat), until my friend Anna came to the rescue with Simplicity 4084. But then I totally wimped out and didn’t do anything with it. For some reason I had this mental barrier to sewing a trench coat. It was totally stupid I know. I’ve made heaps of coats & jackets before, even a Chanel style jacket. I made my own wedding dress, why on earth would I be afraid of a trench coat?

I decided enough was enough, it was time to face my fears & make a trench coat.

All in all, I’m REALLY happy with how it turned out. It’s exactly what I wanted. I went to quite a bit of effort to make this jacket. I used a proper top stitch thread for all the detailing & I’m so glad I did, it made the world of difference.

The annoying thing about the top stitch thread is that, because it’s so much thicker than normal thread, it requires a different needle & totally different tension settings on my machine. It got really annoying sewing a seam & then having to re-calibrate everthing just to top stitch a small item (like the pockets) before going back to normal sewing. In the end I set up both my machines on the dining room table, one with the top stitch thread, on with the normal thread. Having two machines set up made it so much easier & faster to sew the jacket.

I got the buttons from Buttonmania in the city & the buckles from Darn Cheap Fabrics. The lining (which I love!) was from the sale table at Spotlight.

The one part of this coat that drove me crazy was the sleeves. Setting in the sleeves was a total pain. Normally I have no problems setting in the sleeves by hand, I match seam line to seam line & manipulate the fabric with my fingers to account for the difference in lengths at the selvage, (I don’t like the term ease, because it implies that the sleeve head is larger than the armhole & that isn’t always the case). For this coat I found that method to be very difficult. The pattern suggests to gather the sleeve head but I really don’t like this method as it as always resulted in puckers at the shoulders for me. I eventually got the sleeves in though it did take me 30mins per seam!

Turns out, after all that fuss & bother I had nothing to fear. I reckon I’m pretty good at trench coats.

The checked fabric is some kind of synthetic I got off the $2 table one time at Darn Cheap, it’s actually sheer so I interlined it with navy linen. The synthetic has the weight & almost the feel of crepe, only a little crisper. I was surprised how nice the linen/mysterious synthetic was to sew with & wear. The linen breaths & is really comfortable, it’s also really easy to press into shape (which came in handy while sewing). The synthetic is almost impossible to press into shape (hence why I was so happy with the linen), but the plus side to this is that it doesn’t crease when you’re wearing it. I’m going to have to make some more things with this fabric combo next summer.

The top itself was pretty easy to draft but the construction was a pain. Mostly because I just wanted to start sewing & not take the time to actually PLAN how I was going to put it together. This lead to me having to use not one, but TWO invisible zips, just so that I could get in & out of the damn thing. The first is a simple side zip, the second runs from the top of my neck down about 15cm.

Despite my minor zip dramas, I’m really happy with this top. I really like the colour detail & whilst I’m not wearing a necklace in these photos, the collar frames some of my favourite necklaces really nicely.

One day we went on a day trip to the castles of the Black Forest, with a couple of Per & Carol’s friends, Massimo & Stefania. The sky was clear & the sun was out but it was bitterly cold. We spent most of the day getting lost in the hills looking for the castles, in the end I think we only visited two. We ended up back at Massimo & Stefania’s apartment for dinner. Dinner was nice, a walnut pasta I think, but what I really remember is the dessert. Massimo had made two full trays of Tiramisu for us to eat. We ate maybe half of one tray for dessert & we were full. Massimo insisted we take the other tray home with us for later, we tried to argue that we had to catch the train to Paris the next morning. He insisted we take it anyway, telling us it would make for the best breakfast we’d ever had.

He was right. I still remember standing next to Per & Carol’s fridge at 6am scofffing Tiramisu, before heading off to catch the train to Paris.

To this day that was the best Tiramisu I’d ever had. The sponge was moist, but not soggy. There was a clear coffee flavour, but it wasn’t overpowering. This was helped by the fact that it was alcohol free. The marscapone was soft & light & fluffy. I’ve been searching for a recipie that comes close ever since.

This Gourmet Traveller recipe for Tiramisu did come close. It does use a small amount of booze, (Marsala), which I halved. That worked quite well, you still had the flavour from the Marsala but without the sting of the alcohol. I used store bought sponge fingers instead of the ‘make-your-own’ variety, but that’s mostly because I was lazy.

I may never find a recipe that produces the same Tiramisu & if I did I’d probably be disappointed because the moment would be lost. But this one came pretty close.