what a lovely day for a tea party!

If there is ever is a reason to throw a party then I'm on it! I love it! Well today we had a double celebration not only was it the Royal wedding but me and my Mum and my 4 sisters came with there other halves and my 2 nephews to celebrate my sister Evangeline's birthday.
Whilst getting the party ready I kept dipping back to the television to watch the Royal Wedding, I mean even if you are not a royalist you have to watch, it is a part of our own history and our British heritage.
I also found out today that my late Grandad bought us a coin to commemorate the wedding of Charles and Diana, at the time Rebekah, Evangeline and I were alive but my younger sisters, Susanna and Christiana were yet to be born, he also however bought my Mum and Dad a coin each, so my Mum has got 5, she has given us each one, I was really touched and thought it was such a lovely thing to do.
I gave Evangeline her present I bought her a lovely personalised note book and I made her some bunting, I remember her saying that she loved bunting and i know that she has the same love of writing lists as me! She seemed to really like it.( the notebook was from funkypigeon.com and for the next 5 days you can get 50% off everything including notebooks with this code ROYAL50)

I made the bunting on Wednesday and wanted to make double sided bunting so at first I tried sewing two triangles together but inside out, but when i turned them the right way it it wasn't pointy enough. So i decided to sew them together the right way round it looks a bit rustic, cos the edges are slightly frayed but think it looks good. If you are looking for a good first project for your new sewing machine then this is it, it's simple but effective and really gets you used to spacing of the thread and sewing in a straight line! I used the fabric that I bought from Abakhan the day before and i think they went really well together, and whats best is i have lots left for more projects!

We also had a cracking tea party, Mum made a yummy Vanilla Birthday cake, I made the sausage rolls and pink lemonade and some open ham sandwiches and Rebekah made some delicious scones(served with scones,strawberries and clotted cream) and egg mayo and cress sandwiches with homemade bread (served with salt and vinegar crisp an absolute must), even the birthday girl Evangeline made a lovely tea cake. (all dairy free I might add! apart from the clotted cream!) we are such a talented bunch!

This isn't today's spread this is actually a tea party we did for mothers day but you get the idea!

A day to myself.

I love days off, and as much as this sounds bad I like it when I'm off on my own, I can get stuck into my creative activities without feeling guilty about other things I should be doing.
So yesterday I spent the day getting to grips with my sewing machine and creating a surprise for another one of my sisters Evangeline's birthday. It's actually her birthday today but I can't tell you what I have made yet because I will only see her tomorrow. We are doing a tea party for her tomorrow afternoon, she's 32 but you're never too old for a tea party!
I also started my next knitting project. On Tuesday Rebekah and I went to Manchester to a place called Abakhan it's on Oldham street in the Northern Quarter. And if you haven't been it's definitely worth a visit.
I got the knitting pattern from there for 10p!! It's a pattern for a short sleeved shrug, it's made from all one piece and it looks simple enough (famous last words!) I also bought the wool, some lovely fabric and lots of other stuff, it was great, daunting at first but the staff there are very helpful.
They do have a website www.abakhan.co.uk  which is good but doesn't do it justice.
Afterwards we went to a little place on the same street called 'Sweet Tooth Cupcakery' which is also worth a vist whilst your there, it's one of those places that you go to and think "this is my kind of place" it was full of retro posters and vintage style decorations, you are given vintage china tea cups with mismatched saucers, it's great. Rebekah has a dairy free diet and who loves cupcakes but there are very few places that cater for her, but the cupcakery always does at least one Vegan cupcake(which she can have) and one Gluten free cupcake. They also do Vegan shakes which she can have too. The website for it is http://sweettoothcupcakery.co.uk/ have a look at the beautiful cupcakes.
It wasn't supposed to be nice weather yesterday but it became lovely and sunny in the afternoon so I sat out in the garden for a bit. This is the life!

Hello!

I have a new found interest in making things and learning how to make them, well it's not really new found I've enjoyed creative activities since I was little. As I have got older I have dabbled from time to time in different hobbies; card making, glass painting etc without much success - i don't thing i really believed that i was good enough.
Over recent years however I my confidence has grown first it was with cooking, each time I enjoyed a meal I would look at how it was made, try to find a recipe and try it for myself, the more people said "mmm delicious!" the more I would try.

This lead me onto baking and in particular cupcakes and birthday cakes which I had very good feedback from I even managed to make a bit of money by selling them in boxes as gifts and I saved money by giving them as gifts! My masterpiece was a Mickey Mouse cake for one of my friend's son's first birthday which had cupcakes around spelling out his name.

I enjoyed making something so good that I could say " Look what I made!" but as I got more orders the more stressful and less enjoyable it was especially as I also work full time as a nursery nurse.

I still make cakes but for family birthdays and special occasions, or sometimes i make cakes and take them into work. It's more enjoyable without the deadlines. And I still continue to do cooking I try to make at least one brand new meal that we haven't tried before. (At the mo, I'm working my way through Jamie Oliver's 30 minute meals- the guys a genius I haven't had a bad meal yet from it!)

Anyway to get back to the reason i started this blog, I always see pretty things in shops I see it, I WANT IT, i can't afford it :-( , so I look at how its made "I can make that" I say to myself. So now I want to try.
My sister Rebekah who shares a lot of interests with me, has been taught how to knit by a friend and so she showed me. I did knit when i was younger it is surprising what you remember whenever I was stuck I found tutorials on YouTube where very helpful. My first project was a heart cushion from an Usbourne book called "how to knit" that Rebekah lent me. Which i completed in a week it was a good project to start because it taught me about increasing and decreasing stitches.

Then I did a little rabbit  which I got as a free pattern  from a website called http://littlecottonrabbits.typepad.co.uk/free_knitting_patterns/  which taught me another skill using double pointed needles.

I also found a book called "Stitch" by Cath Kidston which you get a free project of a little cross stitch purse including everything you need to make it up.

This really got me thinking about making things for myself, so my sister Rebekah and I bought a sewing machine between us so that we could adjust clothing, make things for the house and hopefully at some point we'll be able to use it to make our own clothes.  So this blog is to document all the 'makes' i do be it cooking, baking, sewing, cross stitch, knitting or anything else i  have made. And hopefully you will like it and it will give you ideas of projects you might like to try. Wherever possible i will post links to places that i have found free patterns.

Well that's me, hope you enjoyed it!
Abigail x