Jamming

Finally made it up to the allotment last weekend. With help from the gorgeous T, I've almost tamed the pesky weeds, staked the tomatoes, strimmed and generally tided up.

Getting to spend even just a couple of hours up on the allotment was a real treat. I really miss this space when I'm away.

We rewarded ourselves with some wine and by harvesting our first decent crop of raspberries.

Needless to say many of the raspberries didn't make the short walk home, ending up in our mouths instead, but I had enough to rustle up a few jars of raspberry jam.

I didn't even have to label the jars I'd recycled. Bonus!

Sunday treat

A lush Coffee & Walnut Cake to finish off the weekend... Mr T got through his stock take at work in double-time to get home to this baby!

I'll update later in the week with the recipe, but it's from Julie Duff's Regional & Traditional Cakes (from the UK). Love it! Love the cakes!

Mine's looking a tad rustic. I normally would tidy up the edges of the edge to hide the fact the two tins I used are slightly different sizes, but today I wasn't in the mood for perfect so the rough edges stay.

Anyway I hear a slice of slice of cake beckoning! Hope you had a good weekend...

So close, but no cigar yet...

It is the end of the summer term for upholstery and the start of a six week break. The little lady was tantalizingly close to being finished and I couldn't bear to leave her behind.

So home she came.

If you look very closely you'll see flaps sticking out either side. That's the back panel of fabric that still needs to be attached.

To do list:

• hammer home temporary tacks holding back fabric panel
  
• add piping to tops of back feet
  
• trim, tuck and ladder stitch back panel
  
• piping around arms to hide tacks
  
• bottom fabric to hide springs
  
• sit on, drink wine, enjoy handiwork
  

Ps. The cupboard behind the chair that still needs painting a year after if was fitted? Move along now. There's nothing to see here!

The end is almost nigh

And about bloody time too!

Soon you can come home, be free of all that crazy workshop clutter and have space to look fabulous. Two more weeks. The to do list is now just piping, edging, back fabric and bottoming.

You will be admired (mostly by me checking out my handiwork) and... You. Will. Be. Sat. On!

Seriously, some chairs leave that workshop destined to never be curled up in or slouched on. Just looked at. Not this baby. Me, T and the cat will be all over her!

Crème de cassis: part 1

My blackcurrant bush on the allotment has been generous this year.

To honour its offering I have decided to turn these little fruity gems into one of my favourite liqueurs: crème de cassis. This stuff can turn even the most boring house wine into something a little special - a kir.

After a bit of hunting around I settled on this recipe in the Telegraph. Although this one over at Figs, Bay & Wine caught my eye as well. I love the idea of having a small bottle of cassis in your handbag for emergencies.

The process of making cassis is in two stages. First, the fruit is steeped in vodka*. Then after a few months, the vodka is poured off (and saved), the fruit whizzed to a pulp, strained, and returned to the vodka. You then make a thick sugar syrup. Add this to the fruity vodka until the sweetness is just right, and then voilà! you have crème de cassis.

I've still got to add leaves from the blackcurrant bush to the jar, but it's raining so they can wait until later in the week!

To be continued. I'll post part 2 in 4-5 months when it's time to finish the process...

* Ideally you would use eau de vie. But trying to buy eau de vie in a UK supermarket is like trying to buy rocking horse shit. Our Italian friends are always bemused by how hard it is to get hold of - they use it all the time to cook up home-made limoncello. I think Big Brother believes that us Brits can't be trusted not to over-indulge in the pure stuff.

One step forward. Ttwo steps back!

This chair has been happily consuming my time and attention for quite a while now. Now though, it's trying out my patience.

Last Thursday I finally finished attaching the base trim along the front. Given that I've had to unpick and reattach this section at least three times (Virgoan OCD tenancies being expressed!) I felt a quiet sense of achievement.

That. Was. So. Bloody. Short-lived.


The photo above shows the final section of trim being temporary tacked to the base. I was then meant to sew the top edge to the side of the seat. Congratulate myself. Then move on to attaching the final panel of fabric to the back of the chair, do the piping, yadayadayada. That was the plan...

I was too cross to take any more photos when I discovered that my line of stitching attaching the seat panel is too high. So high that the trim doesn't even come close to hiding it, which it should have according to my (blatantly inaccurate) measurements. It needs to be redone. Before I can attach the trim. Shit! Damn! Bugger!

Good job I that I adore this chair and can't wait to get it home!

Operation allotment shed

The allotment shed was developing quite a precarious relationship with its base. Sitting at the top of a slope like ours we would arrive at the allotment after each winter storm fully expecting to see the shed in pieces halfway down the plot.


Somehow it's survived and so one of the jobs T and I tackled during our week off was to redo the base it sits on. Using a wooden frame made from the old (but still good) shed supports, 2x2ft concrete slabs taken out of our front garden, and bricks found on the plot we managed to create a new paved base for free.


The shed took a battering during the process, but it's tougher than it looks. Fixing her up is the next thing on our allotment to do list. For now though we're all set to go back to planting, eating, and G&T's by the shed.



T also finished off the compost bins. A-mazing! I've taken lots of pictures so expect a "how-to" post at some point.


PS Excuse the photo quality - only had the phone with me when I went to water this evening and the light was fading.

Aaah the weekend at last!

After a gruelling week at work I was extremely happy to see the weekend. Even more so as this weekend marks the start of a week-long hiatus from work. Bliss!

T and I have decided to stay at home rather than jet-set off anywhere. We plan to spend some time relaxing and, weather allowing, fixing up the shed on the allotment before it decides to slide down the hill during the next big gale. Given the fickle weather so far this may not happen. Unfortunately T's holiday doesn't start till Monday so until then I'm footloose and fancy-free.

Saturday morning was spent drinking coffee, reading magazines, and mooching around reclamation yards. I'm lucky, there's a good sized clutch within the city boundaries, although out of habit I tend to visit the same three: Au Temps Perdu, the Reclaimers, and Wessex Reclamation.

Yesterday I broke the mould and also visited Robert Mills Architectural Antiques & Reclamation which has been on my radar for ages, but I'd only ever frequented their website. To be honest, the higher prices and the fact that they tend to specialise in church fittings put me off. This throws up the sort of grand statement pieces that would look completely out of place in our little 1930s terrace.

 

Such as an old church organ perhaps?

 

Or some old stained glass windows? (The photo does not do them justice. They are huge!)

 A bit of Gothic drama?
 

Ah more to scale, but at £450 + VAT (20%) outside of my budget. I could absolutely make one of these though. The Art Deco stained glass panels are common - all ripped out with the drive for UPC double glazed windows. I feel a project coming on.

The place was is a gem and full of beautiful treasure that I could afford so I'll definitely be going back more often.

Came away from all four yards empty handed. I was looking for some glazed double doors to replace these faux-wood moulded monstrosities that sit between the sitting room and dining room.

Stupidly I left the measurements at home. Doh! But, tripped over this little piece of urban graffiti on my travels... made me smile.

Cutting corners

Thursday night is upholstery night and another milestone has been passed. The front of the back cushion is now complete, so from the front at least the chair looks done. Well if you ignore the huge strip around the bottom where the little lady is still showing off her undies.



Quite a bit of time was spent making sure the top corners were neat. Is it wrong that they needed to be matchy-matchy? I think that may have been some Virgoan traits asserting themselves. Anyway with the corners done and the excess fabric all trimmed it's now onto the next job - to attach hessian to the back so that the back of the chair can be padded underneath the top fabric. Sign of a well dressed chair apparently.

Progress

So I finally feel as though I'm on the home straight. After weeks of OCD-like attention to measuring, rolling, sewing ultra straight lines (not my strong point), and repeating three times to make a fabric sausage-shaped trim for the base of the chair (it looks far better than it sounds), my attention has returned to covering the chair.


Being halfway through tacking the velvet on the back cushion feels really, really good. Just the trim, back of the chair and piping to go.

Chair love

A couple of years ago I drove past this little lady sitting by the side of the road. Needless to say I pulled over and went to check her out. Frankly, she was a bit threadbare and past her best, but with a fab bone structure and a little note explaining that said chair was destined for the tip unless a new home was found... well what more encouragement did I need? I somehow managed to bundle the chair, and the chest of drawers beside her, into the back of my car and home we all went!


I've since found a fab evening class teaching traditional upholstery. So for the past 18 months my chair and I meet up for a couple of hours a week to work on her looks.


It's becoming a real labour of love, but deeply satisfying. Fingers crossed that the chair will be all set to return home by the summer!