Mmm… Coffee Cake

May has turned out to be such a productive month so far that I completely failed to blog about one of my projects! Way back at the start of the month was my Mum’s birthday. Which of course called for Coffee Cake (with capitals, given the amount of coffee I use!). My Mum likes her cake to REALLY taste of coffee, so I often triple the recommended amount, which has got even easier since discovering instant espresso powder, rather than trying to use ordinary instant coffee and failing to get it to dissolve properly in such tiny amounts of water.

The perceptive among you may notice that this is actually Robert’s belated birthday cake, but Mum’s (
apparently unphotographed) cake looked just like this, except for the sunshine.

However, cake on its own isn’t really a present (not when you’re known for making cake for much flimsier reasons than a birthday). So I ventured into screen printing, and converted a remnant of table cloth into a set of eight napkins (we’re a big family).

I used the “contact vinyl” technique described by Lil Blue Boo (as far as I can tell “sticky back plastic” in the UK) and an old screen I had in a card making kit and off I went…

A bit fiddly, and not all came out perfectly, but was much easier than hand stencilling the same design 8 times, and it all went down very nicely with Mum.

Especially the cake.

A change is as good as a holiday

Having had a tiring, but really good weekend away last week, I seem to have come back exhausted, but extra motivated.
This week I have mended a record 8 pairs of trousers (the other leg of most of the ones I fixed last month), and made 2 stash-busting skirts. I managed to use up the best part of a frantically floral single sheet.
Warning!! Photos of overly cute and delighted pink children coming up.

I made Piper’s wraparound skirt using this tutorial from Simple Simon & Co, and given free choice she picked the pink sheet.
The next day I asked Robin what she would like and showed her a handful of other fabrics – the blue one, the green one, the spotty one…. But she was adamant that she wanted the same as Piper. So I made a different skirt – using Dana’s circle skirt tutorial – using the same very pink fabric.

Next time I’ll hide the pink stuff when I offer them choices.

The day I went to Walthamstow.

My sister has just got engaged, which means lots of fantastic outfits, all of which my Mum and I have volunteered to make. 1 bride, 4 bridesmaids, additional items for a few men, plus material for the dress I am going to make for myself all adds up to a lot of fabric, so we went shopping.

I had heard tell (on the internet) that Walthamstow Market was the place to go to for a massive range of very reasonably priced fabric, which was quite handy as Cathy lives 2 tube stops away. The reality was beyond my wildest expectations! It seemed that almost every fifth shop or stall sold fabric or notions or fantastic trim. And they have multiple charity shops too. It was wonderful.

Between the market and Goldhawk Road – which was equally amazing and abundant, but slightly more expensive – we bought everything we needed, and for a ridiculous price. Then we had to lug it all back to Dorset by train – 50 metres of assorted fabrics is quite heavy!



Of course this is all I can show you, and most of that is the floral sheet I picked up in a charity shop and the blue floral cotton for practising my dress, but we don’t want to let too much out before the event. But it is all VERY EXCITING.

Thank you.