October Challenge 2014

I see all sorts of challenges appear at various times on Instagram and none of the photo ones particularly appealed to me. In the spirit of my hundred happy days challenge (going well by the way #joshappyhundred if you're interested!) I thought I'd make a list of 31 things to achieve this month. Little things that Mae a difference to me and others. Things that make me feel happy. Some things that are just a plain old good idea! 

They might be done one a day or could be accomplished over the course of the month. I hope it will be a little daily push to achieve more! 

1) cook something delicious

2) handmake a present for someone 

3) finish a sewing project

4) finish a knitting project

5) bake a cake for someone else

6) take photos of my family

7) take photos of my friends

8) do something for charity

9) hand make birthday cards ready for up to Christmas

10) start a Christmas list (!!)

11) make a new skirt

12) try a new vegan dish 

13) go running again

14) pick blackberries

15) pick apples and make apple sauce to freeze

16) eBay some old wardrobe items

17) read a new book

18) learn about something new

19) start learning Italian again

20) have a pampering day. Face mask, nails, the lot! 

21) try a new dance move

22) do something kind to make someone smile

23) crochet a dark red snood

24) clean out and use a new handbag

25) make up some business cards for work and the jazz club

26) make a Halloween costume

27) write a letter to someone

28) go on a walk and collect sloes

29) make slow gin

30) make my car sparkle 

31) make some donations to a charity shop 

Hopefully this will give me something to aim for each day (or at least start and finish within a month!!). You can follow me on Instagram or twitter (@ofavintageair) to see my progress. #josoctoberchallenge 

Jo :-) 

Oat and Ginger Cookies - Vegan Recipe

My Dad recently got diagnosed with gallstones and until he has it removed in a couple of months he's on a very low fat diet. (And I think he misses his treats!) So I came up with this recipe. 

It also ticks the vegan and vegetarian boxes which is awesome :-)

Oat and Ginger Cookies

Ingredients:

100g self raising flour

100g oats

100g muscavado sugar

1 teaspoon baking soda

2 teaspoons ground mixed spice

1 teaspoon ground cinnamon

2 teaspoons ground ginger*

140g plain applesauce (mine was homemade, basically just apple puree! I even left the skin on! I'm lazy)

*dad loves (loves) ginger so I've put more than this in mine! Feel free to add any combination of spices you want!! 

Method:

Heat oven to 180'C

Mix all the dry ingredients together. Try and get most of the lumps out of the sugar. No worries if you don't! 

Mix in the applesauce! 

Try not to eat it. 

Put on baking paper lined baking trays in little cookie shaped rounds. Flatten them a little. (They rise a tad but don't really spread out)

Bake for 13 minutes. 

Don't burn your tongue and enjoy!! :-)

They're pretty fabulous warm and chewy :-) 

These ones are actually part baked. They're going in the freezer so Dad's treats will last longer than just one evening! 

They should take about eight minutes in the oven from frozen I reckon. It's a bit of guess work now! 

Off to bake more cookies!! :-) 

Fresh Quinoa Salad - Vegan Recipe

Hi guys! Something new from me today! 

A lot has changed since my last post. I've moved to Norfolk, I'm no longer engaged, and I've gone all vegetarian! And that means no real fur coats either! 

Anyway, on a search for good veggie recipes, it struck me that I take lots of ideas from all over the place and cut corners left, right and centre! Some things turn out simply and well, and I thought I'd start sharing some of those recipes here! This is the first! 

Fresh Quinoa Salad

Ingredients:

Quinoa (however much you think you need for each person)

Veggie stock (homemade will be vegan, check shop bought!)

Mango (1/2 per person)

Cucumber (2 inch chunk per person)

Avocado (1/2 per person)

Juice of a 1 Lime (per person)

Small bunch of Coriander

A little olive oil

Any other seasoning you'd like!

Method:

Put your quinoa on to cook (with or without stock depending on your preference)

Dice all the fruit and cucumber

Juice the lime and add finely chopped coriander, the oil and any other seasoning and whisk it all together 

When the quinoa is cooked, mix it all together!

Serve either as a warm main meal salad or side dish. Or leave to cool and have as a cold salad served on baby spinach leaves. 

Adding red onion could be good. Maybe a little garlic.... 

Such a lovely summery dish! Enjoy!! 

Jo :-) 

February Aim & January Catch Up!

First off I'd like to send my best wishes, love and hopes for dry weather to anyone who's been affected with all the storms in the UK. I know we're supposed to have miserable winters but this is crazy! 

So February happened the day we got back off holiday, spent the entire day sleeping and then went to a Burn's night party! 

It's taken me a while to catch up with everything. Work. Laundry. Ugh. Coming back to real life after two weeks is always such a shock to the system!! 

So, as usual on this blog, I present my monthly aim! Late. :-)

I love that picture. Although I'm kind of glad we haven't had any snow yet! 

I decided to carry on January's aim really, to decrease my pile of almost finished sewing projects! Which should tell you how January's aim went! I just completely ran out of time before holidays! 

We've got a Mardi Gras at the Jazz Club (@colchesterjazz on twitter if you're interested!) which my Hawaiian fabric should be perfect for. 

So here's a quick list of things that need finishing. 

Evening dress - I sewed the side seams too tight so I just need to add a couple of inches, re sew, then seam rip the old ones! 

Hawaiian pieces - skirt, shorts, halter neck top. 

Silk Blouse - silver bias binding round arms and neck. 

Sheer skirt - I'd like another of these, and they're very easy to make! You can find my tutorial for one here. http://www.ofavintageair.blogspot.co.uk/2014/01/easy-sheer-gathered-skirt-tutorial.html?m=1

I've got a bag to finish made from some jeans. A whole load of wool related stuff, and a dress to turn into a skirt for a friend. 

So that should keep me busy for a month! 

Normal service should be resumed fairly shortly, I think I'm just about caught up with myself now! The 100 happy days posts that I've missed due to lack of Internet will be up soon, too. I think technically I've failed on the challenge as I haven't uploaded one a day, but I have taken them, I just lacked Internet connection for most of the time!! Then I got lost on what day I was on number wise and gave up a bit, so I'm hoping to catch up with it all over the weekend! 

Wish me luck!

Jo. 

P.S. planning anything special for February? 

Easy Sheer Gathered Skirt Tutorial

I've had a whole load of beautiful fabrics from India sitting in my stash for a long while now. 

Some are fairly heavy and ok for general type sewing, but there's not a lot of these. The majority are gorgeous, sheer, silky fabrics. 

Which left me at a complete loss as to what to do with them. 

I was showing some to my girlfriends when they came over for Christmas dinner and ended up putting Dani into a sari. Which is what they're cut to be made into. 

Then I had two brainwaves! Not major lightbulb moments and probably terribly obvious to everyone else! 

1) the gathered waist, floor length sheer skirts I've been seeing all over the place for a while now. 

2) silk scarves and floaty wraps. Which will be perfect for holiday. The fabric's are so lovely you just want to wrap yourself in them, so why not do just that?! This option obviously only requires cutting and hemming to be finished. 

Option one I felt could be accomplished using only what I had at home. (And maybe purchased elastic at some point in the future!)

How To Make a Simple Gathered Skirt

1) measure your widest point at your hips/bum/basically anywhere below where you want the skirt to start. 

2) double this measurement plus a seam allowance. I used double as I wanted plenty of room for dancing, and no splits at the bottom of the skirt. 

3) decide how long you want your skirt to be. Mine was easy as my fabric was exactly the right length to go from my waist to the floor. If yours isn't or you want it shorter, measure. Then add two and a half inches for the top seaming and an inch (or smaller depending on your seams) to the measurement. 

4) you should end up with a rectangle of cloth. I like to start by hemming the long bottom edge. I turn it over twice to hide the raw edges then stitch right the way along it. 

5) then we deal with the top. As I have an old sewing machine that only does straight stitch I always make casings for elastic waists etc. if you're using one inch elastic (or ribbon as in my case!!) you need to fold your top line over an inch and a half, then turn the edge under twice to create a tube that's an inch wide when stitched down. 

6) I French seam my edges when I join them to hide the raw edge again. It's only straight stitching so it doesn't take long. Put wrong sides together and sew as close to the edge as you can, then fold back right sides together and sew down about a centimetre from the edge to encase the first stitch line. Hey presto French seam! 

7) if you're just using ribbon to fasten at the waist, thread this through using a safety pin, put skirt on, tie a pretty bow and you're done! If you're using elastic, measure a length to a snug fit on your waist and cut with a centimetre extra. Feed through the channel (safety pin again!) and then stitch back and forward a few times to secure the elastic in a loop. Hand stitch the raw edges of the channel together. 

8) wear your beautiful floaty new skirt! Preferably with a coordinating slip or skirt or shorts or leggings (you get the picture) underneath if it's sheer! 

Sorry for the current lack of photos. When I wear it later in the week I will take some of the finished product!! As I'm on holiday and supposed to be putting my feet up! 

Jo

P.S. have you got any fabric you don't know what to do with? 

Week One of Happy

I can't believe I'm through my first week of happy snaps already! If nothing else this challenge has already taught me that life will just speed past if you don't pay attention to it! 

I've managed a photo a day so far. Sometimes two! It seems that I enjoy making things a lot. And sunny days, but who doesn't like those!?

So here's my first batch of photos for you. As always, see them "live" on my Instagram (and twitter if it will play ball!) @ofavintageair 

Day 1) warm fluffy toasty socks. 

Day 2) Gammon slow cooked in cider then roasted!

Day 3) sunny days at the workshop with the doors wide open. 

Day 4) baking, especially for friends. And that cake was delicious. And boozy. 

Day 5) this was boozy too. Chocolate and baileys mousse that didn't set so became ice cream instead!!  

Day 6) sewing on my vintage vickers sewing machine. 

Day 7) making plum and cinnamon cake then eating it straight out of the oven with dad (made me happy) and forgetting to take a pretty picture (made me laugh because I'd intended to but we got too excited!)

Day 8) finding little gems in charity shops. Like this adorable sewing box table. With lift out tray, drawer, places for scissors and a giant pin cushion type thing. Technical, moi? It's gorgeous and I couldn't leave it behind. It's got some French polishing in its future and I just need to find some scissors that fit the cut outs!! 

I'm not totally sure if this is in the realm of being happy with what you have as I bought it, but it's better than buying new and I intend to give it a new lease of life and treasure it for a long time! 

Day 9) Hair chalk. Literally what it says on the tin. Colouring your hair with chalk. I'm currently blue and green streaked. It is immense and washes out easily so yay! 

All the colours get in my hair!! 

Jo :-) 

P.S. are you doing the challenge? What do you have to be happy about?

January Aim - Halfway

First off, I can't believe it's halfway through January already. 

Time is flying along!! 

My aim for this January was sewing. Catching up on projects I've started, but not finished yet, and mostly getting things done for India. 

I'm leaving for hols on Friday, so there's not much time left!! This is the list I had in my original blog post. 

Things I'd like to finish for India:

1) Evening dress that's still on the mannequin. I finished this a couple of nights ago, but I've managed to see the side seams too tight, so my MUST DO job Friday morning is to sew looser new seams and seam rip the old ones! 

2) Halter neck top in Hawaiian print. No progress, the self drafted pattern is not helping matters. When will I learn!! 

3) Shorts in Hawaiian print. Just the (really aggravating) waistband and bottom hems to do. 

4) Wrap around circle skirt in Hawaiian print. Haven't started this, and may just make one of my normal circle skirts on Friday. They only take a couple of hours! (<that's probably the nail in its coffin though!!)

5) Denim shorts. Not gonna happen. No time. 

6) A couple of sheer blouses, time has not permitted, but I've got a half made silk top that I might find the time to put some bias binding on!

Knitting and Crochet

7) pink beret. Nope. Might take this with me. 

8) green headband. Done a bit more, again, might take it with me!

(Old picture, it's much bigger than this now!)

9) cream scarf. Nope. 

10) chunky blue scarf. Still nope! 

I would say I'm failing quite badly at this months challenge!! I think a) I'm better at sewing things I need and b) I got distracted by upcycling some of Eric's old jeans into a slouchy bag and some aprons. 

I have seen up a (beautifully easy) sheer, floor length, gathered over skirt though. Which is wonderful. I hope to share an easy peasy tutorial on it while I'm away! Internet dependant! 

That's all folks, wish me luck with manic sewing Friday morning! 

Jo :-) 

P.S. has your sewing pile shrunk any this new year?