Wednesday, 24 July 2013

Seedy Granola

I will never be one of those people who eats the same thing for breakfast everyday...No! When it comes to breakfast (and lunch, and supper!!) variety is the spice of life!
 
We had porridge oats left over from the colder months that I wanted to use up. So mixing it with some lovely seeds seemed the way to go!
 
Here's how I made it...
Ingredients:
450g Jumbo Porridge Oats
2tbs Poppy seeds
2tbs Linseeds
2tbs Pumpkinseeds
2tbs Whole Hazelnuts
2tbs Sunflower Oil
4tbs Maple Syrup
 
Pop the oven on at 150 degrees before covering a tray in porridge oats scattering the poppy seeds, linseeds, hazelnuts on top. Pour the sunflower oil and maple syrup all over and give it all a good mix!

Place it in the oven for about 20 minutes....but keep checking and mixing it! It can burn really easily (I sadly speak from experience).

 
It’s ready when it looks light golden brown and has a crunchy texture.

 
 
Enjoy for breakfast with lovely summer fruits and natural yogurt...Yum!
It also makes a lovely present if you pop it into a cellophane bag and tie it up with pretty stripy string!


A Pretty Present!


Thursday, 11 July 2013

My Liberty Print Dress



Floral Fanatic!
OK, I'll admit it.... I have an addiction to floral fabric!
My favourite is Liberty lawn, and I can easily spend hours traipsing up and down the floral explosion that are the fabric shelves of Liberty's beautiful haberdashery. As a country bumpkin, who doesn't visit London that often, I always make a bee-line for the world's most beautiful department store!

.....This all sounds lovely, however sadly Liberty Lawn is about £22 per meter and my sensible gene kicks in so I struggle to actually buy the fabric (one day!!).
Though last January, I visited Liberty during the sale and there was an awesome selection of beautiful remnants for £10 per metre.

I brought 1 meter of the classic peacock print fabric as well as 3 metres of the beautiful fabric I used to make this dress- lucky me!!
Classic Hera Print
I wanted to use this fabric to make a dress for an upcoming wedding and I decided on the New Look Workroom 6070.

 
I loved the fact it's quite fitted with and the pleats are super flattering!

This was actually the first dress that I ever made and the first time I put an invisable zip in. Needless to say, it took a long time, as when you're just starting out, learning all the new processes takes an aweful lot of concentration! It took me about two months to finish, with hundreds of cups of tea and a couple of panic calls to Granny ("what on earth is stay stitching??!).

Particularly tricky bits included the gathered sleeves and the pleating. But I always find that  if you leave it alone for half an hour before attacking it again always makes much more sense!
Here we are...
View from the front

View from the back.
... with those tricky gathered sleeves
 Rouching and pleats!