Make: Pumpkin Carving

(There’s a part of me arguing that this should actually be an “amend”, since I didn’t make the pumpkin itself, I only made the carving...)

Somehow, I have come through 28 years of my life without ever carving a pumpkin. When I revealed this to my best mates recently, they decided it was about time to rectify this – very convenient, since Hallowe’en was approaching.

The pumpkins I purchased were from Sainsbury’s and were specifically “carving pumpkins” rather than “eating pumpkins”. Until this point, I didn't know that different kinds of pumpkin existed for such a purpose.

A small amount of google-images research revealed many different options for carving, not just scary faces. While I was initially drawn to the idea of a pumpkin Death Star (**Star Wars nerd**), I decided that might be ambitious for my first attempt, and opted for a terrifying tarantula instead. After doodling this onto some paper and transferring it to the pumpkin with Sharpie marker, it was time to begin.
 

We covered the kitchen in newspaper, grabbed the most appropriate-looking knives from the drawer, and sliced the top off (remembering to do this at a slight angle, so the lid doesn’t fall inside the pumpkin). Then we began scooping out the gloopy insides. Spoons, forks, hands – all manner of implements proved useful. We cleaned out the insides until we were left with just the harder “meat” of the pumpkin, without the seeds and stringy bits.

 

The moment of truth came next – exactly how much pressure does it take to cut through pumpkin skin and flesh? Turns out, a fair amount! But I cut each section out as delicately as possible, concentrating hard on not accidentally slicing a spidery leg off in the process. After cutting each chunk out, I reinserted it into the gap, to try and maintain the structural integrity of the pumpkin. This seemed like a good idea, even to a complete amateur like me, rather than relying on the strength of eight leg-size slivers. Then I poked out all the pieces at the end.

 

And here are the final results, illuminated by candlelight! I’m very proud of my spider – not only as a first-time attempt, but in general! Cutting the geometric shapes proved easier than curved lines.

 

Honorary mentions here for my pumpkin-carving compatriots and tutors, who managed to pull off a decorative sugar skull and a daring graveyard-with-creepy-tree-and-bats design.

 

Four pumpkins in the house!

 

We also tried lighting them with coloured LED balloons… Stay away from the radioactive spider!!

 

Make: Neck Tie

Sometimes I have really unproductive Saturday mornings, when I find myself still in PJs at midday. Today would appear to be one such day (and it's actually 1pm as I write this...in my PJs...), however appearances can be deceiving! For this morning, I made a tie!

We're going to a fancy dress murder mystery later, for which the Boyf needs a white tie. I can't face dealing with Saturday shopping crowds, so I thought I'd rustle one up while Boyf went to the dentist.

Using an old dust sheet, I cut out an exaggerated tie shape. In theory, you should probably make a pattern and make sure it's the same on both sides... But I just cut it out, cos it's quicker and I'm feeling lazy.

Then, I got out some iron-on interfacing. This is a kind of web-like material which thickens, ergo strengthens, fabric. The iron-on stuff is amazingly easy to attach, as it has some kind of magic shiny stuff on one side, that bonds to fabric with heat.

I cut two pieces of interfacing and ironed them to each of the pointy ends of the tie shape. These will help keep the tie looking pointy and sharp.

Counterintuitively, the next stage in getting a crisp point... is to cut it off.

Then, I went about making what should be a narrow, rolled hem. This is easier with shiny fabrics like silk, and not great for cotton (which my dust sheet is). My rolled hem ended up being a bit wider than would be ideal - not that it matters hugely, as long as it's neat.

I folded then ironed the edges, before getting the tie on the sewing machine and doing some straight top-stitching along each edge. This should be as neat as possible, as the reverse is actually the front of the tie so it will be visible. (Check out the weave of the fabric, going straight across! Whoop!)

Next, it's time to sew the long centred seam. Anyone who has read my other sewing posts should know how I feel about tacking (yawn) so I just pinned it, and sewed it with more straight stitch.

I would normally overlock my seams, however a tie should sit flat, and an overlooked centre seam would leave a bump. While it was still the wrong side out, I ironed it flat, spreading the halves of the seam so they also sit flat.

To turn it the right way out, I put a safety pin on the small end, and used that to pull it out the right way. Hard to describe, but it works a treat.

Another swift iron to flatten it out again (now the right side out) and voilà, a tie! And it only took an hour, so now I can get back to my lazy PJ day...

 

Make: Curtain Wall (2)

Black fabric: I’m using a black cotton fabric with a lined pattern and approx. 1.5m width.

Red fabric: This is almost linen-like in its creasability (real word?) and plain red, approx. 2m width

 

Cut a section of black fabric across the whole width that is 30cm longer than the drop you are looking for – I cut at 280cm for a 250cm drop.

 

TOP HEM

 

At one end, fold 2cm of the raw edge and iron in place. From the new, folded edge, fold again at 6.5cm and iron in place. This will form the top hem. I will call the very edge the “top edge” and the edge of the hem (at 6.5cm) the “hem edge”)

 

 

With matching thread in the spool and bobbin on the machine (for me, black), position the curtain front-side down, with the hem under the needle. Sew a line of straight stitch along the hem edge to hold the it in place – this will be at c.6cm from the top edge. Sew straight across from one side to the other.

 

Flip the curtain over and sew a second line of straight stitch just inside the first one, at c.5.5cm from the top edge. This will hold it firmly in place.

 

 

SIDE HEM

 

The sides of your curtain will currently be the “selvedge”, which does not fray, unravel or curl. The following should be repeated for both sides.

 

 

Fold the selvedge at 1.5cm and iron from top to bottom. Fold and iron again at 2cm, to create a 2cm side hem.

 

As with the top hem, position the curtain front-side down and sew along the hem edge, to hold it in place.

 

 

Flip the curtain over and sew a second line of stitching inside the first, to secure the hem… securely J

 

Tie-off and hide all loose ends. I used the same method as I did on my orange curtains, here.

 

TAB TOPS

 

Cut out ten pieces of tab-sized fabric, two per tab

 

Pin the right-sides together and sew on three sides, leaving one short-side open. Cut the corners diagonally, making sure not to catch the stitches.

 

Turn the tab the right way out. Use a knitting needle, skewer or similar, poke out the corners. Now iron the tab flat.

 

Fold the open end under, so all fraying ends are hidden inside. Iron this flat, then machine it closed using straight stitch.

 

 

Button holes

 

My sewing machine comes with a button-hole foot and stitch settings, which makes it much easier to make button holes. You will need one button hole in each tab. This is what a button-hole foot looks like: -

 

 

Position the foot where you want the button hole to be, and work your way through the different stitch types until you have gone all the way round.

 

For a more detailed depiction of button-hole creation, look here.

 

Tie-off and hide all loose ends.

 

 

BUTTONS

 

Position the buttons evenly across the top hem on the right-side of the fabric. Start with the edge buttons, then do the central one, then the final ones.

 

Method? Sew the button firmly onto the top edge of the curtain. After several stitches through the button holes, bring the thread to the right-side of the fabric, but under the button hole. Now wind the thread around the stitches (between the button and the fabric) several times. Pull it through to the wrong side and knot firmly.

 

BACK TO TAB TOPS

 

 

To attach the tab tops to the top edge of the curtain, position them in line with the buttons, but against the wrong-side of the top edge. Pin them in place (tack if you like!)

 

Sew in a square around the edge, concealing the stitches from the buttons.

 

Tie-off and hide all loose ends.

 

BOTTOM EDGE

 

Before hemming the curtains at the appropriate length, you should always wash them. This is because they will shrink with the first wash, and you don’t want to end up with final curtains that are too short for the gap! To give you an idea, mine shrank approx. 20cm in the wash.

 

Mark where you want the bottom edge to sit. Measure an additional 12cm from that line and cut off any excess fabric. This can be less than 12cm, if you prefer a thinner hem – I favour a deep hem at the bottom, as it adds a bit of weight to the curtains and can help them hang better.

 

Fold the fabric at 2cm and iron in place. Fold and iron again at 10cm. The final bottom edge should be at the level marked above.

 

Sew the usual two lines of stitching across, but this time include a short line of stitching down the side hem, to prevent anything slipping inside the hem. Tie off all the loose ends.

 

Et voilà, you have a finished curtain! All the raw edges have been hemmed and hidden, the tabs are at the top, and they can be hung from a curtain pole!

 

Now it’s just time for me to make four more…

Make: Curtain Wall (1)

Our new flat has a large, open-plan living room, where we tend put any guests when they’re staying overnight. There’s plenty of space for our futon and it’s without the scuffling noises from the guinea pig cage that’s in the small back bedroom.

The only problem is that, as it is an open-plan space, it’s a bit like sleeping in the kitchen at the same time… Also, it makes it difficult for Boyf or I to go upstairs to get breakfast, fetch pig greens or iron a shirt in the morning before work.

 

We didn’t want a permanent barrier, as we love the open space. We came up with the idea of putting a curtain pole up, concealed on the back of a beam that goes across the room. We could hang curtains from that pole, which could be drawn across when we have guests staying, but hidden away most of the time.

 

The design I came up with involves several black curtains to form the majority of the “wall”, alongside one red panel to form the “door”. These would need to be around 2.5m tall, to cover the space from floor to ceiling. A friend suggested button-down tab tops, which would make it really easy to move and remove the curtains as required.

 

 

Knowing that I would need to make at least five matching curtains, I made up a quick pattern for what each curtain should look like.

 

Then, I headed up to Walthamstow market one Saturday, to get hold of enough fabric to cover the huge space. I spent less than £30 on 18m of black fabric, 4m of red fabric, 30 buttons and some red trim. A proper bargain for over 5kg of fabric!

 

 

Make: Origami & Calligraphy

One of my very good friends got married on the August bank holiday weekend, and I had the honour of being one of her bridesmaids! This was my first time ever being a bridesmaid, and it was a lot a lot a lot of fun!

 

While I can in no way claim to have a detailed record of all the work that went into the nuptial shindig, I did help with a few of the creative bits – so I thought I’d share some of them here!

 

One of the most fun aspects were the handmade origami bouquets. A group of us went round to the bride’s house for an evening of pizza, wine and paper-folding. While initially we were all pretty sceptical about our origami abilities, we soon warmed up to the task.

 

 

Each bouquet had three purple flowers, three yellow flowers, and three leaf-groups. If I’ve done the maths correctly, that meant a total of 39 petals per bouquet – multiplied by four bouquets makes 156 in total.

 

 

Once they were all made, we arranged them into the 5-petal flowers and stuck them together with PVA and sticky microdots. Then, the purple ones were mounted onto some ribbon-covered dowling and doused in more PVA for good measure.

 

It was a delicate drying process, with methods including wine bottles, frying pans and curtain rails…

 

Meanwhile the yellow ones and leaves were glued into a kind of crown with a hole in the middle, which the dowling would later go through to form the full bouquet.

 

 

 

But the final results were pretty amazing! And definitely long-lasting – mine survived the wedding, the after-party, and the train ride home, to now sit proudly in a vase in the living room, and be the only flowers in my house that don't lament my lack of horticultural ability!

 

 

 

~~~~

 

I used another of my creative skills in exchange for another meal at Hen’s house later – calligraphy. If that’s what you can call a combination of neat handwriting and knowledge of swirly computer-style fonts. Which I am.

 

 

We came to a mutual agreement whereby lasagne and homemade ice cream was exchanged for table names.

 

~~~~

 

The final bit of tinkering was actually a few amendments I made to the beautiful bridesmaids dresses. I added a few stitches into the crossover v-neck, as a precaution against ceilidh-induced bouncing, and also moved the button on the back of the dress, to improve the fit across my narrow shoulders.

 

Et voilà! What a day it was! Much fun was had by all concerned, there were no imminent disasters – and everyone resisted the temptation to shout “I object” at an inappropriate moment. Hurrah!

 

 

Make: Epic Baking Day

We've been at our new flat for a little over two months now, without any attempts at baking anything. Well, with the help of my sis, today became an Epic Baking Day.

#1. Lemon Meringue Ice Cream Cake

The base is a layer of Madeira cake and on top, goes a mixture of crème fraiche and meringue.

"Swirls" of lemon curd are also intermingled in with the topping. Although my "swirls" look deceptively like "blobs"...

This then goes into the freezer for four hours, so we'll return to the dessert later...

 

#2. Chocolate Chip Cookies

I've made this recipe before, and I know it to be a good one - it's a Millie's cookies one from BBC.

They make really tasty, gooey cookies, stuffed full of choc chips.

The recipe suggests it makes 12, but we managed to get 40 out of it!

Delicious with a glass of milk - there are definitely not 40 left now!

#3. Toad in the Hole

A dish for dinner that we all have enjoyed, but none have cooked before.

It was another BBC recipe for this one, although with a few substitutions, including dijon mustard for mustard powder and marjoram and oregano for thyme.

 

After leaving it in the oven to bubble way for a while... Ta-da! Hom nom nom!

 

 

And now, back to #1 after four hours of freezing...

Oooh yeah! 

 

And inside, swirls of lemon and frozen meringue ice cream

 

All three were very tasty (even if I say so myself!) although I would make a few notes for making them again: -

1. Could be made with other flavours, like pineapple curd or maybe berry compote. The base tended to separate from the topping - I wonder if brushing a layer of lemon curd on the cake layer first would help hold it together?

2. If you were to double the quantities... You'd get double the number of cookies...

3. The batter really stuck to the base of the dish. Maybe buttering the base would help prevent this? And certainly a more linear arrangement of sausages would make it easier to cut up!

All in all, a successful day!