why not make it?

Photos of 2012 fashion collection now up

Take a look at some beautiful photos of my 2012 collection here. 

Photography by Danmi Lee, hair and make-up by Laura Naish, models Vicky Croft, Hannah Redler and Leo Dunstan.

Patchwork quilt in its early stages

I’ve started a patchwork quilt made of hexagons hand-stitched together.

There’s a really good tutorial on making the hexagons here: sunshine-creations

It’s in its early stages with hexagons of different fabrics made and a couple of the diamond-shaped motifs finished.

All of the pieces are offcuts from other things I’ve made and the only new material is the thread, the hexagon templates are made from receipts.

I’ll keep updating this as it progresses!

Frog hat - crochet

The daughter of a good friend of mine LOVES frogs, so I wanted to make her a frog hat for the winter (yes it’s taken me a while to get this posted!)

This pattern has step-by-step instructions with photos. It was designed for a 2-3 year old, but can easily be adapted for a younger child or adult just by changing the yarn thickness and needle size. Please feel free to contact me about problems/questions.

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Super sourdough

I really wanted to make some lovely sourdough bread at home so I looked up some recipes online.

I used this method for the starter: http://www.breadsecrets.com/sourdough_starter_recipe.html with rye flour and cold tap water which worked well.

and this recipe for the bread: http://www.instructables.com/id/Sourdough-Bread/.

Although it takes a few days to make the starter and 24 hours to make the bread it doesn’t need much attention during that time and you don’t have to knead! The bread tastes really great!

Recycled plant pots

A way to re-use food packaging for growing plants.

1) Take some old food packaging (made of a material that won’t absorb water) and wash it. I used milk cartons, a plastic milk bottle and a plastic mushroom box.

2) Cut off one side and make holes in the bottom.

If you’re using tetrapak cartons, cut side you cut off into strips to make labels for the seeds.

3) Plant the seeds according to the packet instructions. These are lettuce seeds ready to be covered with a thin layer of compost.

4) Label the seeds with the tetrapak strips if you have some.

5) Wait for the seedlings to grow. The lettuce I planted took a few weeks to reach the size in the first picture.

Skirt re-cycled

I recently found a skirt I really liked in a charity shop but four sizes too big for me. This post is about how I made it smaller to fit.

The skirt was a size 18 to start with and pleated, with an elasticated waistband at the back and sides and straight at the front.

The first thing I did was to undo the stitching that attached the waistband to the skirt on both sides. I then cut a panel out of each side, each one a little less than half the amount I needed to reduce the total size by. The width of each panel was (reduce - 4 x seam allowance) / 2.

As you can see I opened up the waistband too and cut off the same amount.

Next I sewed up the gaps in the waistband and attached the elastic back to itself on both sides. Then I sewed the skirt panels together and replaced the waistband over the skirt panels and sewed it back down.

I took around six inches off the hem to bring it to just above the knee.

I am pretty happy with the result and it took around an hour in total.

A friend of mine has a blog dedicated to re-made clothes using charity shop purchases, take a look! charityshopchic.wordpress.com

Fashion 2011

I forgot to tell you, I’ve uploaded the photos of my 2011 MODO fashion collection here!

Pinhole update

I recently re-used my panoramic pinhole camera and made a new pinhole camera for medium-fomat film.

Here are some new panoramic photos:

… and some from the medium format camera, which has some light leak issues - I’ll put up the design once I’ve sorted that out:

(this one’s a Christmas tree in a hotel - the lights are also reflected in the floor.)

Lemon Meringues

Lovely light lemon meringues! They have a crispy shell outside and soft, chewy centre.

My meringues finally worked on my third attempt! I learned some important things along the way - don’t try to make them in a plastic bowl and don’t stop whisking!

I don’t have an electric whisk so I made them by hand which did work but I thought my arm was going to fall off afterwards!

The ingredients to make nine small meringues are:

Two egg whites

100 g caster sugar

3 tsp lemon juice

To make:

Leave the eggs out until they are at room temperature.

Preheat the oven to 100 C.

Find a metal or glass mixing bowl and make sure it and the whisk are perfectly clean, and cover a baking tray with greaseproof paper.

Separate the eggs and put the whites into the bowl with the lemon juice. It’s important there is no egg yolk or grease in the bowl.

Whisk the egg whites until they are white but not stiff.

Add the sugar just a spoonful at a time but do not stop whisking. (I couldn’t take any photos of these steps!)

Keep whisking until the mixture is stiff and when you pull the whisk up it holds its peaked shape.

Spoon out onto the greaseproof paper, around 1 tablespoonful per meringue.

Put them into the oven and leave for one hour. Then turn the oven off and leave the meringues in for several hours. I left them overnight with the oven off and they came out well.

Eat on their own or with cream!

Panoramic Pinhole Update II

Just got some more photos from my panoramic pinhole camera (instructions on how to make it here.)

These were taken at sunset on Primrose Hill, London.

There are more pinhole pictures in my pinhole gallery.