Two Clothkits skirts

I finished my week of wardrobe improvements by making two Clothkits skirts, which have been sitting on my shelves ready to make for an embarrasingly long time.

First was this kit for a skirt for me, which my sister gave me last year.  Shame on me.  I wish I hadn't waited so long to make it because it is beautiful, and I know I will wear it constantly this winter.

Yes, more grainy photos - because the light is not good this morning and I am teetering on a chair again.

The skirt is made from a very good quality babycord, in a rich shade of deep purple.  The babycord is lovely to sew with - and behaves so well after the slinkiness of jersey.  The skirt has babycord facings and a beautiful Liberty cotton poplin lining, and it fastens with a zip at the back. 

The best bit about it though is the fit.  I made my usual dress size without spending any time closely checking the exact measurements as I normally would when dressmaking.  And happily my casual enthusiasm did not backfire. 

It fits perfectly on the waist and hips and is exactly the right length.  I wanted it to come just above my knees and because I am very tall I was a little concerned that it may have come out too short.  Although they are easily shortened, there is no way with Clothkits skirts to make them longer, because the cutting lines are pre-printed on them and will show up if you make them longer than they are meant to be.  However, it was not a problem as I made it with the minimum hem possible and it came out exactly right.

Liberty poplin lining with the deep purple babycord - gorgeous

Next up was a skirt for O, who I think has inherited my height and is growing like a weed at the moment.  She loves skirts and is wearing them shorter and shorter as she grows out of everything in her cupboard.  Things were getting indecent, so rather than have any more conversations about what skirt length we agreed was suitable, I thought I should just make her something longer.

Crumpled after being stuffed higgledy-piggledy into her drawer

I made her this doves and cherries skirt, cutting out the age 10 size and adjusting the elastic at the waist to be a bit tighter and fit her properly - she's only just turned 8 and has a 10 year old's height with an 8 year old's waist.  It comes to just below her knees so looks fine now and will still look good (and not too indecent) for another year or two I hope.

The doves and cherries print is charming without being too girly, and again it is made from a very good quality babycord.  Since I bought the kit (last year again - ahem), Clothkits have brought out a purple version which I think I prefer to this blue-green one.  But no matter, because O approves, and it has just the right amount of twirliness to keep an 8 year old happy.

Waistband detail - "very well made in England"

We have a delightfully blank weekend stretching out in front of us, so I am continuing with the sewing (in between cooking up a feast from this fabulous book which O was given for her birthday). 

I have a custom order to make for the shop (very exciting - my first custom order, all the way from Florida!) and more jersey t-shirts to go with both these skirts.  Stay tuned for more outfits next week!

Faces next....

They thought hands were a bit tame, and did their faces next.

Cherry hands

The sights and sounds of midsummer in our garden - two children, home from school, with cherry stained hands and faces.

My Liberty top

The aeroplane noise and the vapour trails are back. I didn't have to travel anywhere and was not waiting for anyone to come home, so the deep blue un-scribbled-on skies, and the still silence were unequivocally lovely. Now the planes are back they are all I can hear. We're under the flypath for City airport and sometimes get aeroplanes stacking above us for Heathrow as well. Add in the local police helicopter, the London air ambulance and the occasional military chinook going over, and it all seems very busy.

But I'm sure before long though I'll be used to it again, and with so much cherry blossom in the garden I am in very good spirits and I can't really see the vapour trails through the blossom.

I'm still sewing tops.  There is one final school dress to make for Livvy, but I've had enough of blue gingham for a while, so I'll do that over the weekend.  Instead I made myself another Quadrato Tunic top from Ottobre yesterday - here is the first one I made, last month.

This time I made it with a much lighter, lawn fabric - one of the Liberty prints I bought at the V&A exhibition.  The contrasting pink trim was made with a thicker, stiffer cotton duck - one of Cath Kidston's haberdashery fabrics.

These fabric choices were much better than the ones for my first attempt.  And the fact that I cut a smaller size, and remembered to add on the seam allowances, meant that this version is much closer to the original, and looks much better on than my first attempt.

So I have now made myself four new tops over the past few weeks - two summer blouses from Weekend Sewing and two of these Ottobre tunics. I'd happily wear these two styles all summer long but I feel I need to hunt out some more patterns if I make any more clothes for myself.  It might look weird having a wardrobe full of tops in just two styles.
 
I've recently acquired a whole pile of vintage fabrics from my Grandmother, including some deliciously thick, crisp white cotton sheets.  I have a vision of another - third - Heather Ross summer blouse made from soft, white cotton, with a deep coloured trim. Either with the Michael Miller TA Dot fabric in fuschia that I used to bind my last quilt, or with a dark blue and deep pink Kaffe Fassett print that I have been hoarding for too long.

It's tempting, isn't it?

Crumble perfection

Thank you all so much for your museum suggestions - what a great list we came up with between us! I want to go to ALL your favourite museums. The random number generator came up with the number SEVEN, which is Ali who added the Oxford University Museum of Natural History to the list. I want to know how, despite having grown up in Oxford, I have never even heard of this museum! I will be putting that right the next time I visit my parents or my brother & his family who all still live in Oxford - do any of them know about this secret museum too, I wonder?? Ali, please email me your address and I will get your parcel in the post to you as soon as possible.

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This week I have mainly been thinking about food. In this house we all love a bit of crumble. Both G and I have cooked it for years. But each time we make it, it never seems to be quite as good as a crumble should be. You know - a gooey, fruity, sticky, crumbly crumble - just like the one your mother or your grandmother used to make when you were small. We come close - our crumbles are good - but they never seem to be quite as wonderful as the ones in our memories.

At the weekend, C shinned up our tree to pick the first bowl of 2009 cherries. He carried on picking, and climbing further and further up the tree until he was absolutely certain that he had enough for a cherry and apple crumble. I didn't really fancy making a crumble in the pulsating temperatures of last weekend, so I was fobbing him off with phrases like "Oh, you need LOADS of cherries to make a crumble, darling" and "I'm not sure there are enough ripe cherries yet for a crumble".

Then he fell out of the tree. Fortunately while I was not looking, and fortunately into the middle of the sweet orange bush. He limped inside with a scraped elbow and a sprained ankle and asked rather pitifully if his bowl had enough cherries for a crumble yet? Goodness, the guilt. I had my apron on and the mixer going before he'd even hobbled off to the sofa.

I vaguely remembered the last crumble G had made had rather a good topping. It was the plum crumble from my favourite summer recipe book, Sarah Raven's Garden Cookbook. So I took the topping from that book and paired it with the filling from Annabel Karmel's Family Meal Planner. And you know what? It was The Best Crumble I Have Ever Made. Really. The Sarah Raven topping is heavy on the butter and gives a cakey, rich crumble - crucially not too dusty nor too oaty. I substituted almond flakes for hazelnuts but otherwise did exactly as she said. The secret to Annabel Karmel's filling is that she just briefly stews the fruit for a few minutes in a tablespoon of brown sugar to soften and sweeten it by precisely the right amount. Together these women work magic, I tell you.

Of course, there are no pictures. Like Driftwood's pavlova, we ate up every last scrap before I could get my camera out. Yum!

Cherries

Yesterday I raked up the remains of our cherry crop from the lawn.

Our garden is dominated by a huge, ancient cherry tree that I suspect may be older than the house. Our house was built in around 1894, and we know that the part of East London where we live used to be an area full of fruit nurseries before the railway came and it was filled with housing. An old map I have from 1888 shows lots of little glass frame shapes – indicating garden nurseries.

The map above is taken from this website which is where I bought my own paper copy of the 1888 East London map.

Each year the tree treats us to an overwhelmingly romantic display of cherry blossom in April.

And then at the start of June come the cherries.

The local starlings and pigeons eat most of them, because the tree is too high for us to be able to pick them easily. This year, C managed to climb scarily near the top and do some fruit picking for me, before my nervousness about old boughs snapping and broken necks made me beg him to climb down.

Strangely, however many we pick, there only ever seem to be enough for one cherry-themed dish.

In previous years I have made a clafoutis, but having tried blackcurrant clafoutis for the first time last year I think I now much prefer that to the more traditional cherry one. So yesterday I made apple and cherry crumbles instead – in individual ramekins so that I could freeze some for a treat long after the cherries have gone. They were delicious. I wonder what the cherries used to be made into back in 1888?

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