Hello all! Just a quick note to tell you that I'm really excited about the Festival of Quilts happening this weekend in Birmingham. I'm headed up there on Thursday with some of the lovely ladies from the EEWI and my brilliant friend Nikki - and  it's going to be a fabulous day out.

In my excitement, I've been making a shopping list (and checking it twice) and browsing Pinterest to get some ideas. Thanks to Pinterest, I now hope to see some of this:























... and a whole lot of this:






















And, if like me you're headed up North, then do visit The Quilt Room and Backstitch for their 10% OFF vouchers. Yay!

I've got a HUGE pile of unfinished WIPs (works in progress), so I thought it might be fun to show you what I'm working on each week - and to motivate myself to get them all done in the process. We went away to visit grandparents in Oxford this weekend so I picked up my most recent WIP and took it with: what progress I made! We watched Team GB on the telly (and were particularly pleased that we were out of London when the men's 100m athletic event was on!), we enjoyed tea and biscuits - and I happily worked my way through some stitchery.

















This is the very first issue of the CrossStitcher Magazine I bought: and, I bought it because of the cushions on the cover. Aren't they lovely? I knew I had to have one - and I was convinced I could make it. There was only one little snag: I couldn't cross stitch.

I held onto that magazine for almost a year before I learnt how to cross stitch from a book. Shortly after finishing my first project, I picked up this magazine and attempted my first ever "big project" - the blue Moroccan Cross Stitch Cushion on the front cover.

















It has been a labour of love and a real learning curve. I have discovered that everything is not symmetrical, you run out of embroidery thread at all the wrong moments, and you really do have to swap colours often to keep your interest piqued.

















I'm finishing up some pretty detailing now: a lot of little squares, a bundle of pretty paisley motifs - and then, could it be done? 


















It is certainly starting to look like it!

















The pattern is by Jacqui Pearce. As you can see, these cushions are only supposed to take around 25 hours of stitching time. I've spent about 60 hours so far - maybe I'm just very slow? I've been stitching on and off in  three-hour bursts ... but they all add up to forever.

I want to finish this stitching project this weekend (hopeful?) so I should have something beautiful to show you next week! After this: the side panels. I've been looking at all of the different fabric options for the side panels - something patchworked? Something Japanese like the Echino prints they have in the picture?














I really wanted to use this Echino Rondo print from the 2011 Winter Collection by Etsuko Furuya, but I can't find it in stock anywhere. I love the stripes and fun prints - and the colouring really works well with the Moroccan colours in the cross stitch design.






















The other option (which I am very much leaning towards) is to piece up a side panel out of Amy Butler Soul Blossoms jelly roll strips. I just so happen to have one such jelly roll, and it has been calling out for a project!

Every time I roll this post title over my tongue I giggle out loud. I can't help but think of "I've got a lovely bunch of co-co-nuts, de-delee-de-dee".

Perhaps it's time for a tea break?






















I love lemon curd. I would prefer to eat it just like that if I had half a chance (who needs toast, or scones, or cake anyway?). When I bake lemon meringue pie (or order it at a tea shop), I scrape off the meringue bits (yuck) and just eat the lemon curd filling and crust. Yum.

So, when the lovely Elizabeth gave me her recipe for Lemon Curd Cake - it was serendipity.

I like my lemon sour. I like my lemon to reach up and smack my taste buds like there's no tomorrow.
I know, lemon-haters: look away.

















The recipe calls for 2 tablespoons of lemon curd. I completely ignored that instruction and added a generous dollop of lemon curd to the batter. When I checked the jar afterwards, it seemed that my "good dollop" was around half the jar. Oops.

You see those dense bits in the cake in the photo? Those are swirls of curd. Mm.

The recipe handled the extra lemon beautifully. And, if that's not enough to convince you to get your batter on, it also is an all-in-one recipe. That means you put all of the ingredients together and mix and you're done. I know, I couldn't contain my excitement either.


Here's the original recipe from the Lightwater Village website. It originally comes from Ada Polkinghorn's cookbook, so big-ups to Ada for this all-in-one-bowl batter that bakes up beautifully.

I've copied the recipe below.

Elizabeth's Lemon Curd Cake


For the cake:
100g caster sugar (but keep 2 tablespoons aside)
115g soft margarine
2 eggs
150g self-raising flour
2 tablespoons of lemon curd (or a generous dollop)
grated rind of 1 large lemon (keep some back for decoration)

I've been toying with different ways of printing text on fabric. I've been printing, dipping, soaking and stamping. I love the way hand-stamping comes out on natural fabrics - it has a lovely 'homespun' look to it that makes me think of Zakka Style. I love this book.

The EEWI ladies did another round of cake-baking last weekend. I baked and baked and baked - and worried that I hadn't quite baked enough, I baked some more.

And then: disaster. My baking powder (horrors upon horrors!) was a no-go. That means that it didn't work. That means that I had a lot of flat cakes and brownies.

So, I baked again.

Before I knew it, we were at the Museum of Childhood on a rainy Sunday morning, stringing bunting up around all of the available spaces and stacking cakes upon cakes on the most beautiful little cake stands.


Here are Elizabeth and Niki on the morning shift. Doesn't it all look festive? I didn't have a proper look around the venue (The Museum of Childhood in Bethnal Green) but from what I saw, it looked amazing. Definitely going to have to go back when there are fewer summer festivals and market stalls.






















We were supposed to be outside but the rain had prevented us from setting up shop. To make up for it, Niki brought along some of her potted plants to bring "the outside in".






















My crunchies were delicious, even if I do say so myself! This time I put the chocolate topping on while they were still very hot and it all soaked in to create a layer of chocolate fudgey deliciousness.






















Niki's patriotic fairy cakes were fabulous in their red, white and blue. Even the paper cases had little red soldiers and London buses on them!






















Niki also made these lemon and courgette buns. The sweets on top remind me of the "oranges and lemons" sugar slice sweets we used to get when we were little - they were such a treat, and I haven't seen them in years!

















What would be an EEWI bake sale without Colleen's ever popular flake-topped cupcakes? These sold out very quickly! I love the blue cases on the blue polka dot cake stand.

















These are my "bunny garden" cupcakes. I made them half-sized for small people. I also topped some of them with fudge and with pink and white pearls.

















This is Elizabeth's all-in-one Lemon Curd Cake. It is delicious. It sold out very quickly, so that's definitely one we'll have to bring back at the next bake sale.






















I thought this was a lovely idea - Colleen's small chocolate cupcakes topped with rocky road. Yum.

















I had a really good look through all of the EEWI canvas bags on sale this weekend. Some of them are particularly beautiful! They're the perfect "book bag" size which fits in a good book and a bit of knitting for train journeys.













While we were there we saw another popular local market-seller: Miwary. She hand-sews the most beautiful little things like bunnies, brooches and a line of fabric tea cups. Thanks to Elizabeth for the recommendation!



















Here's one of her pretty fabric tea cups (website here). Aren't they lovely?

I'm all baked out now. We're off to visit family on Friday night so I'm looking forward to a baking-free weekend (who would ever think I'd be saying that?) filled with a lot of catching up on lazy afternoons of reading and as little proper work as possible.