Refashioned skirt with a Mexican twist!

Hi folks, here's what I did during the holidays!

I had to go back to work, but here I am, pretending it's still summer...

Alright, just a refashion is not much...except if you count that it's not just any ol' refashion. Actually, it was also my first try at embroidery!

My first inspiration was Mexican style embroidery, but I also looked at old school tattoo style drawings of roses to get them the way they look.

And of course, this project wouldn't be complete without a fail : I actually inserted the zipper the wrong way and the zipper pull is on the inside of the skirt. Bummer. Fortunately, it does not prevent me from pulling it on and taking it off, so I can wear it all the same!

Some Cuisine : Rhubarb tart

Although it's mentionned in my blog's title, I realize there's not a single food recipe in here.

Thing is, I love to cook, but my schedule doesn't allow me to do it often, let alone document what I make! But I decided to remedy that, so here's a rhubarb tart recipe I tried during these holidays :

What you will need (serves up to 8 persons, depending on how hungry you are) :

• 3 stalks rhubarb

Sweet shortcrust pastry : 

• 150 g flour
• 50g sugar
• 1 egg
• 80g soft butter
• 1 pinch of salt
• cinnamon (to taste)

Cream mix : 

• 2 eggs
• 20g sugar
• 3 tbsp mascarpone
• 5 amaretti (or more if you really want to feel the taste)

Peel the rhubarb stalks and dice them. Put them in a bowl and sprinkle lightly with sugar.

Pastry : mix the sugar and egg together. Apart, mix the flour, salt and cinnamon together, then, little by little, add them to the egg+ sugar until you get a crumbling texture. Finally, add the butter cut in small pieces, until you get a homogenic texture.

Roll it and put it in a baking pan, with baking paper to keep it from sticking to it. Pre-bake, 180°C, for 15 min.

Evenly scatter the rhubarb bits on your pre-baked pastry.

Cream : put the sugar with one tbsp of water in a saucepan and boil to make a syrup.
Break the eggs, separating the yolks from the white. Keep the yolks, mix them with the syrup and whip until it gets white and firm. Then add the mascarpone. Reduce the amaretti to a powder in a food processor, then add to the cream and mix. Pour the cream mix in the pastry, over the rhubarb.

Put in the oven for 30 min at 180°C (it should be slightly golden on the top), let it cool, and...enjoy!

Coming next : a Mexican-inspired refashion

I had this dress, which I had bought from Promod something like 3 years ago, when they had a 1950s-inspired summer collection. I liked it and wore it quite a lot, but it didn't fit very well (the side zipper was cutting into my armpit.)
As I still wanted to find a way of wearing it, I separated the skirt from the bodice. 

I will add a waistband (based on Colette Patterns' Ginger skirt waistband), which I'd like to embroider in a Mexican style (see Pinterest board below).

Follow Juliette MIJEON's board Buttons inspiration on Pinterest.

Stay tuned if you want to know how it turns out!

Unselfish knitting : finished!

Hi all, here are the little hats I knitted for the ladies in my family :

hats #1 to 4 were knitted in Cascade Baby Alpaca Chunky, #5 (the yellow one) from Malou Light Baby Alpaca by Lang Yarns, because I didn't like the color of the Cascade yarn I had chosen previously. This yarn was much thinner than the Cascade and trickier to knit, and as the result this last hat looks more lace-y than the others, but I think it still looks good!

And here's how it looks on my head. It looks very slouchy after blocking, but it looks just like the picture on the pattern, so it's fine!

Outfit Along : completed!

Hi all, I've finally completed both my cardigan and dress for the outfit along!

I look slightly stupid on that pic. Dunno why but my boyfriend wasn't very inspired. He could at least have told me I was looking that dumb!

I won't go over the cardi once more as you've already seen it in a previous post, but here are a few facts about the dress :
This is Colette Pattern's Hawthorn dress and I've made the sleeveless version, in a navy swiss dot cotton underlined (for the bodice) and lined (fort the skirt) in a navy cotton voile.

Sorry for the crappy pictures, didn't have the time to snap anything better...

But, you guys...THIS MUST BE MY FAVORITE OF ALL THE THINGS I'VE MADE SO FAR!!!
I mean, this is the first time I sew something (relatively) complicated and manage to get perfectly finished seams everywhere! My facings have been finished with a mock overlock stitch and then catchstitched to the (under)lining, same goes for my hem, I made a faux waist stay, finished my armholes with piping, used French seams everywhere I could...it's almost as beautiful on the inside as on the outside! (check my FlickR if you want to see the details!)
On top of that, the fit is spot on (although I was unsure about it after making 2 muslins, I finally cut a size 6 with no alterations) and this is a perfectly office-friendly garment.

However, even if this dress, due to its color and clean lines, is definitely cake material, it would be very easy to add some frosting to it with the right accessories and make it a perfect outfit for an evening out or even fancier occasions! I can already imagine wearing it with green or pink...I'll have to knit more Myrnas to pair with it! And I think it's definitely going to be worn a lot!

To conclude, I'd just like to thank Andi and Lauren for organizing the Outfit Along, it was fun!

Outfit Along - Dress Progress

Hi folks, hope you had a lovely weekend! 

I personally had a lovely 3-days weekend (July 14th being our national day here in France) and coud really make some progress on my Outfit Along dress.

It's not easy to photograph a navy dress on a purple dress form, but there you have it! The only things left to do are finishing the armscyes, creating the buttonholes, making my fabric-covered buttons, hemming and catch-stitching the facing on to the lining/underlining fabric. I think the 15 days ahead should be enough to do this!

Look, I'm making a faux waist stay (thank Anna for her tutorial!)

Stay tuned for the final Outfit Along posted, it should come soon (or so I hope)!

Unselfish knitting

Now that I've started knitting, it's hard to imagine a train trip without something to keep my hands busy...And as I spend more or less 2 hours a day on the train, you can imagine I don't wait till I finish a project to start thinking about the next!
However it might not be comfortable to manipulate some warm material like wool in the summer, so I chose 4 small projects to start after my Myrna : I'm going to make 4  of Ysolda Teagues's Icing Swirl Hats, as Christmas Presents for the ladies in my family.

Here's the beginning of the first one. I had started it last night, but as I had dropped a few stitches, it didn't look very pretty, so I ripped it off and started afresh this morning. However, as I'm using a big yarn (Cascade Baby Alpaca Chunky), it's quite fast!

As I had never knitted with double pointed needles before, I decided to give it a try with some scrap yarn before getting the yarn I ordered in the mail. The yarn was too thin and there wasn't enough of it to make much, but I managed to get something just the right size for Gipsy. She doesn't look very happy about it though...Cats are such an ungrateful bunch! ;) And honestly, that's what she gets for turning my OAL dress fabric into a hairy mess. How sad would life be if you couldn't make fun of your cat once in a while?!