Sunday, 26 August 2012

I *heart* my new toy


What can I say - I splurged. 

I'm now a proud new owner of my very own Thermomix. I could justify the purchase by saying that my kitchen is equipped with a couple of pots, a pan and a wok, and not much else, but that would be a lie. I did buy a mortar and pestle when I was whipping up my green curry paste ;)

Honestly though, I did need to get a bunch of appliances for the kitchen. I'm used to just reaching into a cupboard and having access to a blender, food processor, cake mixer - even a grater - so there has been no cake baking for a long time now (possibly not a bad thing but an unrelated subject). Cue the all-in-one magic cooking machine - very suitable for places with limited storage. How could I resist?

So yes, I decided that this purchase would be my reward to myself for starting my (not-so-)new job, and help my efforts to cook at home a little more. Hurrah! I'm super pleased with my purchase - but now I just need to work out what to name her...

Saturday, 11 August 2012

My Tiny Pocket Tank - finally

Work has been kind of ridiculous, which has resulted in minimal crafty goodness. Unfortunately the lack of sewing probably just compounded the general feeling of not-quite-rightness, so I decided to put it right and temporarily borrow a machine for the new place.

There isn't an ideal place for the machine here quite as yet so I've been making do an a bar stool at a kitchen table. The result? A backache, a tiny pocket tank and a huge level of satisfaction that I've finally made something *nod*

Tiny pocket tank - the trial
This is what people tend to call a wearable muslin - I just wanted to see how this as to sew up and I thought I'd use some nice material to test things out. It's turned out well and I got a compliment on it just the other night!

Overall I'm pretty happy (the print is so forgiving!) but my binding could be much improved. I think I'll need to make the next one a size smaller - this just seems a touch big for me. Hopefully by then I have a little crafting corner with my own machine and table *fingers crossed*