Sydney Spring time with Linen & Liberty

Big week here

Its getting to that crazy time of year, school is wrapping up and lots of parties & gatherings.

 The weather has been perfect for my flowers. I've had a bumper crop of roses and now the hydrangeas and gardenias are out. 

The star jasmine is in full bloom and the Jacarandas in Sydney look amazing. Stone fruits, mangos and watermelon are making their way into fruit shops - Its a Beautiful time of year. 

I finally received my wooden star buttons and they are now on the liberty triangles and finally look like trees!

Original post and tutorial back here

I still have a comp going over HERE to win a Liberty of London scrap packet of 2.5 inch squares & I might even throw in some of my scraps too.

Im having so much fun with all the spring time lovely-ness. 

 I still want to add the date and maybe some more wooden buttons - I'll see how I go

I've baked several more batches of my flourless chocolate cakes - life saver recipe. Incredibly easy just melt, mix and bake.

I'm off to the local school spring fair - pretty sure I'll be taking pics on Instagram @beaspokequilts

Have a lovely Weekend

Xx Siobhan

Liberty Scrap Challenge - Christmas Special

I was told today that it is 6 weeks till christmas!!

The next two months are going to be incredibly busy & I'm so glad Nova asked me to do this challenge because its gotten me all christmassy and crafty just a little bit before the mayhem starts.

This year for a change I might actually get all the stuff I want to do done & on time! Thanks Nova :)

I have watched Nova & Jo's Liberty Scrap challenge and loved it. I love Liberty of London fabrics and use it alot - a little goes a long way. 

I was very excited to be asked to participate in the Christmas 2012 special. Thanks Guys! and I look forward to seeing what the other challengers have made

have a look at Nova from A Cuppa and a Catch up to see what else has been made this year & what other Liberty Christmassy things have been made.

and Jo from A Life in Lists

who has supplied the Liberty Fabrics from her etsy shop.

If your after the mini scrap pack take a look at The Organic Stitch Co etsy store.

Find out below how you can win a Liberty Scrap pack 

My Liberty scrap pack from Jo contained a pile of 2.5 inch squares and I also received a fat eighth remnant of Liberty fabric.

I added in some natural linen and white gauze to begin with.

I cut some linen into 2.5 inch squares & then cut the linen and liberty squares in half to form Half Square Triangles.
The Linen squares for the outer edge of the tree block are 2 1/8th inch square. The white gauze fabric is for the tree pot.

The top picture is all of the liberty that I received in my package. I decided to go a little bit bigger and added in some of my own pink paisley Liberty Scraps from previous projects here & here.

Once the patchwork top was all together and basted I sketched my text on - that I wanted to embroider. I decided on Merry Christmas in French & names.

Our house is currently all things french - My father spends a fair bit of time over in Paris and my eldest is studying french in high school. French seemed a bit cute - I contemplated Gaelic considering thats my heritage and my father can actually speak and read Gaelic. but French won.

I also have a thing for names - when I was a child growing up in Australia, no one was called Siobhan and no one had key rings/cups/ notebooks etc with my name on it!

I was so jealous of the Kylie's and Rebecca's of the time. They had names on everything....

I wanted the panel to look very rustic & naive.  

In another project I recently did I made a boarder with curved tabs, I wanted to do something similar with this one.
I cut 4 inch squares of linen & Liberty fabrics and then cut them in half  to make HST. They were sewn together on three sides right sides facing together. I then turned them inside out and ironed them flat.

The tabs were then sewn onto the patchwork front with a 1/4 inch seam - with the liberty print facing the patchwork top.


To finish the patchwork panel
 I wanted to use a no binding quilt method

this entails putting the backing fabric down with right sides facing together and sewing 1/4 inch seam all the way around - leaving a hole big enough to put your hand through. Similar to making a cushion or pillow cover.

I then pulled the fabric through the hole and ironed it flat. stitch up the hole by hand.

I'm waiting on some wooden star buttons to put on the top of my Tree's - they will probably arrive the second I hit publish on my post...

I also want to embroider the year on the bottom corner. I like the idea of making things that my kids will treasure in many years to come. I love having my mums christmas boxes full to the brim with christmas treasures.

Last year for Christmas I made the kids some Stockings and star ornaments with Liberty & Linen.

I'll post a picture when I have the wooden star buttons on the tree! 

and the Lovely Jo has offered a mini scrap pack of Liberty to one of my lucky blog readers.

Make a comment

I'd love to know what you make for christmas - Food/ craft/ presents ? 

 and I will pick some one at random - when you comment please make sure I have your email address!  

Xx Siobhan 

bit of Baking - Flourless Chocolate cakes :)

Hi 

It's that time of year where I seem to be constantly baking something - kids stuff - family stuff - school stuff and it will keep going till just around new year. 

I've made this batch of cakes several times over the last few weeks - its the easiest fool proof recipe I know and it tastes delicious.

Today I feed 6 teen boys lunch and this was the requested dessert.

 

Over the years its been adapted from several recipes.

This is my version. You will find lots of different versions all over the place 

This mixture will make 24 individual cakes

Ingredients

180g salted butter

300g good quality dark eating chocolate

1 1/4 cups of raw caster sugar

100g hazelnut meal

1 cup cocoa powder

5 large eggs

Preheat the oven to 150c. 

Place the sugar, chocolate and butter in a saucepan over a low heat and gently melt until smooth.

In a mixing bowl place the almond meal and cocoa.

Add the cooled chocolate mixture to the dry ingredients and beat to combine.

Add the eggs one at a time whilst the beater is going and mix each egg in well (the mixture will be warm and you don't want the eggs to cook).

Once all the eggs have been beaten into the chocolate mixture you will have a glossy stiff mixture, using a table spoon - spoon the mixture into your muffin pan.

I recommend using a patty case or baking paper in your muffin trays as I have done for the photos.

Bake for 25 minutes

The serving size is on the small size as the cakes are incredibly rich!!

Serve with Clotted cream and fresh raspberries

Enjoy Xx Siobhan