Do you remember the first time?

I've mailed off my first internet swap!

It was a fun, but not quite as fun as I had hoped, for reasons that are entirely my own fault. Having assembled a rather fine collection of three vintage bird-like objects, I neglected to double-check the posting date, and realised this afternoon that everything needed to be in the mail in, oh, 20 minutes. And this, on a day when the baby does not want to be put down not-even-for-a-minute-how-did-you-think-you-could-get-away-with-that-you-silly-woman.

So I had semi-grand plans, but in the end the wrapping was basic.




No pics of the goodies themselves until the package has safely arrived. I hope my swap partner is not disappointed. I feel embarrassed about the presentation, but I hope she likes the goodies inside.

I've also just realised that I forgot to include a card. Sheesh. What a crappy swapper I've turned out to be.

I have been tempted to join a holiday ornament swap, but we are leaving tomorrow for a three-week Canadian tour to introduce the baby to her grandad, aunt, second cousins and great grand-parents, and I don't think that leaves me enough time to come up with a brilliant idea and replicate it 8-10 times.

Handsome hand-me-downs

I love hand-me-downs. The gentle wear and tear. The old-school charm of 1970s baby clothes. The passing on of much-loved favourites. Some of Moot's most beautiful clothes are hand-me-downs, from fancy Petit Bateau tops to bobbly old sweaters. I get a kick from feeling thrifty, too.

We were recently given some baby clothes worn by Moot's dad and his sister.

First off is a cute barboteuse - I know what it is called in French, but not in English, but I like the French word for this kind of outfit, because it makes me think of babies puttering around with their toys.



Then there is this beautiful romper, with smocking and delicate hand-embroidered mushrooms.





Finally, a pair of overalls made from a cloth kit. I grew up in Canada, and had never heard of cloth kits before, although my mother used to make clothes for my sister and me. I love, love, love the print.



And the apple patch on the bum is irresistible.


Why don't they make these any more?

One day I'll post about the baby clothes my sister and I wore, that I have carefully packed away for Moot - among them, the outfit we wore on our first birthdays, the Israeli party dress and the Spanish lederhosen... No, really, it's super-cute.

A life's work

Moot's great-aunt and second cousin are bookbinders, and have made beautiful portfolios for her dad. After she was born, we commissioned them to make her a baby book, with some fabric from my stash. There have been some family upheavals recently, so it's taken a while, but we finally got it yesterday, and it was worth the wait.





Now, I just have to fill it.

Collective slump

A bad case of the blahs. Every project I pick up at the moment, I put down again after a few minutes. Nothing grabs my attention. Maybe it's the rain, maybe it's the days drawing in. Whatever it is, I hope it passes soon.

It's some consolation to find that I am not alone. She is feeling blah. So is she. A half-dozen more feel the same way, too. I hope it passes soon.

In a muddle

My task for today had been to work out my to-do list. But oh my - check this out at Etsy. Isn't it cute?

I've been mulling over making a crib bumper for Moot from some of this Etsuko fabric, backed with some polkadots, but now I'm torn - I've got some of that leaf print, from Denyse Schmidt, in red, and it would look soo cute, backed with something plain.

The weird thing is that I also have some of this spotty fabric from Reprodepot.

I'm also loving the apple print, I wonder where it comes from?

So my to-do list is up in the air, again. Whichever fabric I don't use for the bumper will go to make a nappy bag - another project I meant to tackle before the baby was born, but somehow didn't materialise (was it because I was too lazy maybe?).

Food for thought

Thanks for the thrifting tips. I've also done some searches on eBay, too, so I feel a bit calmer.

I don't mean for this suddenly to become a food blog, because I am definitely more interested in crafting at the moment, but as I was stuck on the sofa for an unusually long breastfeeding session, I got to staring at our cookbooks and picking out my favourites. With a self-satisfied sigh, I thought how terrible it was that not everybody knew about them, and decided there and then to share them with you.

I thought I might roll them out slowly, starting with some Asian humdingers.

The first is Irene Kuo's The Key to Chinese Cooking, which as far as I can tell is out of print, but well worth tracking down on Abebooks, or wherever you buy your hard-to-find books.



I love Chinese cooking, but find most Chinese restaurant food a bit... snotty. I can't remember exactly how I came upon this book, except that it must have been reading some mention of it on the web. I bought it when I was in a particularly boring job, which allowed for much internet surfing and daydreaming, and left me with enough pent-up energy in the evenings to want to cook something a bit more elaborate than pasta with tomato sauce.

Why is this book so brilliant? Kuo is a great teacher, explaining the whys and wherefores of the techniques. I've not been to China, but the recipes call for enough authentic ingredients to provoke a trip to Chinatown, yet are still straightforward enough so that cooking them doesn't seem too daunting a prospect. Everything I've made, I've loved and wanted to make again and again, from her simple rice recipe, to the meaty, morish pork buns, of which I can never eat enough.

A region of China I am particularly interested in visiting is Sichuan, and that is entirely Fuchsia Dunlop's fault, because she wrote Sichuan Cookery and it's brilliant, too.



Like Kuo, she communicates her passion very well, the recipes are enticing and the results are a revelation. I've made quite a few of the chicken and chilli dishes, an aubergine dish and a green bean dish, and they were all delicious. The late Alan Davidson, a towering figure in the UK food writing scene, wrote a quote for the cover that sums up my feelings, too: "It is a very long time since I saw a new book which is so patently an absolute 'must'."

I once had call to speak to Dunlop for work, and was embarrassingly gushy about the book, and she was suitably embarrassed for me. I think I muttered something about having bought a meat hook to make her bacon recipe. When the weather gets properly cold, I want to make her hotpot, which is like a chilli fondue. My love of this book also led me to Grand Sichuan in New York City, and it was one of the nicest meals I've ever had.

And it also lead us to one of the few Sichuan restaurants in London, Bar Shu, which we will always remember because we went there on my birthday and I ended up in hospital at 3am that night with a high blood pressure induced headache while 38 weeks' pregnant, which lead to two weeks of hospital visits that finally ended when I was induced and our daughter was born.

Last but not least - are you still there? - is Japanese Cooking, A Simple Art by Shizuo Tsuji. I have weighed this book, and it's 1.3kg, so I think that the title is a bit off the mark.





Also, while I bought this before travelling to Japan on honeymoon last year, I ate when we were there, as you do, and having re-read parts of this since then, I would say that I probably only really understand half of what he is on about. But it's great escapism reading, it's scholarly without being too intimidating, and the recipe for rice really works. One day, when I live closer to an Asian supermarket, I will cook more from it. In the meantime, who could resist a book with the drawings that illustrate the best techniques for gutting fish, and how best to chop a carrot? I can't.

So, that's enough for today. But what about you? Which are your favourites and why?

A slice of life

Since the bloghead mentions eating, I thought I better share some recent cooking.

We have had a cube of fresh yeast in the fridge for ages, waiting for someone to get round to making bread. I got inspired yesterday evening, after noticing that the 'best before' date was last week.

I've got about 200 cookery books, but only a few on bread. One of them is Elizabeth David's English Bread and Yeast Cookery.



I decided to try her basic bread recipe - one of the few I could find that used fresh yeast. It came out pretty good, and as you can see, there's not much left after this morning's breakfast of bacon sandwiches.




It was very straightforward recipe, with minimal kneading and raising time. It does call for a lot of salt, which David acknowledges, so next time I will probably halve the salt quantity. I will also try it with rye and wholewheat flour instead of strong white flour.

In the past, I've found breadmaking quite hard work, but that's probably my own fault. I used our own sourdough starter, which I "created" in 1999 out of water, organic raisins and flour. It finally died this summer, after going solid and cheesy. I was never fully happy with the bread I made with it, and it took ages to knead and rise. That said, I always enjoyed the fact that I didn't use "artificial" yeast. Ha. Anyway, I'm converted - it's fresh yeast all the way.

First time nerves

I've just joined my first internet swap.

Vintage bird swap

 

I love birds, but oh my god, what if I don't find anything?! I've only got two weeks, and the charity shops around here are pretty rubbish. Oh for a Value Village.

WIP RIP II

It was fun while it lasted.

The knitted booties are a pair no more. One of them decided to stay in Dalston rather than come home with us. I'm a bit concerned, as it's a bit of a rough area. Anyway, I hope it finds what it is looking for. As for Debbie Bliss bootie patterns... When they say 3-12 months, I guess that's a sign that they are going to be big on a four-month-old, and prone to slipping off kicky feet.

I guess I have to knit another one, but my mind has already moved on to other projects.

Oh, and the John Lewis trip didn't quite happen as planned. Public transport and a hungry babe conspired against me, and I returned home empty handed - but at least with a belly full of prawn and chive dumplings and chili sauce.

Yuck

Moot and I have colds, and the weather is revolting...



There's only one thing for it. Dimsum and plenty of chili sauce with a dear friend here.

It will be only our second trip into town together. Let's hope it goes more smoothly than the first - which involved Moot crying all the way home on the bus - and that I get the chance to nip into John Lewis' fabric department on the way. I have a great idea for a Christmas present that could spark off a whole new family tradition.

It's right-side up for her

A couple of weeks ago, I managed to conquer my post-natal inertia long enough to make Moot - that's her nickname, by the way, not her actual name - a tunic top, a t-shirt and a pair of trousers from some Japanese craft book patterns.

Actually, the tunic isn't quite finished, I'm still working on the button loop, but that's fine because it's still a bit too bit for her. The material came from Cia's Palette, but I can't see it on the website anymore. The button, which I'm now thinking might make the top a bit too matchy-matchy, I've been hoarding for ages and comes from Uplifting Arts.





The pattern is from this book, which I first saw on Six and a half stitches. I can't seem to find the original post, but if you have a look around, she's made some lovely thing from it. It's a great book, and I pretty much want to make her everything in it.

The top and trouser jersey fabric came from that old favourite, Reprodepot. The pattern is from this book. It's not a great a book, actually, and has freakish blonde children modelling the clothes. I will post some pics from it soon.





Yes, the giraffes on the trousers are upside down, but hey, the pattern is in JAPANESE so I think I did pretty good. The neckline on the t-shirt isn't quite right, it needs to be taken in, but I can't be bothered as she's about to grow out of it and I've got a Simplicity pattern for a long-sleved t-shirt which is more suited to winter.

WIP RIP

So I finished the booties this morning. I hate finishing. Sewing in the ends is hugely frustrating, because it never really works, I probably do it all wrong, so there's always a yarn end that pokes out of the garment to taunt me. And when there are these many ends to work in...



Was it worth it? Yup. They are cute, and anyway she needs some warm booties now that the weather is colder. And they will help keep her socks on.

Here's the money shot:



And here's what the other 16 shots on my camera looked like:

Whoops

I seem to have started a blog... After months of drooling over other people's blogs, I think it is time I joined in.

Many reasons why, but mostly to motivate me to finish all my crafty projects, and give me a space to show them off.

Today, I'm finishing off some booties for the baby, the Moot of the title, from a Debbie Bliss pattern, and with some vintage buttons I might have nicked from my mother. Actions shots to come.