Domestic Goddess

No one would ever call me a domestic goddess, I think. There's just too much constant mess in our home, and dust bunnies multiplying in corners and under couches. The recent good weather also tells me that the windows need to be cleaned. Sigh... I don't even dare think about how the apartment would look if it hadn't been for the fact that we ever so often have people visiting in weekends, and this forces us to clean.

So, no domestic goddess in the house cleaning department, but I do enjoy cooking, and I just have to share a link with you guys. BBC food has lots and lots of recipes, and also a decent section on indian food. I love indian, but having moved to rural Norway, indian take-out hasn't been an option, so I've had to try to figure out how to make my favourite dishes myself. Today I made chicken bhuna, and peshwari nans, the nan's courtesy of BBC Food, and it was just lovely. I found the recipe for the chichen bhuna on this jar. I tried to do a search for the recipe on their website, but it seems they didn't list it.

If you want to try it, here's how you make it:

Ingredients:

I onion finely chopped

approx 400 grammes of chicken, diced

1/2 jar of Bhuna Curry Paste

I box of canned tomatoes

2 teaspoons of tomato puré

approx 200 ml water

Fry the onions in a little oil until tender, mix in the bhuna curry paste, and add the chicken. Fry the chicken until sealed. Then add the rest, and let the dish simmer for 20 minutes. Serve with rice and nan.

Ha-ha!

As it turns out, it was possible to adjust the binder. There was a tiny screw holding it in position, and when I loosened it, I could move the binding attachment a bit to the left :o)

The Bias Binder take 2

A few days ago I had another go with the bias binder, with proper bias binding this time, and got the same result as last time. It seems that the binder attachment isn't properly aligned with the needle. This is very annoying, and I'll examine the binder closer, to see if I can perhaps move the binder slightly to the left. I also wonder if the attachment would be easier to use with a hand crank machine. When I use the binder on my 1960's singer, the binding seems to just miss the feed-dogs, and because of this, the fabric isn't properly fed. I am considering bringing the hand crank from 1908 down from the attic, and experiment a little. But not until I have finished the wedding dress I ought to be working on.

Competition

I browsed through some of the blogs I try to keep up with after work, and found that one of the bloggers, Bronny is offering up this completely yummy and very fitting embroidery, with the text "She who dies with the most patterns, is not stitching fast enough". Very fitting, as I feel a blush coming up just thinking of my stash of patterns. It's quickly approaching an embarrassing level, and if someone asks how many sewing patterns I own, I'm apt to lie. Not necessarily a direct lie though, but something along the lines of - oh, I don't know, perhaps 20. I haven't counted. I have of course not counted, but as one of my favourite books contain no less than 350 sewing, needlework and millinery patterns, it doesn't take a math genius to spot the fib.

I do intend to make most of the patterns though - eventually ;o)

Butterfly potholders

Butterfly potholders
Originally uploaded by Vintage Granny

Behold my latest creation.

I found some old potholder patterns online a while back, at tipnut.com. I had trouble deciding which ones to make first, but finally decided to make the butterfly potholders.

I used thick wool coating for wadding, just one layer this time. I haven't tested if that's sufficient, but if it turns out that it's not, I really don't mind keeping them just for decoration, as I already have the heart shaped potholders for everyday use.

Sad news

Even if I have moved back to Norway, I still keep in touch with my old colleagues and friends in Ireland, and these last few days, friends from my former work place have been relating bad news. 

The finance crisis has been hard on advertising companies in general, and my old company has suffered badly, although whether this is mainly due to the crisis, business decisions or management is, I would assume, an open question.

No matter the reason, the result is still that another 9 people have been laid off. I am not sure of the details, but I have the impression that they had to leave the very day they were told. Also the way they were told leave a thing or two to be desired. After having worked in a company for several years, having done a good job, and done your best for the company, I would say that you deserve more than having one of the managers come up to you, at work, in public, to let you know, quite casually, that you have been fired.

Vintage Sewing Books

I have been scouring the net trying to get hold of useful sewing books, and found many books listed on Amazon and Abe Books for instance, but unfortunately, there seems to be a general lack of information regarding the books themselves, such as table of contents, excerpts from the books, and other useful tidbits of information.

I have therefore taken pictures of some of my books, which I will post one book at a time, along with a review. Hopefully the reviews and pictures will be useful for others out there.