Thursday 3 May 2012

Wholemeal Honey Cake and Wall Hanging

The simple pleasures a cup of tea and a slice of cake can bring. This is a particularly good cake - by which I mean the recipe, I'm not just patting myself on the back for my baking skills here! I first read about this on the lovely Flossie Teacakes blog. When Florence first posted about it she described it as 'a cake that left a grown man nearly weeping with happiness as he ate it' - praise indeed! You can see her post here and the recipe here. She mentioned it again last week and this prompted me to think that I must make it NOW. I'm happy to report that it was just as delicious as Florence said it would be, and very easy too. I shall be making it again!


In sewing news, I thought I should show you another work in progress - hoping again that by showing it on the blog I shall be shamed into picking it up once more! This is from this book - a really lovely book that I was given last year.


I like this 'look' very much and quite quickly (and somewhat ambitiously) decided to make this as a wall hanging.


The pictures below show far I've got - I've cut out all the leaves and drawn my tree on the front of my fabric, and then stitched them all in place.



So far, so good. The next stage though is to free motion quilt the whole thing, which I'm ever so slightly terrified about, hence the project has stalled. I clearly just need to practise, practise and practise some more, and then bite the bullet and go for it, but, having spent quite a long time on the appliqué, I'm rather worried I might just ruin it! Still, nothing ventured, nothing gained - and it's good to challenge yourself, right?! I'll let you know how I get on!






5 comments:

  1. I'm so pleased you liked it too! And how funny, my blogless friend, Jenny, has been making that exact quilt from the Syko book and I visited it last week and it's gorgeous. I can't wait to see your one quilted, although I'd share your apprehension after all that work. I found Oh Fransson's tutorial on free-motion quilting really helpful and have conquered my fears around FMQ having following her advice. x

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  2. Great idea for a wall hanging! I'd love to be able to free motion stitch, have tried once but I found it quite tricky... Any tips welcome!...

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    1. Thanks, I'll let you know how I get on! I've just been reading the tutorial Florence mentioned in her comment, on Oh Fransson, and it looks really helpful, so hopefully I'll be brave enough to attempt it soon!

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  3. This is such a lovely idea and a great way to use some scraps creatively too.

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    1. Thanks for commenting! This is one of the things I've left languishing, but hope to finish soon!

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