Stash Avalanche

Xmas decorations

I'm big into snow flakes this year so we have plenty  - some of which still need stringing up! The big fancy ones are from a  post that Kate at M is for Make did last year. In fact, I cut them out last year and they sat in a cupboard for 12 months before I managed to make them up (sigh). I wanted to make tiny little ones out of tracing paper but joining them up was so fiddly that I gave up - next year perhaps...

I'm always a big fairy lights fan so we have plenty of those too, and because I rather short-sightedly threw out the branch which has been our xms tree for the last few years last month, we have very few tree-ish places to hang decorations. So some baubles on the fig trees, and my lovely Dutch porcelain ornaments over the fire place.

Have a lovely Christmas everyone xx

This morning

Simultaneous sewing and breakfast. Why no one ends up with thread on their rolls is a constant surprise to me. The sooner I have a sewing corner, the better!

SMS Giveaway Winner

Thank you for all your comments! I'm glad I'm not the only one who really needs a piece of cake right now! There seems to be a chocolate cake bias going in the comments so here's one I made earlier which should satisy your eyes if not your cake gland. The icing didn't turn out exactly how I'd imagined but hey ho, it tasted pretty ok.

Now on to more urgent matters...

The SMS Giveaway winner was picked by random.org ...

...who was Theresa...

Congratulations, Theresa! Cherry cheesecake most certainly counts. Look out for an email from me very soon.

Canadian fruit cake

Hello. Here for the Giveaway? You need to be here instead!

Lots of you are craving chocolate cake by the looks of the comments on the Giveaway post so I thought I'd let you know that Joy the Baker has a chocolate mint swiss roll thing going at the moment. Sounds delish! I spent half my teens baking peppermint victoria sponge. Aah, the calories...

But I digress.

Meghan commented that she'd like pineapple upside down cake which reminded me that I should share this pineapple christmas cake with you. I'm afraid you only get a photo of an intriguingly wrapped lump as we haven't cut it yet, but I'll try to remember to post one of the real deal once we start eating it.

This recipe is one that my mother cut out of the newspaper so long ago that it only comes with imperial weights. It makes a light coloured but full of fruity goodness cake that you could have for christmas or take on picnics (when it isn't blowing snow at 100kph outside like it is today!).

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Canadian Christmas Cake

7oz self-raising flour

1/8 sp salt (I suspect a pinch is much the same thing)

5oz glacé cherries

1lb tin of pineapple (I use crushed pineapple)

5oz butter

4½ oz granulated sugar

2 large eggs

2 tbs brandy

9oz sultanas

3oz cut mixed peel

Set the oven to 325F / gas mark 3.

Sift the flour and salt together. Cut 8 cherries into small pieces and reserve. Cut half the rest into halves. Roll the whole and halved cherries in flour and shake off surplus. Drain the pineapple and if it isn't already srushed (I really recommend it), chop it as finely as you can.

Cream the butter and sugaruntil light and fluffy. Beat in the eggs one at a time. stir in the brandy, flour, and then all the fruit except for the reserved cherries. Turn into a greased 2lb loaf tin (or line it with baking parchment), level off the top and bake in the preheated oven for 1 hour.  Scatter the reserved cherries on top and bake for another hour (so 2 hours total baking time).

Leave until cool before removing from the tin, wrap well and kep for at least 2 weeks before eating.

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I am a total glacé cherry fiend so I don't bother with the cherries on the top; everything goes in the cake. Apparently this will keep indefinitely in the fridge, but frankly wouldn't you rather eat it and make another?

ps. if anyone comes across a website where you can convert square/loaf tin sizes to circular tin sizes, please let me know. Somehow a proper christmas cake needs to be round...

added 09-01-12 We cut the cake (not today but I'm only just getting round to posting this) and it looks like this:

I actually found it too sweet (not having eaten it for years) so next time I will cut down the sugar by an ounce or so. But the excessive number of glacé cherries will remain.

SMS Giveaway Day

It's here, I'm totally unprepared, I'm not entirely sure I understand how Sew, Mama, Sew's new rules work but I have a giveaway for you. Just a little one. But first...

Hello! Welcome to StashAvalanche if you haven't been here before, welcome back if you have! It's been a bit quiet round here lately but that's no reason not to have a nosey about and come back again some time to see what I'm up to.

My giveaway is a little pink bead necklace. Pink and white swirly Venetian-style beads strung on a linen cord. It's about 70cm long so just right for wearing with a shirt or v-neck top.

I have several of these in different colours which get worn quite regularly when there isn't a small wriggle monster to pull at them and cover them in hummus. This one has been made specially for the giveaway and has not been subjected to wriggles or hummus, so no need to worry!

To enter the giveaway, just leave a comment telling me what kind of cake you would really like a slice of (I'm suffering from serious Austrian Coffee Cake lust right now) and leave your email address in the comment too. You can use a format like stashavalanche[at]gmail{dot}com for security if you want but please leave it somehow! I'm sorry but I don't have time to go charging round Blogger or Ravelry in order to message you.

I'm happy to ship internationally and the giveaway will be open until Friday (that's the 16th December) closing at as near to 9pm UK/Irish time as I can make it. Winner to be announced on Saturday.

And if you want to have a go at some more giveaways, just clike over to SMS's Giveaway Day post for a miriad of lovely stuff.

The winner was Theresa. Click here to find out more...

Orange fleece

Not posting so often means more time to craft... haha. But I have managed this top and there's another in the pipeline (except that I need to go and buy another twin needle because I broke the last one half way through top stitching... seems to be turning into a bit of a trend...).

So this is Burda 9522*, which I like in part. It's a nice simple pattern but Burda would have you cut a  slit opening in the front of this top which to me seems like a) overkill and b) a bit crappy to have a raw edge, even if it is made from (alegedly non-fraying) jersey. (The hat in the pattern is also put together rather crudely which Burda might think is a consession to beginner sewers but just seems to be an excuse not to write decent instructions).

I did quite a lot of tacking because I find the fleece moves around quite a bit in (in?) the sewing machine even with a walking foot, and the stars were stitched on by hand first too.

I cut the top about 8cm longer because Stashlet is pretty tall and constantly seems to have builder's bum vest in all his bought clothes, and made little vents in the sides so he doesn't feel like he's in a straight jacket.

The bound edge of the envelope neck was done with raw edged fleece and a pseudo-overlock stitch to keep the bulkiness down, and this worked pretty well, I think.

Next time I will have more faith and do it in a contrasting colour.
 

Oh, and of course the other thing I did was make the sleeves long, because the pattern is for a short sleeved top. Stashlet is wearing them with turn-ups at the moment but at the rate he's growing they won't be like that for long.

The orange fleece is pretty thick and came from my LFS. I originally wanted to make one in some (slightly less in-your-face) mustardy yellow that I have left over from a top I made ages ago but there was only enough for a front, a back and one sleeve so that has been shelved until I can think of something else to do with it. The (thinner) white fleece for the stars was a scrap of Ikea Polarvide blanket left over from the Lila Tueller quilt.

 Mr G says he looks "very Dutch". He certainly looks very orange.

 

*When I Googled this to find an image of the pattern, I clicked on the first few links without actually really reading them and was a bit alarmed to find one about a onesie from the same pattern was a post I did earlier this year. Ahaha haha... Fame on Google at last, aned I didn't pay them a penny... ahem.