Latest cupcakes

Green tea, made with matcha powder and walnuts.

New fifties pattern

Check out the pattern I brought at the local vintage market.  It is a Vogue pattern so would be considered super stylish at the time. It is a 36 bust which is....let's just say, inadequate to my needs, but I have some experience upsizing patterns successfully so I am not daunted.

Vintage Life

The only birthday present I chose directly (as opposed to being either a surprise or wish list item) was a subscription to Vintage Life, a magazine for the retrosexually inclined...my first subscription edition arrived this week and I have been loving it!  Take a look, it is great fun.

Anyway  with my life  stabilising  a lot more now, I have experienced a resurgence of my vintage loving self and have had great fun browsing vintage stalls or online shops for inspiration (can't afford anything, I really have to get to sewing again...), looking up events to attend and watching media about retro lifestyles and was reminded...rather sadly, that the uber - norms are just as disparaging over people who want to live a traditional life as those of us living in other thoroughly modern alternative ways....

For example,some comments regarding   Neo-traditional types in the 2009 Channel 4 feature, Time Warp Wives:

 I've seen it too I think, they even have 1950s houses - all kitted out. it was quite weird but worth a watch, if not to confirm you are sane, and these people clearly are not

 Insane?  Really?

I felt there were other issues going on to be honest

Yep, it can't be that they just simply do not want to live like everyone else.

That all three have found partners as committed to denial as they are is, we suppose, nice for them. But there is something deeply sad about adults who need this level of fantasy

It seems I can't win approval by those types whichever way I bend, which since society sees me as terribly bent anyway I suppose I am lucky that I do not crave its approval.

I am really confused and, I must admit, a little irked, that people react with such abhorrence and  disrespect to people who just like to dress in an old fashioned way and who don't think it necessary to have an Iphone, is modern society so very insecure that it just cannot cope with anyone stepping out of line by being different?

Peer Pressure to indulge in superficiality is nothing new, but I hate to see it so far from the school yard.

Todays cupcakes

Lime cupcakes, decorated with vanilla frosting and lime zest (hard to see on the camera).

Made them with agave syrup rather than sugar but that is only because I am just practising rather than making them for other people and want to avoid lots of sucrose.

Next up....raspberry.....

Baking cupcakes

Yes, bit of a bore I know, I have started cake decorating, starting small with cupcakes.
BF brought me this lovely icing set along with a really nice vintage style cake stand and a beautiful shawl.
Will update with pictures in future.

Cushions.....

Since my walls went from a burnt orange terracotta to a strong Damson broken up by white and cream, I have had to find a way to deal with my old orange brown sofa.  It was a significant purchase a decade ago and I really can't afford to replace it.

Original covers

Covering up seems like a logical answer.  I am starting off by covering the cushions.  I have a couple of pairs of Aubergine curtains that were a lovely colour but sadly too short. I can do two cushions per curtain panel. 

New covers

It really feels amazing doing something myself and the fact they look fine, albeit plain, is wonderful despite it being all handsewn.  Sometimes we really feel helpless by our reliance on brought products because we feel we do not have the skill to do some things ourselves. For me, the flat has always been my weakness, because I was so busy I did not feel I had the time to make anything and too poor to buy, I actually have exchanged time for even more poverty and found that the time was actually the more important aspect, we pay SO much money for people to do things for us....sometimes quite simple things, like covering a cushion.

Yay!!!! Ready for sewing!!!

Well I have received my threads from Scotland so I can now start sewing.  I am hoping to start making cushion covers soon and after I finish that I can start on the clothes....woohoo!!!  Pictures will come soon.