zumbo

Thank you all for your kind words about my sewing fail, I do appreciate the sympathy! It made me feel a lot better and it was nice to know I'm not alone in the occasional craft disaster!
The other day Mr F returned home with a good distraction. For those of you who watch Master Chef, the Australian cooking reality show, you will know the name Adriano Zumbo. The occasional guest on the show he produces the most technically amazing cakes and desserts as challenges for the competitors to follow.
Zumbo has a patisserie in Balmain, close to where we live. Rumour has it that after his Master Chef appearances there was often a line outside his shop. We've never tasted his wares before so it was a nice surprise when Mr F turned up with this glamorous box full of his signature macaroons.
And the container of tomato sauce you're wondering? That's to eat with the bacon and egg macaroon, the one that looks like a mini hamburger! I had mine without and it was my favourite of all the biscuits, a nice mix of sweet and salty with real bacon pieces. The other flavours here include lamington, wasabi (the black one with lime green sesame seeds), ginger and chocolate. Other flavours listed on his website include beetroot & raspberry, pumpkin & orange risotto, custard crunch, chickpea lemon & caramel, Mont Blanc, citrus & mustard, Blackened vanilla bean, 3 textures blueberry, kalamata olive & bergamot candy, pear pistachio & fennel, salted peanut caramel, oatmeal & ylang ylang.
We divvied them up so we could all taste a bit of each. It was fun. Oh and Zumbo has a new show starting on SBS soon. For those mad bakers in the house it will be a must see!

my creative space - fail!

Remember that New Year's resolution to sew the Shearwater Kaftan? Yesterday I had the house to myself for a couple of hours and decided to make a start. Annoyingly on unwrapping the pattern I found that the pattern pieces were printed double-sided in pieces that needed joining and would need to be traced onto tracing paper first. Of course I didn't have any tracing paper and it was a public holiday so I couldn't buy any.

I was all ready to sew so I came up with a plan to scan the pieces and print them out instead. It took more than an hour to do all that but I consoled myself in thinking it would be a good, exact copy of the pattern and all the markings, and that I could use it again in the future.

To cut a long story short I cut out the pattern and started sewing. After I got to the point of attaching the sleeves I threw it over my head to see how it fitted. It didn't. What?

Turns out all the pieces had printed, unbeknownst to me, at 90% (@#@*&!). I'm sad because of the wasted time but also because I really like this fabric. I'm just hoping that I can find it again at Spotlight, or something as nice. And I'm just hoping too I will find some more enthusiasm to start again. Hmmm, at the moment I'm not feeling it!

Print Sale

To celebrate Australia Day I am taking $2 off all my prints. The prices are changed so you don't need to mess around with codes. $12 prints become $10 and the A4 size Ruby Slippers are reduced to $18. My old favourite Filigree gocco print becomes $8!! And don't forget the new Zinnia prints, they're there too.

Oh, and I nearly forgot, I'm sitting on 599 sales!!!!! Lucky 600 will get a Ruby Slippers card thrown in :-)