Linen Flounce Skirt with Bemberg lining

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I finished the skirt!! It has been 90 degrees over the last 2 weeks and so hot in my sewing room but I finally finished it.

This is just the lining, I love my polka dot waist band 🙂

 

Here I sewed them together:

I did a blind hem stitch to finish the skirt and lining.

Here I am, trying to model it lol 🙂

 

Fresh Berries with Bourbon Whipped Cream

I made a lime infused simple syrup to toss my berries in! Yum. To add some different texture to this dessert I made crunchy toffee lacy cookies. The whipped cream is freshly made with vanilla and bourbon 🙂

• Servings: 4-6
• Time: 5 min
• Difficulty: easy
• Print

Bourbon Whipped Cream

• 1 cup of heavy whipping cream
• 1 tsp of vanilla
• 1 tbsp of bourbon
• 2 tbsp of icing sugar

Mix all ingredients on high till hard peaks form. Store in fridge till ready to serve. Since there are no stabilizers in this whip cream it will lose some of the air you whipped in over time,  so I tend to make this in my mixer close to the time I want to serve it 🙂

Lime Infused Simple Syrup

• 1 cup of water
• 3/4 cup of sugar
• zest and juice from 1 lime

Place water and the sugar in a saucepan and heat till sugar dissolves. Take off heat add the lime zest and lime juice, give it a quick stir. May keep in fridge for 1 week.

Berry Salad

• 1 cup of chopped strawberries
• 1/2 cup of blueberries
• 1/2 cup of raspberries
• 1/2 cup of blackberries
• 1 tbsp of freshly chopped mint

Add berries to large bowl, drizzle in your simple syrup to coat berries. Toss well. Serve with Bourbon Whipped Cream.  Qu’est-ce que vous manger?

Ambiance Linings

Ambiance/Bemberg is 100 percent rayon. It can be washed and dried on gentle cycles, it resists wrinkles and has a beautiful drape. It is deliciously silky to the hand.

Rayon is regenerated cellulose  fibres  made from wood pulp. It is a good choice for linings because it breathes well and doesn’t hold in heat. Polyester is very hot and doesn’t breathe well.

To prepare this fabric for sewing, wash and dry the lining on gentle cycles.  Set your iron to silk setting and press the material.  To lay out this fabric for cutting  you can use tissue paper between the layers to minimize slipping thus cutting out the lining along with the tissue paper.

I choose polka dot grey cotton for the waistband. 🙂

Use 70/10 needle for sewing this fabric with cotton thread. Also instead of 5/8 inch seam allowance use 1/2 inch instead this will prevent the seams from strain and pulling.

Do you use linings in your clothes? If so what do you use? I can’t wait to make another pair of pants and line them with some crazy rayon print.  It would make me smile every time I put my pants on 😉

Roasted Leg of Lamb with Fig-Port Wine Sauce

My family loves lamb! I won’t lie there are a lot of steps to this recipe but the end result is worth it! Have you ever had lamb that was on the “gamey” side? The trick is to remove the silvery connective tissue on a leg of lamb, trimming off some fat as well. Then brining the lamb in salt/sugar/garlic solution for a few hours. I then rub a herb paste over the roast and let marinade for a few more hours. To make sure the roast cooks evenly I wrap tightly with twine. I threw this on the traegar med- high heat for 40 min or so till medium rare.

First off:

Trim the roasts fat and silvery connective tissue off of the roast.

The Brine:

Take a large container and add 2 quarts of water, 1/4 cup salt, 8 mashed garlic cloves, 1/4 cup of sugar, and 1 tsp of peppercorns.

CHECK this shot out. Doesn’t it look like some nasty weird Mad Scientists brew 😉

Igor’s Secret Kitchen Brew! lol 🙂

Put this in the fridge for at least a few hours.

The herb Paste:

Ok so basically this is similar to a pesto minus the nuts.

I had about 1 tbsp of rosemary, 2 tsp of thyme, 1/2 cup of parsley, 2 garlic cloves and EVOO

I mixed everything in the food processor and drizzled in my olive oil aprox 1/4 cup

This gets smeared all over the meat and chilled for a few more hours to marinade. I use kitchen twine to get it back into a roast form then I grilled this on my traegar for about 40 minutes till medium rare. If you are wanting to use a regular barbecue please cook this with indirect heat. A traegar grill is a wood pellet grill that works the same as a normal convection oven with the smokey benefits of a wood fire stove.

Serve with Fig-Port sauce

 

Fig-Port Wine Sauce

• Servings: 6-8
• Time: 30min
• Difficulty: easy
• Print

The Fig-Port wine Sauce:

Ingredients:

• 8 mission dried figs
• 2 cup of port
• 1  cup of chicken stock
• 1 cinnamon stick
• salt and pepper to taste
• 1 tsp of fresh thyme
• 2 tsp of fresh rosemary
• 2 tbsp of butter

Directions:

Place all ingredients in a saucepan and reduce liquids by half. Discard the cinnamon stick and place the sauce in a food processor. Puree the sauce till smooth then blend in the butter and serve with the lamb 🙂

Tissue Fitting and No Muslin

Ok I recently came across the names Palmer/Pletsch for easy and faster alterations. I know where have I been hiding under a rock? Did I have my head in the sand?  I love their books!!!! You can find out more about them at Amazon.

Remember this?

So I thought I would take a whirl at this and start on the skirt with this beautiful herringbone linen in steel-blue.

I ended up adding quite a bit of alterations for it to hang straight in center front and center back. Center back was really swayed to the side! What the heck is wrong with my warped body lol

I also added two inches in length so I can have the skirt a bit longer.

Here is some progress in the fashion fabric:

Different lighting is making the color vary from dark to light but trust me it’s the same skirt 😉 I like the flounce unfortunately this linen is quite stiff and I plan to line this skirt so I decided to just preshrink this by steam iron vs washing it. I think it needs to soften up a bit I will wash it gentle cycle with fabric softener and hope for a bit of a better drape. I also hate how easy it wrinkles I really hope the lining helps with this.

I hope to pick up some lining material today with an invisible zip and have this finished by the end of the week.