Spring in the air

Spring IS in the air! I'm not wearing a cardigan today. Which is rare. I'm also wearing TROUSERS which is a rare sight. I only have one pair of chino type things and a pair of black "skinny" jeans which I feel odd in, coz I'm not skinny.

Anyway new obsession this fortnight is clothes making. Every night I've been trawling the internet for lovely fabric to make my creations.

This is the fabric I used for my skirt.

I've fallen for this woman who designs the patterns I've been using. Colette Patterns. I've already made the Ginger skirt with success.

I was dubious about the Beginners claim on the pattern but with a wee bit of guidance from some clothes making chums, I now have a fully pret a porter garment. I do sew. I sew soft furnishings but the world of pattern reading and clothes making until now seemed to me unachievable. I'd recommend it to anyone who fancied trying their hand at sewing clothes. It has just occurred to me that I have no photo of the a fore mentioned hand made skirt. I'll get that sorted for the next time.

Onto tearoom news, well, I now have a colleague. Alex MacKenzie, a regular to the tearoom with her two girls and faithful Crafternooner. She started just over a week ago and it is going great. She totally gets what I'm trying to do with the tearoom and has tonnes of ideas and stuff for how I can develop. Alex will be here with me on Thursdays and Saturdays so if you can, pop in and say hello.

Crafternoons are here to stay! Folk had requested a regular Crafternoon so we're going to be crafting on the last Sunday of each month.

As before each Crafternoon will have a different theme, suitable for all abilities and you'll have something beautiful to take away with you. The March Crafternoon is a Spring inspired one using fabric to sew some birds and creating a lovely Spring/Easter mobile for your home.
Email tea(at)cushionandcake.com if you want to come along.

Onto Easter decorating. I've had fun decorating my Easter tree for the tearoom. The images here don't show it very gloriously but I assure you, it is rather cute.

I got my biggest vase, added a big pink bow and soaked some Florist's Oasis and pushed it all inside the vase. The Oasis anchored the lovely twigs (that I got from my friend Allie the florist but in previous years have pilfered from my local park or green space) which I then decorated simply with ribbons, fabric scraps and some painted eggs. Very simply but people seem to like it.

That's all for now. Better go and bake some cakes like my new fav lemon and blueberry loaf.