Cherry soup, cherry on my apron

Real Life caught up with me and I did not post several things I wanted to post for the Bramblewood Fashion blog event (which I keep forgetting to link back to). Like a cap knitted after the 1950s magazine I bought a while ago. And my absolutely favourite 1940s film, which is probably one of my favourite films of all times, but its awesomeness happens to be extremely hard to convey only in pictures and words to people who don't speak Czech... And such like.

So in this post, I unite the culinary Thursday with the Fashionable Friday to make up for that easily.

Today, I made this:

It's a recipe from "Cooking the Austrian Way" by Ann Knox, a 1960 revised edition of a 1958 book, published by Spring Books in London. It's part of a series - I also got "Cooking the German Way", and there are others, including "Cooking the Czech Way", which, sadly, I did not get (it would be interesting to see Czech recipes translated to English readers). But these I did get I got in a secondhand bookshop for the ridiculous price of 10 CZK for both the books, which is about 50 US cents. So no, I'm definitely not complaining.

Although I also had to utilise a 1924 book to get the amounts right.


That's an old English-Czech dictionary. It has these useful conversion tables for all sorts of measures in the beginning. (There's just one catch: they got the decimal point in inches wrong.)

So, cherry soup. I used frozen sour cherries from our cherry tree instead of fresh black cherries. (I wonder what the Germans/Austrians originally used, because Wikipedia tells me black cherries come from America.) And because they were sour already, I added less of the lemon juice. And we happened to have no lemon, just bottled lemon juice, so I used orange rind instead.

I was rather proud of my orange rind.

Also, I used cornstarch. Not flour. The way the recipe treats it suggests it's starch.

But I did use a real cinnamon stick (which was rather hard to fish out of the soup when it was finished).

Orange + cinnamon take it near mulled wine territory, and orange + other fruit + cold somehow also takes it near sangría territory (why do I have to remind myself of sangría?!); while the sour fruit + starch takes it into the realm of kissel. I'm not particularly fond of mulled wine, but all the others I love, so it sounded good. And it was another way to use our cherries outside of sweet dumplings, cakes and compots.

We did not wait till it was completely cold and took it from the fridge in a rather lukewarm-to-cold stage. Not that it made such a difference. When my sister was laddling another bowl, I remarked to her that, apparently, the recipe met with success. She replied "Not just success, it met with devouring."
I hope that conveys to you just what this soup is like. I'm glad I made the 6 servings amount.

My bowl is a handmade-in-Poland bowl my (other) sister brought me from Wroclaw as a birthday/Christmas (choose one) gift. Making this a thoroughly Central European dish.


Stoning the cherries was a rather lengthy and messy affair. (BTW, why is it called "stoning" when it is, obviously, rather a "de-stoning"?) They bleed a lot, they even spurt into all sorts of unexpected directions. The juice colours everything it comes into contact with hot pink. Especially your clothes.

Which is precisely the reason why I made this apron in the first place.

And now you can finally see what this piece of utility clothing sort-of-inspired-by-50s-but-not-quite-worked-out actually looks like finished.

Not quite worked out because I did not have enough fabric and made the skirt up as I went; and altered the fit as I went which only resulted in other fit problems (like the bust darts not really hitting my bust point).

And the skirt does not exactly line up in the back.

But it's a piece of utility clothing that actually serves its purpose - proven - and my sister asked me today to make her one following the same basic structure one day. So when I find another apron-worthy fabric, I'm also making another one for myself, this time from an improved pattern. Moreover, it has fun colours, colours that match the purpose it was made for. Which was one of the reasons why I used the Very Pink Poplin of Doom on it.

(The Very Pink Poplin of Doom has earned its own tag. It currently beats other tagged subjects in the number of posts it's appearing in, so why not? It's a special fabric. Very pink.)

Sneak peek 2

So... This is a post to join Debi's Sew Grateful Challenge. It does not feature a finished item, only a nearly finished item. But it does not seem to matter.

I finally got back to the project from this post. I thought I'd finish it this weekend; I still haven't managed, because I took long naps both yesterday and today afternoon... But it's close now.

The gingham-ish print I got from my friend's mother (the same I got the pale green 1970 dress, and several other things and fabrics I haven't written about yet from). The bias binding is the infamous Very Pink Poplin of Doom, also a gift. I think it spices up the blue and white fabric nicely. Or maybe it makes it unbearably saccharine; that's up for debate, but I, as the perpetrator of that combination, prefer the first option. :-)


So, what is this? It is, as I suggested in the first Sneak peek post, a rip off of Colette Patterns - namely their Crepe dress, using this free pattern by Lekala (and modifying it quite heavily). But it's meant to be an apron. Apron dress. Dress apron.
So I made it a higher neckline, for better coverage (that was my intent in making an apron dress in the first place - higher coverage). There was not nearly enough of the fabric for a fuller skirt, too. So it's not very close to Crepe after all, but I like it like this, with the higher neckline. (The sleeves are nowhere near perfect, but seeing as it is only an apron, I won't bother.) The waist ties will also be made of the Very Pink Poplin.

I have the idea of using this pattern (modified yet again) to make a Little Black Dress (or perhaps a bigger black dress?), inspired by the McCall's pattern featured in the Grace Kelly book (which, as you may recall, I won in a giveaway). Square neckline in the front, but wrap in the back like this one, short sleeves, full skirt and waist ties. For a January event, where I might and might not go, to go with another hat that Lisa sent me in addition to the Madeline hat (because that event is about the only occasion I can come up with for using that hat, but the hat would be fabulous for that occasion).
The problem is, I don't have suitable fabric for it, and it would eat up quite a lot of fabric... and seeing how long it took me to get this far with this project...
But, seriously, if I'm ever going to sew a LBD, this is the perfect one. So I think I'm going to try, to see if I can. Because if I manage, it would also be my Historical Costume Inspiration Festival entry.

Sneak peek

Dedicated to Colette Patterns. With thanks for the continuous bias tape tutorial, and apologies for the project.


And to Janul. Thanks for the idea. Here's your blue house:





Nekázanka is so narrow, and it was almost against the sun - this was the best I could do. The house is beautiful, though.

A bit more hope for the pink poplin

So, because I'm prone to forgetting, I'm preparing a batch of posts to be posted on a schedule automatically, while I still remember to do it. :-)

Do you remember the Very Pink Poplin of Doom?

I've found another fabric companion for it. Even better than the flowered seersucker, because this one is a bit of a white elephant in itself.

It used to be a random, cotton-polyester, US-originated pillowcase that I have no idea how we had obtained. Several years ago, at the beginning of my sewing career, I tried to make a blouse out of it, which turned out to be more of a failed muslin (because the pattern Did Not Fit, and the wear of the pillowcase showed more than I expected).

It's been lying around somewhere all the years. Now I think I still can salvage it into something usable. Probably not wearable, but usable.

Progress, and old new fabric (2) + thrift shop finds

I'm still working on the chemise. I wanted to finish it by the end of June, which I did not manage. But now it's only the neckline and the bottom hem to go. So, right now (or, more exactly, few moments ago), I'm sewing together strips of bias-cut fabric to sew at the neckline, while watching Alarm für Cobra 11 and feeling slightly dizzy at it.
(Funnily enough - remember the film about apostle Paul I mentioned in one of my previous posts? Well, it turns out the actor who played Paul also played one of the main characters in the first season of Cobra 11. Only in the first season; he left the show after that. I only saw one episode from Season 1 and I personally think the actors who came after him were better suited for it. So, well.)

I went to the post office this morning, for a letter, and while I was in town, I bought some notions (short zippers for eventual new versions of Andrea or something - one pink, for the flowered seersucker) that were on discount, and dropped into a thrift shop. That didn't go so luckily. I found a lovely pair of vintage-y modern shoes - too small. Plus two drapes with pretty print that would be suitable for eventual Regency dresses - cotton/polyester blends. Eugh. Thanks, I won't take that. So I felt a bit disappointed about that...

The Very Pink Poplin is probably some kind of blend. More on that later, perhaps. (I seem to be promising that very often, did you notice?)

Here are the promised treasures:



Purple velvet drape-thingummy. It's a very, very pretty colour, but the person who made it into the drape-thingummy sewed a number of pintucks on it - on the wrong side. To attach some rings for the draping. So now, when I rip the seams at the pintucks, there are stripes of different texture (and colour) on it. Still, it's lovely. I thought of making a short-sleeved spencer out of it (if such thing existed), but then I decided it'd be better to make it into covers for some of my favourite books. You know, I really like books. And some of them really deserve pretty covers.



And more velvet, two rusty hues. I really, really want to turn these into a dress for winter. Something to wear to church and similar places. Based on the medieval pattern I'm draping for myself. I really think it would be lovely. I only have to figure out how to make it look not costume-y, just unique.

The velvets seem to be cotton or rayon. Certainly not the melting kind of artificial. Fantastic.

There are still more fabrics, but I do not have good photos of them, because the light changed after that. It's VERY sunny and very hot now. :P I want some rain!


Oh, and while I did not score at the thrift shop today, I did on Thursday, in the bookshop. I got C.S. Lewis' Four Loves. In English. As good as new. For 50 CZK.
Remembering that makes me realise that the shoes and drapes of today were far less interesting finds.
(I also got Hiawatha that day. Czech edition from 1952, with pretty patterned cover and Native-American-like illustrations. For 45 CZK. And the other day, a thick Hungarian-Czech dictionary from 1910, in perfect condition, for 80 CZK. I love that bookshop.)

Progress, and old new fabric (1)

Still working on the chemise. It still seems the French seaming will work.

I decided against lining the Regency dress. Instead, I'll wear a bodiced petticoat underneath if necessary. I feel that a lined dress would be a bother to wear in summer, and that would defy the point in using Indian cotton (= saree). Which I do not want to defy.

Also, I wanted to get rid of some fabric (particularly, a friend wanted to get rid of some fabric) and helped organise a collection of fabric for charity.
I should have known better. I ended up taking some of the fabric home, and of course there was much more of it than I got rid of.
The moral of the story: When you have the sewing bug, it's no use trying to get rid of fabric. Your stash always multiplies.
The good thing is, I got rid of fabric I wasn't likely to use, and brought home fabric I'm more likely to use, colour-wise and type-wise. Except for a Very Pink Poplin of a "What was I thinking?" kind. (I actually know what I was thinking. It's just that what I was thinking doesn't explain what I'm going to do with the whole length of it.)

It started with this lovely flowered seersucker (supposing it's still called seersucker when it's flowered):



Which begged me to become another incarnation of my Andrea Blouse pattern.

And I went downhill from there. You know how that goes, don't you?



Yellow plainweave cotton, destined to become something in our kitchen.



Thick orange cotton canvas, destined to become a shoulder bag, if I can figure that out.



A square piece of lovely vintage-y print which will, hopefully, with some careful planning become a summer skirt.



A pretty yellow sweatshirting which I wanted to turn into a clone of my favourite hoodie, except that it has less body to it and is more... um... it pulls more, if that makes sense.
I also have some blue-grey sweatshirting and some dark blue, but there's just that amount of solid colour sweatshirting you could bear to see, I think. Those blue ones are "firmer" than the yellow one, so perhaps I'll use one of those for the hoodie clone in the end.



Beige corduroy. A disclaimer: I do not answer for my behaviour around beige corduroy. It equals someone else's behaviour around, say, Prada shoes. I do not care for Prada shoes one bit. I do care for beige corduroy. A lot.



The Very Pink Poplin Of Doom. The thing I was thinking was that this would make lovely piping for the flowered seersucker Andrea. Except that after that is done I'll still be left with about 2 metres of Very Pink Poplin.
If I were a bold-statement-kind-of-person, I'd sew a Very Pink Duster out of it and call it ironic. But my irony is usually much more subtle (like, I have an idea of making a polka-dotted babydoll-y dress in Regency style, grande-aissettes and all - see my point?), so that would not work for me. Not to mention that a proper duster of OUATITW type would probably require more fabric.
So, until next post, I'm left with a Very Pink Poplin Of Doom. The next post will feature some real treasures, to defeat the Doom of the Very Pink Poplin.