Valentine’s Day Pouches and Biscuits

I can’t believe it’s Valentine’s day tomorrow and I haven’t done a thing for it yet. Not that I’m an active Valentine’s day pooper but I do like to mail sweet tokens of love and gratitude to my dearest and nearest.

So I quickly baked lemon, lavender and rose petal biscuits and popped them in these pouches I’ve made.

Trace the xox onto sticky paper and punch a hole with a puncher or perforator to make a circle in the middle of the O as in step 2. Use textile paint for the xox. You can download the instructions for making the pouch and the template of the xox right here.

Here’s the recipe I used for the lemon, rose petal and lavender biscuits:

200gr golden caster sugar
2 tbsp dried lavender
1 tbsp dried rose petals (option)
zest of 2 lemons
245gr plain flour
¼ tsp baking powder
¼ tsp salt
180gr unsalted butter (chopped in small cubes)
2 tbsp lemon juice
1 egg yolk
½ tsp vanilla extract

  1. Put the sugar, lavender and rose petals in a bowl mix with a spoon. Add the lemon zest and put aside.
  2. In a food processor or blender, add the flour, baking powder and salt, mix. Add the mixture as in 1, mix . Add the butter and mix until the mixture resembles fine breadcrumbs,
  3. In a small bowl, mix together the lemon juice, egg yolk and vanilla extract. Add the mixture to the rest. Stir and knead until you have a firm dough.
  4. Roll the dough into a cylinder and cover with plastic wrap. Chill in the fridge for one hour.
  5. Preheat the oven to 175 °C. Line a baking tray with baking paper.
  6. Remove the dough from the fridge and remove plastic wrap. Dust the surface and the rolling pin with flour and roll out dough in a circular shape about 5mm thick. Use cookie cutters to cut out shapes and transfer to the baking tray.
  7. Bake for 10-15 minutes until slightly golden brown. Remove from the oven and allow to cool.
  8. Dust with icing sugar and dried lavender.

Have a lovely Valentine’s Day tomorrow.

The Yvestown Fair Apron

One of the advantages of being married to a man who doesn’t care much about "being a man" is that I get to dress him up so now and then. I really like him to put on silly jackets in department stores so that I can publicly laugh at him, and he does. One time he went to work with bright yellow nail polish on all of his fingernails as I wanted to experiment and we both forget to take it off.

Although most of the time I nag at him (why do we women do this?) I really shouldn’t nag at him as I could dress him up in a pink tutu and he’ll wear it to the supermarket to buy me jelly beans anytime. Bless him …

Let’s talk apron instead.

You are not a market sales woman without a cute apron so I’ve made all the fair woman an apron. I used plain white sheet cotton, pink gingham and transfer paper to iron on the fair’s logo.

You can download the instructions for the apron here.

How To Make Bunting

Those in central Europe did you survive the weekend heath? I’ve been soaked in my own sweat for the entire two days and hated it. So I went downstairs, where my studio is and where the temperature is a constant lovely 15C, and started sewing for the upcoming Yvestown Fair.

I did a couple of meters of bunting to start with because a fair is not a fair without bunting.

Let me tell you how I do it.

Download the template and follow the instructions.

Next you want to prepare the bias tape:

After you’ve done your lengths of bias tape and your flag making you’ll have to attach the two together and make the bunting. Now I’m not a pinner, I actually avoid as much pinning as one can avoid pinning. This is how I do it and saves me a lot of wasted pinning time.

Get your gear in action, flags and bias tape. Make a pile of the flags you’d like to use, pick off top.

Start with about 20 cm of stitched empty bias tape for fastening.

1. After 20 cm you’ll have to start to sew on your first flag. Do this by tugging the flag in the folded bias tape, stitch just the top bit so it’s secure.

2. Wiggle and tuck until the flag is perfectly lined with the bias tape.

3. Sew along.

4. Now you want to leave some space between the flags and trust me just play by eye as you will not see this when the bunting is complete. I go for approximate 7 cm between each flag.

The fabric is an old stash of fat quarters I bought from The Fat Quarter Shop ages ago.

Watch the tutorial and don’t let those fast moving fingers scare you off, it’s easy peasy!

Music credits: The Camping Store by John Renbourn and Clive Carroll (OMPS Driving Lessons 2007)

Stay tuned for more ‘how to for The Yvestown Fair’ posts.

I hope you still enjoy this site as comments are scarcely in absent and I miss them.