CUSTOM ORDERS

Here's just a little of what has been keeping me busy lately. As well as custom orders I have been cleaning my fabric stash and putting it into order, well as best I can anyway.

ITALIAN SAUCE MAKING 2011

My husband is Italian and every year since I met him we having been making sauce. This year I finally remembered to take some pics so here they are as promised.
Firstly as we use sauce all year round I have found it easy to wash each bottle after using it. They are left for a few days to completely dry inside, then "capped" and put into boxes ready for the next years sauce. These bottles are then simply reused each year!
This year we only ordered 8 boxes - in years gone by we have previously ordered 16 boxes, so we are slowing down and enjoying a varied menu for dinner.
What do you need for making sauce you ask?

Tomatoes (we order the Roma variety)
Machine for processing the tomatoes - these vary greatly in price, ours cost AUD $500
Beer bottles (for pouring the sauce into)
Salt
Beer bottle caps and machiney
Drum for boiling the bottles
Burner and gas bottle

Firstly the tomatoes were rinsed to remove any dirt. They were dried and left overnight simply because hubby picked them up after work.
The following morning bright and early the cutting process begins. (This year hubby started at 5am eager beaver indeed. I slept in made my way into the kitchen around 8am). Small tomatoes are cut in half, larger tomatoes are cut into quarters.
These tomatoes are then passed thru the machine which separates the skin and the seeds (to the left of the machine) and the sauce goes into the large pot. This year we chose to use the old "hand" machine as our electric machine is churning out a very "watery" sauce. Perhaps time to invest in a new machine!
Salt is then added to this sauce, then it is transferred to the bottles via a soup ladle and a funnel.
Bottles are then capped and placed into the drum/s. Once each drum is full (we have three drums here not sure of the size of each) the drum is filled with water and then with the aid of a burner and the gas bottle from the bbq/grill the bottles are then boiled. This process can take a few hours. Once finished the bottles are left for approximately 24 hours so the water can cool down and the bottles are removed and placed in storage. Preferably a dark area in a garage/shed etc.
This whole process has taken from approximately 5am till around 10pm. See how the day flies when you are making sauce!

RAG BAG

With a mountain of fabric to choose from I didn't have to look far for this fabric. In a small box I have some lovely charm square packs put aside for special little projects and this was one of them.
The charm squares are called A Little Romance by April Cornell for Moda. Also required for this project some wadding (I used Matilda's own) some muslin (I used my stash of seeded homespun) and some purple homespun for the lining or inside of the bag. I have also used some additional charm squares for the pockets.
Like my creation and want to make you own? I highly recommend this pattern from the lovely Dede from PeppersAtticon Etsy.

RAG QUILTS

These lovely raggy quilts have been made from gorgeous flannel fabrics. They are so easy to make you could probably make one in day although I took two days to make these. Lots of snipping when they are completed then into the dryer to achieve the lovely "raggy" effect.
These quilts will be available to purchase shortly in my Madeit store.

SEW BUSY

Hi everyone
Have been busy this month with custom orders. Normally January is a little slower than other months for some reason this year that is not the case. Anyway just a few pics of what I have been doing over the last few weeks.