so you think you can sew
Turns out that while I can whip up a straight seam or two, small, precise baby shoes were completely beyond me.
Hopeless.
Not the fault of the pattern. (Yep, I was not even getting close to that.)
She did say something about a seam allowance which I may have disregarded.
At my peril.
Because I am at heart a valiant optimist I'll give these another go. After I finish all my Christmas sewing. And Ivy's feet will not go cold.
I may have mentioned my epic failure to my friend Jo, and she left a little bag of these on my doorstep; handmade and outgrown by her smallies:
She is officially my sewing hero.
And so to assuage my lingering sense of failure, I baked these. My first recipe from Good To The Grain.
They're good, of course they're good, they are chocolate chunk cookies, but I was a little bit horrified at the amount of butter (250g) and sugar (2 cups) in them. I actually prefer the good old visitor biscuit, made on wholegrain flour, with the two things I learnt from this recipe:
1. don't use choc chips – break up a block of chocolate. (I may be behind the eight ball but I thought this was genius) and
2. add a good pinch of salt. Also genius. Lifted it beautifully.
Hope your day has been a fair balance of success and failure!
xxx
green ink
November 2, 2010 at 10:09 pmSalt in chocolate chip cookies is the best. I love getting a crystal of salt in with a chunk of chocolate!
xx
renee
November 2, 2010 at 11:39 pmi didnt know thats what the salt did… there you go…
renee
November 2, 2010 at 11:40 pmoh and i totally agree about chopping the block of chocolate up. way better
innerpickle
November 3, 2010 at 9:41 amsorry, “lift” as in taste, not rising. The rising agents are the eggs and the baking powder. xx
SB
November 3, 2010 at 12:45 pmwell, perhaps it’s genetic- I also had never thought to break up a chocolate block or put salt in, in all the gazillion batches of visitor biscuits I’ve made either! Although, now you point it out, it seems so blinking obvious!! thanks for the tips, Fi 🙂
Sal
November 3, 2010 at 1:27 pmGood to know you’re not perfect at everything, Fi!
OMG – yum! Those cookies look amazing!
Sal xo
kim at allconsuming
November 3, 2010 at 2:33 pmDude, I’ve got that yellow ladybird fabric too – isn’t it divine! And yeah, the sewing malarky. I am very hit and miss with that.
Yvette
November 3, 2010 at 9:48 pmooh Fi I have a new variation on the visitor biscuits!
1 1/2 cups flour
and Half cup of All Bran
and Half cup of Rolled Oats
etc etc
And…add Hundreds and Thousands just before baking (create dent, press down with finger, pop into oven for same amount of time)-
and for those that think i’m a bit strange with the All Bran- Mr 11 needs bran with everything. I just don’t tell him it’s there.
why Yes i was made to promise this variation in the supermarket when i refused to buy Something
anyway they’ve been a huge hit and even Mr 11 who i thought was too old for Hundreds and Thousands really liked them
they’re not sweet, just yummy!