The last supper... for a while

Even though this is another food post - making that two in a row - it will probably be the last in a while, so I thought it'd be a shame not to share it with you! The reason why I won't be sharing photos of culinary escapades in the near future is a simple (and boring) one... you see, I aim to be on a health kick for the coming weeks, so any adventures in the kitchen will be understandably limited!

Seeing as healthy eating has been scheduled to start from tomorrow, this weekend I was (of course!) especially naughty ;) For lunch I whipped out this yummy tuna pasta bake that was a favourite of my brother's when he was on the island and went down a treat.



No naughty day is complete without dessert, so back I went to my new baking book and produced these vanilla cupcakes. Unfortunately, they didn't turn out to be the greatest tasting cupcakes to come of my cupcake-baking hands, and I think I'll stick to my other cupcake recipe book in future, but hey - they still look nice, and will certainly not last long regardless!



Happy Sunday everyone :)

- S

Testing out the new baking book

I know, I know - from nothing for a while to three posts in three days, but I've just decided to roll with it :) Today was the first chance I got to make use of part of my Christmas present from T - this book, which covers all manner of baking, sweet and savoury:



Seeing as I normally bake sweets (and very well, might I add :p), I decided to go for savoury this time round, and see if my amateur baking skills would stretch. I first started out with relatively simple crumpets for brunch. After a couple of casualties which stuck to the pan, I switched frying pan and viola! Behold delicious crumpets, which were eaten drizzled with butter (in my case) and smothered in rasperry jam (in fruit-loving Teo's case).



Next came lunch, for which I opted to make Scottish Forfar Bridies. Despite slight overstuffing, these turned out to be delicious - from the homemade dough (might aswell go the whole hog, right?) to the meaty stuffing... they were consumed with gusto. So far, so good, new baking book!



-S

An award and swap party acquisitions!

Hello all! Today's post is a two-in-one(r)! Firstly, I want to express my gratitude to Maria of Babettopolis, for awarding me the Liebster blog award! 'Liebster' is German for 'dearest' and the award is meant especially for those brilliant bloggers & blogettes with under 200 followers. Thanks so much for passing this on to me, dearest (see what I did there, hur hur, ahem) - I shall wield it with pride! Now, to award four blogs of my choice in turn... well, she's already awarded my obvious choices hah, save two other good reads: Capers and Olives & Rouge Reveries - thumbs up girls!



The second reason behind this post is to show off items acquired in last night's swap party. As you may remember, a group of lovely ladies and I got together for our first clothes swap party a few months ago - an evening which was a great success. After the first one, the decision to 'do this again' was made instantaneously, and what better time to organise a clothes swap than post-January spring cleaning? The second swap party was held at Claire Ciantar's cosy abode, which, after a funnily frightening drive around spooky night-time Mtarfa, served as welcoming shelter from the freezing cold and a perfect swapping spot; dotted with lovely nibbles including salmon sandwiches and lemony-cream stuffed tomatoes and the best mulled wine you've ever tasted (the secret ingredient was vodka - don't ask me how that works) .



The ladies involved were mostly the same as last time, with a few new faces (and fresh meat!). I trundled my specially assigned 'Swap' suitcase, waved goodbye to some items and welcomed a few new ones; ate my share of nibbles; guzzled more than my share of mulled wine and jelly shots (with real jelly beans!) and generally had an all-round good time, to the point of not noticing how late it had gotten - that's women and clothes for you, I suppose :p

Here are a few of my newly-acquired treasures...


A draped silky top with graphic pattern, previously Alexandra's


A dress with poof skirt & fancy collar (I can't remember the girl's name who previously owned this, just that she had gorgeous hair!) The neckline is slightly tight & the collar slightly much, so am considering recycling the collar, attaching it to a plain jumper & altering the top of the dress to make it a little more modern & comfy - maybe a boat neckline?


A really cute Asian-y tunic, previously Maria's


An embroidered linen top from Carla's collection


An elegant wrap-over cardigan, previously Alison's

Not bad, right? :)

-S

At the risk of being a douche...

Do you know that feeling you get when you do something you've been meaning to do for ages? Or cross something off your wishlist that's been there for the longest time? That's the feeling I have right now - so much so that I'm going to risk looking like a douche to the handful of people that read this blog. This is, in effect, a post declaring my love for a material item that I have recently acquired - namely a pair of sunglasses from Prada's Minimal Baroque line.


mine!

After that long-winded intro, I feel the need to explain myself. Having recently joined the ranks of full-time employment, I wanted to mark the occasion of having more than a few euros in my bank account at any given time (yes, I have grown accustomed to being a poor student) by purchasing something completely frivolous for myself.

I had first happened upon Prada's covetable Minimal Baroque eyewear line when researching for my fashion page on Vida magazine last summer. Of course, they went into the 'Label we love' section. Several months down the line and they remained toward the top of my wishlist, so when I spotted them across a crowded shop (yes, I do have a penchant for the dramatic, so sue me) I simply had to try them on. I did, they looked great (if I do say so myself) and that was it - match made in materialistic heaven.


my new babies & I, gone out for lunch :)

Friends and Felicitations

Welcome one and all to the first post of 2012! A lot has happened since I've last posted, and I feel I must apologise for the prolonged absence... still, I intend to make up for it (it's one of my resolutions - one of the long list actually).

These past couple of months have brought many happenings and changes, all of which have kept me so busy that I've barely had time to shut my eyes and take it all in. That's where the resolutions come in. I've never really been one for resolutions, but this year it seems strangely apt. I've started working full time at Vida - have been for just over a month now! - and following the departure of our much loved editor Richard Muscat Azzopardi, it now falls to me to take on the role (at least for the foreseeable future), and I intend to give it all I've got.



Other resolutions have come via natural progression, including the 'Great Spring Clean' which I'd been putting off (you never know when you might need those JC physics notes...); getting my driving license (after numerous lessons and one failed test, the time is NAO); saving up now that I have full-time wages (one hopes that by this time next year I'll be in a position to go house hunting!); not sacrificing that which makes me who I am for the benefit of others, even if I may be perceived as weird or, as I prefer to put it, eccentric; and generally being more organised and self-sufficient (this goes for The Secret Rose too, for which I intend to go onwards and upwards!)



And just so this post doesn't become too text heavy, I thought I'd regale you with some pretty photos taken at yesterday's posh girlie lunch at Maria's - a belated seasonal gathering of some of my favourite like-minded ladies! Instead of buying each other gifts as we normally do, we each contributed a monetary donation to the supremely capable host, who in turn provided us with a meal fit for a queen. Not a bad way to start the year...


Cream of chicken soup Seafood vol-au-vent

Duck breast in soy & citrus sauce Rhubarb crumble

Rachel & Carla, looking delightful

Alex, avec daisies

Gustav samples the crumble...

-S

Bridal Bliss

Maria, the bride & myself - victory shot!

I’m very excited to finally be able to show everyone the end result of a project that took up numerous hours of my time, love and attention this summer. Having hinted at it and posted teaser photos over the course of its coming into being, I can finally reveal the product of a very fruitful and rewarding collaboration with the talented lady behind Babettopolis – a custom-made, hand-embroidered wedding dress!

Having wanted to collaborate with Maria (the talented lady in question) for a while on a project such as this (and having done so very successfully on various smaller projects throughout the course of our friendship – we’ve been friends since the dubious colour coding days of sixth form!), I jumped at the chance when she approached me with the idea.

She informed me that she had been commissioned to make a wedding dress for a customer, and they had decided together to include special hand embroidered details rather than ready-embroidered fabric for a truly unique wedding dress. Maria passed on her design for the dress (which was right up my alley, uncoincidentally) and informed me that the bride-to-be wished a selection of her favourite love quotes (in Latin, Maltese and English) to be included in the embroidery design.

sketching the embroidery design

Armed with the designated portions of the dress to be embroidered – that is, the yoke under the bust and all around the skirt edge – I set about coming up with a design including the chosen quotes in an elegant calligraphy font and dressed up with a simple floral design. The design was approved and the fabric bought, following an impressively smooth trip to JB, in which Maria and I customarily agreed on the precise fabrics to go for – great minds!

test patches & embroidery progress

It was then that the grand plan hit a hurdle from my end. With the deadline for my MA dissertation looming, the workload became more demanding by the day, so as to make even the slightest embroidery break completely impossible. The embroidery hiatus lasted a good month and a half (or was it two? The period is quite a blur), but Maria’s patience with me was unfailing. I repaid her faith (it’s not easy when the wedding date is only getting nearer, and she had a dress to sew!) by leaping upon the embroidery for the dress the moment my dissertation was handed in, and proceeded to speedily, but no less lovingly, finish the embroidered pieces and pass them on to Maria’s waiting hands for sewing.

A number of fittings, adjustments and countless cups of tea later, I was invited to witness the fruit of our combined labour on the bride’s wedding day last Saturday. She looked stunning, and even though I admit there may be the tiniest bit of bias from my end, she seemed as pleased as we were. This was by far the biggest project I’ve ever been a part of embroidery-wise, and remain very grateful to Maria for thinking of me – I hope there will be many more!


the finished dress, looking lovely on the big day!


details of the hard work - all worth it in the end

Check out Maria's side of the story on her blog :)

The Secret Rose: Home

As promised, here are some offerings from the newly-appointed Home section that will be available at Patches market on November 27^th. This is only an ever-so-slight taster, and lots more, in both sections, is in both the process-of-being, and patiently-waiting-to-be made.

Notebooks/Diaries

These proved quite popular last year, and so I’ve come up with some new ideas and designs. There’ll be plain-ruled notebooks as well as brand spanking new 2012 diaries. The first of the bunch is this dressmaking-themed one, for which I embroidered a sewing pattern – an idea which came to me a while back but had to wait patiently in my sketchbook till circumstances allowed its birth.

Cushions

Comfy and gorgeous all at the same time, cushions are brilliant because they really allow me space to play around with embroidery ideas – and I aim at having quite the variety (in terms of colours, patterns & sizes too)! This particular one features the first of a series of embroidered anatomical drawings which I’m calling ‘Biology’ – the detail of biological diagrams is something that’s always struck me as so beautiful in its precision, so me being me, I wondered whether I could transfer it into needlework (yeah baby)!

Bookmarks

Bookmarks are a favourite of mine both due to their nature (I really wish I had more time to tackle my personal reading list) as well as their shape. They’re fun to make because no pattern/colour combination is the same, so its always fun to see how they turn out, coordinating fringe and all!