Curved seams intimidate me. Not because I haven't sewn plenty of them - they show up frequently in garment sewing (especially Jane Austen dresses) - but because I've never really been sure I was doing them correctly. They just feel like the sort of thing where there must be a trick that makes them easy to do but no one ever taught me. I love the look of curves in quilting too and I've never felt confident enough to actually try it out. Sometimes all you need is a little push (and some naked couch cushions).

When I saw this tutorial on The Purl Bee I just had to give it a try. Molly's instructions for sewing curved seams are fantastic. It's like the difference between a pattern saying "Sew in zipper as shown," with a few cryptic diagrams, and my mother carefully walking me through the process of getting the right foot on the machine and explaining that if you baste the seam first the edges over the zipper will always match up perfectly. Molly explains how to pin the pieces together properly and shows how much stretching you can do (something I've never been sure about) to encourage your pieces to match up nicely and lay flat when you're done.

I followed her instructions - using lots of pins and sewing nice and slowly - and I got a perfectly flat pieced curve on my first try. It was so satisfying that I just kept going until I had enough quadrants to make two pillow covers. When I was all done I had two nice looking cushions decorating our family room couch.


Now I really want to make a quilt top this way. I think I'll use one solid and a whole bunch of co-ordinating prints.

Oh ... and this spat of sewing was prompted by my need to make a cover for the duvet Abby sleeps on. It's basically a big pillow case with an overlap on the back (like the backs of the pillow covers) so she can't pull it off. The duvet inside is folded in four. If she likes it this way I'm planning to get some nice home dec weight fabric that will be able to stand up to her digging for longer.

Though I kind of like how her bed matches my cushions perfectly.

 

The sun was coming in and I had to follow it around the house. It's so warm and cheerful.

...

I've been enjoying a new photo blog called habit. It's full of beautiful images of everyday things.

We had a festive Sunday here. It started off with candy making. I'm not totally sure why but when I got up I really wanted to make some candy. I started with the candied orange peel - which I've made before - and moved on to the peanut brittle and sugared almonds - both recipes I discovered just the day before when we couldn't find any candied nuts at the grocery store.

The peanut brittle was by far the easiest; I don't know why I've never tried it before. Melt two cups of sugar in a heavy pan stirring constantly. I used my cast iron fry pan but something with higher sides would be a little safer and less spill prone. Add one cup of shelled roasted peanuts and pour the whole thing onto a rimmed cookie sheet lined with aluminum foil (for easy clean up and because my sheet was open on one end). Break it into piece once it's cool. It's really yummy but gets stuck in your teeth.

Rob's sister came over to meet Abby in the afternoon. She's been away since June and it was nice to see her again. Abby was (somehow) on her best behaviour and did a minimum of jumping around crazily. Carolyn brought over some vinegar so we could try making sponge toffee. This was the only candy I made that involved the thermometer and, therefore, the most intimidating. We managed to get to the right temperature and not beyond though and added the baking soda to make everything foam up. It look pretty cool but apparently requires a very specific amount of stirring: enough to mix all of the soda into all of the syrup but not enough to deflate the foam. I erred on the side of caution and our candy is more like a thin layer of sponge on top of some clear vinegar flavoured candy. Interesting flavour. Rob says we should try again while we've still got the vinegar.


Sunday was the day we had set aside to drive around and look at Christmas lights. We were both ridiculously excited to be doing this in our new car; it warms up so nicely and the windows don't frost over (doing this in our old car involved stopping after a little while and scraping off the insides of all the windows so we could see again). Our light-viewing tradition involves going to the convenience store and getting weird hot milky drinks (mine was "two bite brownie" and Rob's was "cinnamon sticky bun") and hot dogs (last year there were hot dogs but no buns - so disappointing). We drove all over one of the neighbourhoods and even managed to pick up a little local radio station (range is only about 2 Km) playing all sorts of cool Christmas music.
When we got home we set up our tree. We'd been procrastinating on the tree to limit the amount of time Abby will have to get at it. We had a garland with lights and a few ornaments and some other things (high) up but it really made our house look cozy and Christmasy to have the tree up. You can see the lights through the front window so our house looks festive from the outside too. We kept the actual decorations on the tree to a minimum - just the lights, a garland and a few sturdy non-chewable ornaments that will survive if the tree is pulled over or if Abby manages to pull something off. We sat around admiring it for a bit after we put Abby in her crate for the night. Zeke came out to see what we'd done and rubbed his cheeks all over the lower branches - I guess this is his tree now.