Inbetween making soaps......

I found a little bit of time to take a couple of pics.

Last Sunday, before setting up for the second day of the fair, we sneaked off to a bootsale. I didn't find a lot, I came home with a knitted tea cosy, a picture of an old soap advertisement, and an Art Deco green glass bowl, not a single button, sigh. I do love pressed glass, mine is mostly Victorian, but Art Deco, green glass in particular, does appeal to me as well. The green is such a gorgeous rich colour. When I took the bowl upstairs to take a pic, I saw this green and orange doily lying around, and it did look quite nice with the bowl. The doily is a vintage beauty, just look at those gorgeous flowers, even though the orange space dyed thread is not quite me -


And this is the Art Deco bowl I fell in love with -

Bowls should not be empty, make them happy, let them do their job and fill them with something! I filled mine with all the little flowers I have crocheted so far for the lanky I am making -

Now, before I go back to making soaps, let me remind you to please take a look at my side bar and the really fabulous giveaway right at the very top! Annie from the Birdcages & Butterflies blog is giving away some must-have blocks, go click on the pic and check them out.

xx

Buttons

In yesterday's post I mentioned that I found some buttons on the weekend. Some were a little ordinary, but red and pink, which is good of course, some were biiiiig, which is also good, some were very pretty vintage ones, which is excellent, but most of them were the dinkiest, prettiest, loveliest, shiniest mother of pearl buttons, woohoo, which is fantastic!!!

A lovely elderly lady, strangely enough called the Button Lady, lol, had a stall at the little craft fair with trays and trays of buttons in all sizes, shapes and colours. Most of them were fairly standard pretty buttons in a rainbow of colours, but she also had a basket full of little sets of vintage buttons. I couldn't resist getting these -

Aren't those three huge mink coloured buttons the prettiest ever? I can see them as a centrepiece amidst mother of pearl buttons in a fab button necklace.

And speaking of mother of pearls buttons, here they are, looking gorgeous, even though I haven't cleaned them yet -

The Button Lady had a little bowl full of tiny coloured buttons and these MOP ones were hiding amongst them. The fair wasn't really very busy at all, so I spent ages looking through this little bowl, trying to find every last one of these MOP buttons. Some of them were incredibly tiny, so it was quite difficult. A couple of times I ran off with the bowl back to my stand because I had customers, god knows what the Button Lady must have thought, lol, but I was not going to put the bowl down and risk somebody else getting MY mother of pearl buttons. She was a real sweetie, actually, and didn't mind at all, she said I looked very trustworthy.

And now for something completely different. Queenmothermamaw has set me a bit of a challenge, 8 questions to answer, so here goes -

1 - 6 names I go by - errrm, do I really have to tell?
Lululiz ( on the blog )
Elisabeth
Liz
Lulu
Shorty
Baumstumpf

now don't anybody dare call me the last two, alright?!?!?!?!?

2 - Three things I am wearing right now
pink socks
pink slippers
black jumper

I'll have you know thats NOT ALL I am wearing!

3 - Three things I want very badly at the moment
To be in France
A very special crochet book ( flowers )
A housekeeper/maid/slave, sigh, to clear up the mess I seem to be making everywhere

4 - Three things I did last night
blogged
cuddled my doggies
crocheted some more flowers for the lanky

5 - Two things I ate yesterday
tortellini with a garlic and chive butter
salad

6 - Two people you last talked to on the phone
My darling husband
No. 2 son

7 - Two things to do tomorrow
make soap
make facial serums

8 - Three favourite beverages
Earl Grey tea
Chai tea
Pimms ( in the summer )

Phew, finished. I'll think about whom to pass this on to. I am ready for a brew now, I shall have a nice cup of Chai, methinks.

xx

Fabricy stuff

A little while ago I found some rather unusual fabricy things. I was going to post about them then and there, but as I was already making Floss sick with my finds ( or my posts, lol ), I postponed blogging about them.

When I found these wonderful things, they were in a great pile on a table amongst some curtains and duvet covers. I spotted them from the other side of the room and made a straight beeline for them. I didn't look through them, I didn't haggle about the price, I just grabbed the whole pile, paid and stuffed them into my bag, just in case anybody else took a fancy to them.

The pieces smelled really musty (from very long storage ), they had brown storage marks and I am pretty certain that they were completely unused and had never been washed. Their colour was really dark, and the fabric and net embroidery were quite coarse and stiff. I think it is either hemp or a hemp linen mix, quite rustic, very country and absolutely fabulous.

These pictures show the pile of goodies as they looked before I washed them. A couple of pieces are quite a bit lighter and a lot softer, they seem to have been used and washed a good few times


I had no idea what I had bought until I got it all home and looked at the pieces. There was a tablecloth with a huge border of net embroidery and gorgeous little tassels at the corners, a long net embroidery table runner and 10 net embroidery placemats, all made from the same rustic country fabric and net embroidery threads. The large tasselled tablecloth has a very folksy border ( the motifs are very much like ones from old cross stitch samplers ), the table runner and place mats feature vine leaves and bunches of grapes.

Here they are after a very hot wash to remove the storage marks -


I photographed them on the bed, on a deep yellow gold eiderdown, as the dark colour showed up the pattern so much better. However, it doesn't show the colour of the pieces very well, so here is another photo of them on a whitish background, which shows the proper stone-y/caramel-y colour much better -

The brown storage spots are gone, the colour has lightened and they feel slightly softer already.

There was also another set of 8 placemats, again with vine leaves and grapes-

Two other large table runners had obviously been used and washed quite a number of times, they were much lighter, a gorgeous light cream colour and much much softer. One had vine leaves and grapes in the border and huge inserts of vine leaves, grapes and a couple of those folk motifs similar to the tasselled tablecloth. The other one only had the folk motifs, again in huge net embroidery inserts-


I also picked up a couple of nice doilies ( only photographed two ), and a piece of beautiful broderie anglaise, which looks like part of a nightdress case-


I did find some lovely buttons at the fair I was doing on the weekend, but you'll have to wait til tomorrow before I can show you, my doggies need cuddles right now, lol.

xx

Isn't blogland wonderful?

Never say, I don't like Mondays, because even Monday mornings can be good, you know. I was looking through all the blog posts I had missed over the weekend, because I had a two day craft fair to attend, and what did I find? I won a giveaway! I had entered LissyLou's fabulous giveaway for these two gorgeous fairy prizes-


and I was the very lucky winner. Thank you so much, LissyLou, I will treasure both.

The very lovely Michela from the Little Secrets from my Garden blog has given me an award! You are such a darling, Michela, it makes me very happy that you like my blog enough to give it this award. To quote, " The Splash Award is given to alluring, amusing, inspiring, bewitching and impressive blogs. "


Now I need to
1. Post the award on my blog
2. Nominate up to 9 blogs
3. Let your nominees know they've won!
4. Link back to the person who gave it to you!

I would like to give this award to the following 4 bloggers, I always love reading their blogs

LissyLou from Lissylou and the 2 little boys
Manka from little rose cottage
Caroline from Lacehearts
Isabelle from Suzy's Vintage Attic

There are a huge number of other blogs which I also adore, but I thought if I keep the number of nominated blogs small, then they won't feel pressured into nominating huge numbers either.

If I get a chance, I'll photograph some stuff this afternoon for another post ( good lord, two in a day, lol, that would be quite something ), but don't hold your breath, I seem to have tons of things to do.

Tummy is rumbling, is 12 o'clock too early to eat? Didn't have breakfast, so I think I'll go get some lunch before I do anything else.

Toodlepip xx

TTT.............. that stands for Terrific Tortilla tutorial

Some people have asked me to post a little tutorial for making tortilla de patatas, bless them. Gosh, just looking at the photos again is making me peckish, even though I have already had dinner. Now I am sure there are many different ways of making tortilla de patatas, and they'll probably be a lot quicker/easier/less labour intensive, but this is the way I was taught to do it by a lovely young Spanish lad, and they turn out perfectly each and every time, so I am sticking with this method. Don't expect precise measurements though, lol, thats just not me.

Right, for basic tortilla de patatas you need plenty of a good quality oil, potatoes, eggs, milk, onion, garlic, salt and pepper. I usually make two family sized tortillas ( they disappear ever so quickly ) and use 2.5kg potatoes and 12 eggs for these.

One of the most important things to get right is the size of the potato pieces. They have to be very thin and small. So this is what I do - cut potato in half so that you have two pieces which are nice and flat ( don't cut the potato the other way, so that the two pieces are like little mountains) -
Cut each half into narrow strips and then slice along them to get very thin little pieces of potato, like so -
You are using half the bag of potatoes, btw, errm, that would be approx. 1.25kg, right?

Now I was told to use a wok for the next bit, which is a bit iffy and it would probably be a lot safer doing this in a chip fryer. But as long as you are careful, it is perfectly ok to use a wok. You need to heat a goodly amount of oil in whatever thingy you feel safe with, enough oil to cover the amount of potatoes you are using.

Test the oil to make sure it is hot enough by dropping a little piece of potato into the oil. If it bubbles up, like this

then the oil is hot enough, and you can carefully lower small amounts of potato pieces into the oil. Don't dump it in all at once, it will froth over and probably start a kitchen fire, which is not quite what we are after.

Quickly chop a large onion and a couple of cloves of garlic finely and add to the potatoes, which are now gently cooking in the oil

Stir them around with a large slotted spoon occasionally so that they don't stick to the bottom and so that they get done evenly.

While they are cooking, beat six 6 eggs together with a little milk, salt and pepper in a largish bowl, and slice some more potatoes ( and onion and garlic, if you like ) for the next tortilla.

Check the potato pieces frequently and when they start browning every so slightly round the edges, they are ready for the next step. Use your large slotted spoon to lift them out of the oil, let the oil drain off. Use another spoon on top to squeeze a little and get rid of more oil, and then drop the potato pieces into the egg mixture.

When you have all your potato in the egg mixture, well stirred of course, heat a little oil in a straight sided frying pan. Make sure you swirl the oil around a bit, so that the sides are covered as well. It needs to be really really hot. To test, drop a teeny bit of the egg into the middle, it will sizzle and bubble when the oil is hot enough. Pour the whole lot into the frying pan, the side will bubble up like crazy, but thats how it should be. After a few seconds, turn the heat right down low, flatten the top and sides of the tortilla nice and neat, and put on a lid if you have one large enough.

Whilst that is gently frying, put the next lot of potato into the oil and repeat.

After a few minutes, gently press the top of the tortilla. If it feels completely firm, then it is ready to be turned, if it is still a little soft, give it another couple of minutes.

Now, turning the tortilla is fun, lol. You see, my favourite tortilla frying pan doesn't have a handle anymore, but I cannot use anything else, it has to be this one, it is perfect for the job. Turn off the gas, put a plate on top of the tortilla, put a clean drying up cloth over the whole lot, lift it off the cooker, take it to the table/work surface which you have previously covered with a cloth, and flip the pan over.
Pull the cloth out from under the plate, and lift the upside down frying pan off, and tada, there you have a goodlooking almost-ready tortilla.


Slide the tortilla off the plate back into the frying pan,

turn on the heat again, gently, for probably 5 mins. See in the background, the next lot of potato pieces is almost ready, have you done the egg mixture yet?

Ok, after five mins or so gentle heat on the other side of the tortilla, it should be ready, so repeat the turning process, onto a clean plate of course. And thats it, perfect tortilla de patatas.


Great, now my mouth is watering, and I so want some tortilla. I love it with a little bit of sweet chili dipping sauce dribbled over it. Weird, I know, but it really is very yummy.
Dang, gotta get something to nibble now. xx