Royal Wedding Fever aka a Meal Fit for a Prince

 So, unless you don't read the paper or perhaps you've been on a remote island of some kind, most of you would know that yesterday (April 29th) Prince William of Wales married Catherine Middleton.

No matter which side of the republican debate you're on, I think we can all agree that the English Royal family really do know how to "do" pomp and ceremony!  I have to admit that I was quite excited about the wedding, I remember when I was little that Mum would talk about watching Princess Diana's wedding, so I thought this would be my chance.  Even better, the timing of the wedding meant that it fell in prime time TV viewing here in Australia.

Now Sir Pinkying is fairly tolerant when it comes to watching an assortment of shows that he isn't interested in, but I knew that 3 or more hours of royal wedding was a little extreme!  I also wanted for us to be able to have a mildly English feeling to the meal, so I decided on a menu:
Roast Beef with gravy (and I NEVER make gravy), Yorkshire Puddings (that I've never made before) and Vegetables with a dessert of Apple Crumble.

I came home from work and figured out the timing of everything - hard to do when you have to take into account things like "7.51pm - the bride leaves for the church"!  I was most nervous about the Yorkshire Puddings, I've never made them before and I was led to believe that they're easy to get wrong.

On the advice of my sister I used the Jamie Oliver recipe from his book "The Ministry of Food" (I also did his roast beef and gravy recipes from the same book).  The instructions were very clear that you're NOT to open the oven door while they are cooking but I managed to snap this shot as I opened the door to get them out

 I'm so happy that they worked!  They were crisp on the outside and warm and soft in the middle - just like Jamie said they should be.  I had to rest the roast for 30 minutes, and it was quite cool here last night - so a double layer of foil and a tea towel helped keep it all warm.

 I don't think I've ever cooked roast beef before (pork, chicken and lamb: yes, beef: no) so very happy that the Jamie recipe made it perfectly medium.

 Needless to say Sir Pinkying was very satisfied with his meal, and this morning reading some of the wedding coverage - what do I see on the menu at the royal wedding reception?  Roast Beef, with Yorkshire Puddings!  It really was a meal fit for a prince.

Last up was a small apple crumble from a "secret" family recipe.

 

The wedding was great fun to watch, complete with texts from a very special person who was my "royal correspondent" on the Mall in London.  My highlights from the coverage were the carriage procession after the ceremony, the balcony appearance, and the sight of dozens of members of the royal family packed into "mini coaches" to travel to the palace!  

My absolute favourite though was something I only saw this morning - William and Catherine driving from Buckingham Palace in an Aston Martin decked out by brother Harry in bunting and ballons

While I've been gone....

So, I realise that it's been some time since I've posted, and it's really just that life has gotten in the way of me having some quite time on the computer to blog.

Sewing wise I've been working on my current projects, and also one more thing that I didn't share with you the other day... because we just moved house I've been wanting to do some new placemats for us to use for dinners and things like that. I absolutely LOVED the High Society range from Anthology fabrics, they have a good compromise feeling in that they are not too girly, but are quite earthy and fun.

So I've been making some placemats for us - just some little touches for our new home.  I picked 5 of the prints above to be included (taking out the ones that were too flowery) and added Kona solids in Coal (I think).  At the moment they look like this - stacked up waiting to be finished

But soon they will look more like this.  I had lay them all out to ensure that I had a "random" enough look in the designs of each placemat.  I've already bought the special thermal wadding and I'm going to use a dark brown for the binding, hopefully they'll come together!

The other thing that I've been doing is a little "gardening".  We have lots of outside space here and I would really like it to be a lush green oasis - but given my brown thumb past we decided that I should start small - 3 herbs - and see how I go with these!

p.s. don't forget to keep dropping in to Chasing Cottons to follow Rebecca's great beginner's quilt class

Current Projects: Celtic Applique

Another current project! When i first started quilting, I bought a LOT of books, including this one. It was at the time that all things Irish were cool, Riverdance was huge and on tour, and I got swept up in it all. So far I have cut all the pieces for the background (the patterned fabrics that sit behind the celtic lines), and I've also done ALL the bias bars for both the centre applique, and also the border.

Then I basted everything in place and have been stitching it down with a running stitch. But wait, what is that in the top right had corner? Just to the right of the golden loop...

ARGH! On pulling this out of the current projects box that it was residing in, I found a mystery splotch and I have no idea what it is. I really honestly don't know what it is or how it got there. I've tried removing it, but have had no luck so far. My plan is to finish the applique, and then wash the top to see if I can get it out that way (with some stain remover). If that doesn't work then I'm going to cut around the design and then applique it to a new background.

Laying the bias bars was interesting because they all over lap, and wind in and out of each other. It's one of the reasons why I basted everything in place, because I wasn't going to do that a second time!

What I have noticed about all my current projects is that each one of them has taught me a different technique, which makes sense because I'm self taught, so all these books have to serve a purpose!