Gorgeous gooseberries

Who knew that gooseberries ever turned ruby-red and wine-dark? And sweet?! Not me, until the gooseberry bush had a bumper crop this year. I say bumper crop; last year there were about five berries... Perhaps being dug up and replanted was the TLC it needed, and I'm sure the weather helped. (This bowlful is just one picking.) And this lot made a gorgeous gooseberry fool with crème fraîche and a dash of elderflower cordial.

Rhubarb, rhubarb, or a freezer-clearing cocktail

Excavating the long-forgotten contents of the freezer is rarely a glamourous task... There are always loads of individual peas tucked into inaccessible corners. But this time it was different. I found some poached rhubarb from God knows when, cooked with vanilla, my taste buds told me, and decided to make a cocktail. One measure of gin, a few drops of lavender bitters and the liquidised rhubarb. Yum yum yum!

Lovely lavender

You can almost hear the bees buzzing. No, it's not Provence, but a field near Sevenoaks, Kent. I wish my own two lavender bushes had been as prolific with the flowers, although apparently 2013's lavender harvest is a bumper one. Good job I've still got loads of dried lavender from previous years. Now shall I make another 'fuck off, moths' lavender bag?

I finally found a sewing box!

It's a classic wooden concertina-drawer type, exactly the type I didn't want to pay John Lewis's prices to acquire. But I found this one in a local vintage shop (Trash or Treasure in Maidstone) for just a tenner.
Everything that was in the black and pink spotted cardboard box that previously held my sewing stuff fits in, plus the buttons that were in a plastic box. And my fabric scissors.
For that price I could overlook the coffee cup and fading on one side, because I had plans...

Some weeks earlier I 'came across' (ie, rummaged through the rubbish to find) some old sewing patterns outside a shop in Canterbury (The Sewing Shop). None of them had all its components so I couldn't actually use them to make the garments illustrated. However, I knew they would come in handy so I parked them on a shelf...

And patterns and sewing box came together. I've never tried decoupage before - does it show? I just cut random shapes and stuck them in an overlappingly random fashion all over the top of the box with PVA glue from Cowling & Wilcox, the handy art supplies shop across the road from work. I just need to trim the edges. Oh, and run a scalpel along the edge of the lids - because I've stuck them down!

This year's elderflower champagne...

I've blogged before on how to make elderflower champagne. The fact that I'm still drinking my way through this year's vintage reveals that it's not as delicious as last year's. It just tastes a bit... tasteless. But a little experimentation has revealed that adding a little elderflower cordial improves it no end. Just as well; I've got litres of the stuff.

How to customise shoes: add fabric heels

I think this project – giving a pair of shoes an update with new fabric-covered heels – was inspired by Gok Wan on TV a while ago...

Make a template for the heel shape (which is very different to how you might imagine it, I promise) by sticking on layers of sticky tape.

When you've got a thick layer, draw a line around the edges of the heels.

Now peel off the sticky tape, and cut around the line.

On your fabric, draw around the sticky-tape shape and cut out. Stick it on the heel with fabric glue.

Spring is bursting forth...

Spoils from a Saturday stroll along the Kent coast...
...stunted pussy willow

...and blossom from the hedge - blackthorn? The figure at the front is a sumo wrestler made by me in pottery class about 20 years ago