Apple & cherry tart

 Hi all, 

Do you sometimes find the best recipes come from when you 'wing' it? I had Godsons coming for supper on a very wet Shropshire day & was thinking what to do for pudding.  

I opened the fridge & found two Bramley cooking apples & some tart Braeburn ones too, along with a punnet of fresh cherries that were very ripe. I hate waste so I used a ready made sweet tart case I had & decided on fruit tart.

I peeled & cut the Bramleys in to slices, left the lovely red skin on the Braeburns & then stewed them briefly in a sugar syrup made with dark sugar, cloves & cinnamon - the kitchen smelt absolutely heavenly with the scent of the spices. 

I drained the apple slices over a sieve to reserve the sugar syrup & added a bit more sugar to it & left it to reduce & thicken on the stove. 

I layered the apples in rounds along the edges of two tart cases alternating with the red skins between to give it contrast, then came the hard bit - taking the pips out of each & every cherry. I know you can get a gadget to stone the cherries, but since I do not have one,  I cut each & pulled the pip out. My hands turned a crimson red because the ripe cherries were so juicy. 

I arranged the halved cherries on top of the apple slices then warmed some apricot jam with a few spoons of the sugar syrup & brushed that all over the top. 

The tarts were then baked for about 20 minutes at 180C until the cherries collapsed slightly as they cooked. 

Apple & cherry tart with a thick spicy sugar syrup on the sideboard, ready for us ... 

Sugar syrup in a saved maple syrup bottle - perfect ... 

The tarts were cooled & one was used for supper with a choice of thick cream or ice-cream & a drizzle of the sugar syrup over it - it went down an absolute treat & I have another tart ready for visitors expected tonight. 

Supper in the conservatory while some thunder rumbled overhead; a socially distanced supper with friends to just catch up on life. 

My conservatory is my favourite room at home with doors straight on to the patio & the garden & beautiful light all the time. It was good to hear how the Godsons are doing & their hopes as they get ready to start a whole new school year again. We do not know what challenges this one will bring, but that is out of our hands. 

Thank you for your company, each & every visit & comment is much appreciated, 

Dee ~💕~

A hand sewn needle book gift

 The slower rhythm of lockdown has given me more time to do crafts & things unhurriedly. Our time is usually interrupted by visitors or visiting but in these times when we are still being cautious & doing our own thing, the quiet time has been inspiring. 

One of my longtime blog supporters & Instagram ‘friends’ kindly sent me some hand painted drawings for my big birthday in April & I wanted to send her something special in return. She follows a local (to me) craft lady who makes the most stunning needle books & I have decided to make one as a gift in the same style as Viv’s because it is a style I have used myself. 

I gathered some fabric, buttons, lace, threads, padded quilting etc in the colours I wanted to use. I absolutely love vintage fabric & have quite a collection of bits & bobs. Some years back I spent a day doing a Gentlework course with a very talented lady & I love her style which is my type of hand sewing  ....

Don’t you just love the softness of this collection of textiles ... 

I love time faded fabric & linens - if only they could speak of all the places they have been.

Another beautiful set of beautifully faded & dyed vintage fabric. A seller I regularly use on Ebay dyes vintage fabrics & I love using her things. 

Mixing old & new is important to me - I love Tilda fabrics for their modern vintage look 

My faithful pin dog who is always at hand for the many pins needed for projects. I have also discovered sewing / quilting clips & they are absolutely brilliant for holding thicker fabrics together. The sewing pages got bulky & these were perfect ... 

I love good quality threads for hand sewing details because they are strong enough & give a much nicer stitch quality. Whenever I visit a fabric shop, I admit to always browsing the threads too ... 

I love these two buttons that I bought ages ago & they are just perfect for this project. 

I learnt to embroider as a child with my mother. Hers was always so neat that it was hard to tell front from back, something I have not attained but I love the rhythmic nature of hand sewing. This is one of my sort of colour coded thread boxes ... 

I always get so distracted in selecting the fabrics & textiles I want to use. I love these hand dyed silk bits. 

So much choice, it is hard to decide which look I want ... 

These threads will go well with the fabrics .... 

The outer cover in progress - some vintage floral fabric with a couched edge using dyed silk ribbon. Because it is padded, the edging blanket stitch in a bold embroidery thread, was tricky to get through the layers of batting, fabrics & linen - fortunately I have several well used thimbles... 

I made a little pin with charms to reflect Lynda’s hobbies of painting & drawing & also her faith. I do love the dyed lace panel to hold those many bits we all use. 

Some more Tilda fabric on the inner pages ... 

I used very soft cotton interlining as the inner pages - it is soft enough to just pop pins of needles in & again I kept to the same colour range. 

The last page had another lace panel as well as a lightly padded heart that could be used as a little pin cushion. 

The front panel with vintage fabric, lace, the pretty button, all edged with a blanket stitch. 

My other pin holder with the many needles holding the various needles & threads I have used. 

The back needed something else so I felted a complimentary section to add to it. Felting is a relaxing hobby - the gentle process means that you can control the whole process. 

The inner front cover details ... 

I also love beading so added some coloured beads to this little pocket ... 

A vintage lace panel on top of new fabric, I love how well they sit together. 

Co-ordinating  the colours, threads, pins is important ... 

The pink fabric with the co-ordinated pins, lace & threads ... 

The back pocket with the pink fabrics - some old, some new. 

The completed front page ..

The silk ribbon ties it all together so well .... 

The back cover with the couched fabric & the felted panel 

I know, I got a bit carried away & it ended up a generous size but sewing needs lots of things .... 

I have loved this project so much & am delighted that it was loved as much as I loved doing it. 

My previous needle books I made were much more modern so this one has been an interesting project. 

The joy of hand sewing & creating things that are very unique is hugely satisfying because this is a once off - it cannot be replicated exactly because the fabrics are small vintage pieces. I think it is easy on the eye. Hand sewing has to reflect the stitch imperfections - I could mark out perfectly even stitch marks to use but then it borders on machine work & that is something us hand sewers have to come to terms with. 

Thank you for stopping by, reading, following & leaving a comment. Each visit is appreciated. 

Dee ~💕~