My weekend - stuffed to the seams

My weekend was a splendid thing. I stuffed it to the straining seams with activities.

Inspired by Zoe at Conversation Pieces I had a crack at a vegan version of her Aero tray bake. Basically I replaced the butter with maragarine, swapped white chocolate for dark and left out the aero bar. It turned our delicious and sugar passed enough to remind me that I do best with it in small quantities. I still need to work on this as the base is a little too firm and the toppings rather sticky. That said from the fridge to a plate it looks good and tastes great.

I finally got round to downloading a timer app to iPad which means with some pillows for propping and a bit of practice I can do outfit photos without having to involve either another person or a mirror. The rather unflattering photo above is intended to show of a dress I'd been hard at work on rather than showcase my huge calves!

The history of this dress is that it started life as a curtain in my Grandmother's house. When we cleared it out I snaffled it. At the time I was a bit obsessed with wrap dresses and tops and clothing made without patterns. So I cobbled together a long sleeveless wrap top and wore it the pub an hour later. That was about 5 years ago and in the intervening period I've worn the top, unfinished seams and all to a whole number of places including a retirement party and a Japanese embassy reception. This Saturday I got the urge to finally sort all the things that had been bugging me about it (wrong length, one tie scratchy hat ribbon, hems unfinished). So I practiced doing French hems on a couple of inserts to add length, hemmed every raw edge in sight and swapped the scratchy ribbon. I thinks it's glinting to look great with green sequin shoes this summer.

Other weekend antics *starting a new dance class and being so inspired and excited I had to practice when I got home *spotting the first signs of new crops on my allotment *reading a combination of The Music Instinct (heavy going), H.P. Lovecraft (very odd dreams) and My Last Duchess (surprisingly compelling) *early starts to get the most out of the day