Oxford Cushion Cover DIY

It's been a while since I've done any sewing and with Kim coming to visit for the weekend, I thought I would try to tick one of my projects off the list..

On a trip to Ikea... (forever ago...) I found a single curtain and also a big cushion in the bargain section... and decided I would attempt to turn the curtain into a cover for the cushion... so for the bargain price of £6 I made myself a pretty swank cushion cover!!

I was pretty lucky that width of the curtain was the perfect size to cover the cushion with about an inch of overlap which saved me the hassle of hemming the two sides! (Gotta love a shortcut!!) I cut off the original bottom hem of the curtain because it was messily hemmed with hemming tape and was about 3 inches high..  I measured the length (26.5") added 2 inches for a hem top and bottom and cut straight across at 28.5" from the bottom of the fabric.

Instead of actually hemming the raw edges, I just turned the fabric inside out (so right sides facing) and sewed up the sides with a zig zag stich. (Hemming AND sewing up the sides all in one go! FABULOUS!)

I was crossing my fingers that the overlap opening would somehow sort itself out when I turned the cushion cover the right side out, and it seemed to work out fine!! I threw the cushion in to check the size of the opening and it fit in easily and I had loads of room to spare. (I wasn't entirely sure I would have room to make the oxford edge.) Just by sheer luck, the pattern even matched up along the overlap!

I figured out pretty quickly that I would have to sew along the outside of the cushion to make the oxford edge.. I was a bit hesitant as my sewing machine has a tendency to do funny things with stitching (probably my own fault for not adjusting the tension properly), but so far everything had been running pretty smoothly so I measured an inch and a half around the entire edge, marked it out with some pins and got to work. It all worked out pretty well and I even managed to release the foot and turn the cover to sew the right angles! WOOHOO!!

So there you have my most recent sewing project! It was actually super easy once I got going.. if my written instructions aren't clear and people would like me to draw up a proper "tutorial", I can attempt it.. just ask!

Well, I hope you've all had a fantastic weekend!
We've had a great weekend with Kim.. it was a shame she had to leave so early today. :( Hopefully we'll see her again soon!!

Ikea Meatball Spag with Easy-Peasy Pasta Sauce

I have just now caught up on my blog reading! After two leisurely long weekends and some busy days at work, my google reader was showing a bold (87) unread posts.. eep! I had dipped into some blog reading along the way but hadn't found made time to really make a go of it...  what does this mean?? Hopefully.. more blog posts from yours truly! I've been reading a few "I'm a slack blogger" posts of late, and I've been having a think about that because I've been feeling a bit "guilty" about the radio silence but more about that in another post... 

What I wanted to share with you is a super quick and easy weeknight dinner! A few weeks ago, we made a trek to Ikea.. I can't remember what our original purpose was for going.. but really, who really needs a proper reason to go to Ikea??!! At the check out were bags of the (in)famous Ikea meatballs, and being a complete sucker for marketing.. I couldn't help but pick up a bag and drop it casually in our trolley.. I might have also thrown in a bag of Daim bars pieces... I digress...

I was excited to have meatball spag for dinner... So was the mister apparently.. 

me: How many meatballs should I cook?

mister: I dunno... how many are in the bag?

me: *checks bag* I dunno.. it says it serves 8 tho...do you think maybe I should use half? 

mister: Just cook them all...

me: ALL of them? hmmm I guess we'll have leftover for lunch then... (yea and about a week after!) - don't make my mistake unless you've got people coming for dinner!

So I've got an entire saucepan of meatballs cookin... I got a pot of water boiling for the spag... I open the cupboard... reach for the jar... check the label... HANG ON A SECOND!! Masala?? hmmm... that's not going to work...  maybe the pasta sauce is at the back of the cupboard?? *calls the mister to come and reach things* and after closer inspection.. nope... no pasta sauce... crap! *mini panic* I quickly googled "pasta sauce recipes" on ye olde interwebs... and decided.. it really wasn't all that hard!! Here's how I did it:

Easy-Peasy Pasta Sauce

What you'll need:

1 can tomatoes 

1 onion

salt, pepper, basil, parsley (I only had the dry kind in the bottles but worked for me!)

oil - olive, sunflower, whatever you normally cook with is fine.. I'm not going to pull a Rachel Ray and insist EVOO at every turn...

What to do:

Slice onions

Heat oil and brown onions

Throw in the entire can of tomatoes, sauce and all... 

Let it cook a bit 

Mash up the tomatoes with your chosen stirring device (mine happened to be a wooden spoon)

Add salt, pepper, basil, parsley (whatever spices take your fancy really, the world is your oyster)

I then took mine off the heat and gave it a whizzy with my hand blender coz I wanted smooth rather than chunky sauce.. 

Et voila! Sauce!!

Meatball Spag

Heat desired amount of Ikea meatballs (yours don't have to be from Ikea, any meatballs will do.. homemade would be even better!) in a pan... 

I just browned mine in oil... 

Boil desired amount of pasta until al dente

Throw the meatballs on the pasta

Scoop on pasta sauce

Dinner is served!!

Easy-Peasy Japanesey as we used to say in school. Probably not very PC nowadays..  :)

If I had mushrooms I probably woulda used those.. and we had brocolli as part of dinner too..

The photos are the portion I had at work for lunch the next day.. hence no veg.. coz we ate them all at dinnertime.. :)

Long weekend recap

I am sad that my 4 day weekend is coming to an end... Back to work tomorrow.. but it's only a 3 day work week because we get Friday off!! Yeeehaa!! Thanks for the free day off Will & Kate!! (Uhh.. that is "The Royal Wedding" of Prince William to Miss Catherine Middleton, in case you've been living under a rock... or maybe just outside the UK!)

Friday

*Sleep in
*Make lunch for the mister (he had to work - HAHA!, but he came home for lunch)

In a never ending quest to find more things to sandwich bacon between... TATTIE SCONES!!

*Baked mint & choc chip cookies
*Uploaded photos to picasa and organised it into albums ready for each post I'm going to do, rather than all being jumbled up in one HUGE album...
*Made cornbread
*Made pulled pork
*Ms Yaz came over for craft night.. she worked on another shirt skirt and I fixed my pj bottoms, finally sewed the velcro onto my pillowcase cushion cover and got started on turning a duvet cover I thrifted into pj bottoms...

Saturday

*the mister & I went to get our hair cut - thanks Groupon!!
*we went to IKEA - we bought two Pello chairs, some Gorm baskets for our Albert in the kitchen, ice lollie makers, some elderflower syrup, some hemming tape & I found a curtain & cushion in the clearance section that I'm going to turn into a nice cushion for our bedroom...
*we then quickly got ready to go to Mr S's 30th B'day & Leaving Party Ceilidh.. it was AMAZING!! We had such a great time!! a ceilidh is like a big dance... (think like a ho-down or a barn dance) hahaha...  I will hopefully get photos up soon so you can see!!

Sunday

*it was a super sunny day so we decided to go to Jedburgh to see the Jedburgh abbey (I will post a separate post about our trip)
*I totally spaced and forgot Joe was in town after a tour of the Highlands... but we made it back in time to meet up with him before he had to get on the overnight bus back to London.. and I totally forgot to take a photo of us together... but I took photos of the food we ate at The Albanach!!

I had the beef stew with suet dumplings.. it was totally nommy!!

the mister had Balmoral Chicken - chicken stuffed with haggis

Today

*sleep in
*take lots of neurofen for tum cramps.. :(
*vacuum the flat
*tidy up my dressing room (our spare room where most of my clothes live, the mister has his clothes in the wardrobe in our room)
*put laundry on x2
*bake ferrero rocher/creme egg/mars egg/caramello egg cupcakes
*bake another batch of mint choc chip cookies - will post recipe soon..
*make pork noodle soup for dinner - there's a post coming up about that too!
*catch up on lots of blog reading
*thinking about baking some ANZAC cookies for ANZAC day today...