Helga's Dresden plum cake & stitching

Yesterday, I had quite the baking day...first up was this delicious plum cake & then I went on to making a wholemeal pear cake, along with pear muffins for the kiddies school lunch boxes. Mother of the year?.. I do believe I'm in good running.

The plum cake is a favourite of mine, taught to me by an elderly German lady I once stayed 10 weeks with in Adelaide while working as a costume cutter/ pattern maker for the 1997 Adelaide Arts Festival. This is a recipe of hers that she brought with her from Dresden when she moved to Australia as a young twenty something. Sure is simple to make & super dooper yumsville.

I'm starting to make a series of Australian wildflower cushions. This is my first complete one & I have four more halfway there. They are all featuring different native flowers, some banksias, kangaroo paws, waratahs & I think they look really jazzy with the vintage cotton pompom braid around their edges. So nice to use that pompom braid, I've been hording it for over ten years now.

Pictured above are a couple of skirts that i have been making for the birthdays of two gorgeous girls Petra 7 & Ava 5. I ended up doing a contrast topstitch along the top & lower seams of the border hem panel. I think the result was quite pretty, just hope they like them!! Hard to know sometimes.

I whipped this little skirt up for my daughter the other day when she was at preschool. I've been enjoying making some clothes for her as I often feel guilty when making garments for the shop or as orders for other people. She always gets excited & asks in the sweetest voice is that for me & I have to explain to her that it is Mummy's work ......Well this time it is for her & she will be so happy, & maybe she'll even do a little spin around dance.

I'm still loving playing around with my pictures using the Instagram iphone app. Do you like the result or prefer the untweeked style of photos I used to post?