Lunch with Caroline Mi Li Artiss

MIAMI members will know that we have often featured the videos of Caroline Mi Li Artiss, the delightful chef who has a very successful cookery demo channel on YouTube.

Caroline is an ex colleague of mine and has been commissioned to write her first cookery book. Can't wait to read it. She invited me and and Sally another ex colleague, to lunch in her garden to have a bit of a brainstorm for the book. I won't give away what we concluded (some cracking ideas) as you'll just have to wait till the book's out - but I do want to share a couple of pics from the lunch.

Caroline specialises in South East Asian cuisine, particularly Malaysian and served us a couple of absolutely delicious curries she'd conjured up in her kitchen that morning. She's promised to let me have the recipes - so once she does I'll share them with you. (now done see link below)

To top it off she'd made a load of absolutely scrummylicious cupcakes and gave us each a box to take home. I'm now going to have to go to the gym every day for a month!

Check out Caroline's videos on her YouTube channel or on our website - here's some very sexy Twilight-style vampire  cupcakes

Here are the two curry recipes on our website

Clare F

My first quilt is finished

Making my first ever block sampler quilt didn't take very long at all - but getting round to finishing it off took for ever!

This weekend I finally added the binding. I sewed the final stitches while watching the American version of the Killing (Forbrydelsen) - and reflected that a lot of the quilting had been done while watching the original Danish version. As it was all subtitled it's amazing I managed to get any sewing done at all.

I'll be posting tips on doing the binding on the website, as well as instructions for the other blocks I used - but meanwhile I'm getting ready for my next quilting venture. I want to make a quilt to use as a bed throw - so will be doing a long narrow one. Here are the fabrics I've chosen. I haven't decided yet what design to go for - but it will likely be one repeating block. Any suggestions?

Clare F

The WI ponders launch of a food label

Flipping through my copy of Marketing Week this morning, I came across a piece on the Women's Institute who are considering whether or not to launch a range of food products - baked goods and jams - to cash in on their reputation for home baking.

This strikes me as a bit odd. The WI, 96 years young, has a slogan - "Inspiring women" and has always existed to promote and share their passion for all things home made. I've no problem at all with the local WI flogging their own members' produce and adding a bit to the coffers that way - but to launch a range of foods to cash in on the home baked reputation, when they will presumably be made in a big factory somewhere, seems to be a bit of a sell-out, not to mention pushing the marketing spin a bit far. The positioning for the brand will be "an alternative to home baking." Shouldn't they be promoting "an alternative to supermarket buying"? Selling a range of jam-making kit, pots and pans, aprons and wooden spoons is one thing but cashing in on the home made reputation to sell ready made food is quite another. They have not done the deal yet - the WI's Board of Trustees is still discussing.

What do you think? Smart move or sell out?

Here at MIAMI we remain dedicated to encouraging you to get those pans and jam jars out and fill your kitchens with the delicious aroma of fruit and sugar and home-baked bread and cakes.
Check out the food pages on our main website. Headlining at the moment are dandelion jam, courgette relish and strawberry jams and cheesecakes. >> Here

Clare F

Knit yourself a holiday

Yes, I know it seems like we've gone knitting mad on the blog recently but we just wanted to mention this knitting competition  from the sunny Channel Island of Guernsey.

Everybody's heard of the Guernsey sweater. Designed originally to keep sailors warm they've enjoyed wide fashion status over the years (and they still look rather cool with jeans and espadrilles).

In days gone by each family on the island would have its own unique pattern that was passed down through the generations by word of mouth. But the Second World War and evacuation meant that many of these oral histories began to die out.

The competition is encouraging knitters to... re-interpret the original garment, how the family patterns might have looked, or would look today if the tradition had continued and evolved.

The winner will receive an trip for two to Guernsey. The winning design will also be published in a leading UK knitting magazine.

To maintain the Guernsey tradition competition entries should try and incorporate the following features in their designs, drawings or patterns:
• inclusion of the traditional box shape
• British [or Guernsey] wool - four or five ply
• pattern designs for size 10-12.

Designs can be uploaded to the Visit Guernsey facebook page

Guernseys are made of single colour worsted yarn, usually four or five ply, tightly knit using fine needles [as small as size 13 or 14].

The sweater was originally knitted in the round, with a purl stitch to mark the side seam. Patterns are made up of simple knit/ purl combinations, the most elaborate of which would have covered the top half of the body and arms.

Patterns on Tudor knitted stockings produced in Guernsey had names such as Turk’s Head, and Peacock’s Tail, which may have also been used on jumper designs. Jumpers have a boxy shape which means that they can be worn both ways; front and back (originally to prolong life-span).

Other common features include a funnel neck, triangular inserts under the arms and at the neck edge, and side splits in the hem for ease of movement.

Get your needles out.

Knit your own masterpiece

Thanks to Jenny Brown form Australia for sharing the low-down on this fantastic knitting group from South Shields in the North of England.

The Materialists are a group of knitters of  mixed abilities from complete beginners to professionals. Every Saturday morning they meet up at the Customs House in South Shields. The group got started in early 2009 (around about the same time as us!) with the Coat for a Boat project in which 350 knitters contributed to knitting a giant coat for a fishing boat, including sails, which was launched on the Tyne.


One of the group's recent projects is to recreate art masterpieces in knitting. Here are a couple of examples:

Andy Warhol's Marilyn Monroe

Munch's The Scream.

Inspirational sewing makeovers

MIAMI member Carol Seatory is a fantastic role model. She's put her sewing talents to everything from making small purses and little girls' dresses to  re-upholstering old chairs - and along the way has transformed her work as an illustrator  by working with scraps of fabrics to make fabulous collages.

Carol squirrels away remnants and unwanted scraps in her fabric stash and then finds all kinds of uses for them. Here's a little Welsh stool Carol has rescued and recovered in vintage fabric - itself "rescued".

Read Carol's story - including how when pregnant she just couldn't stop herself from sewing until she'd made over 40 little dresses - even though she knew she was expecting a baby boy! Read about Carol and see more examples of her work on our website

Rag Rug book offer

We recently ran a giveaway on the website for a book called Rag Rug Making - and it turns out a lot of you are keen to give rag rugs a try as it was one of our most successful competitions.

When we told the publishers, they decided to give our followers an exclusive offer of £3 off the book which we reviewed here.

To take advantage of the offer - ring the publishers on 01684 588599 and quote the code RAGMIAMI. Offer available until 29th April 2011. 

Tea cosy hats for kids

MIAMI member Angela recently shared her instructions for making traditional tea cosies.

Angela has just sent us these photos to show how she's adapted her pattern to make a child's hat. She's done one for a girl and one for a boy. She asks

"Now... HONESTLY.... is this a snuggly, warm, can-be-pulled-down-over-ears child's hat.... or is the poor kiddo going to be laughed at mercilessly... 'ha ha ha... you're wearing a tea cosy!' (Or maybe nowadays, young kids don't even know what a tea cosy is... or what it looks like!)."

We think she's done a great job and these cosy hats should keep any child warm in the playground come Winter. And it's so rare you see a proper tea cosy these days that there's little risk of being accused of wearing one! What do you think?

The boy's hat (above) has a bobble and the girl's has a crocheted flower on the top (petals lift up separately)

To adapt the hats from Angela's tea cosy pattern just cast on 84 stitches instead of 98 then work as for the tea cosy pattern, but instead of doing 4 repeats of the 12 row pattern just do 3 repeats then work as for the original for the reducing rows. Add your bobble or crochet topping. 

 

>> Get the pattern from our website
>> Read about Angela

Sun, sea and MIAMI

Okay, it wasn't Florida but but there were palm trees along the seafront and the sun shone in Eastbourne for Local Life 2011 and we had a great day there.

If you didn't manage to get along - don't worry. We sent Anne round with the video camera to catch some of the highlights - enjoy.

We're off to the seaside - come and join us!

Next Saturday 19th March, the MIAMI team will all be at the Winter Gardens in Eastbourne at the Local Life show there - between 10 am and 5pm. Entry is free.

That's us in the picture - left to right - Anne Caborn, Clare O'Brien, Clare Flynn and Hilary Bruffell.

If you are in or near the area please come along and say hello. We're bringing lots of our stuff along - from done-up dining chairs to garden planters and we'll be sharing tips and ideas such as how to make sourdough - starters and bread as well as making everything from marmalades, jams and chutneys to decorative tealight holders.

So if you can spare the time, and are in the area, please come along and meet the four of us behind the MIAMI movement.

Clare F

Update on my quilting progress

I haven't posted anything recently about my efforts at making a sampler quilt - but I'm still at it and really enjoying it.

I've completed the sample blocks, sewn all these together and today started the slow process of doing the quilting of the three layer "sandwich". I've decided a thimble is definitely in order - I never usually use one but pushing the needle through the three layers can be painful work.

So far I've just quilted one block so I think it's going to take me a while to finish. I'm glad I'm only doing a small nine block quilt as I'd be at it for ever - I'm doing it all by hand.Rather than tacking the layers together before quilting i used curved safety pins - it makes it very quick and easy.

I'm going to put up some instructions for making the quilt sandwich on the website - and there's also instructions for the Rail Fence block and instructions and template for Maple Leaf. Hilary and I plan to publish instructions for all the quilt blocks featured in my quilt on our main website - but right now I'm too busy making it!

Why buy the drill when all you want is the hole?

At MIAMI Towers, we've all been enjoying a new book by Rachel Botsman and Roo Rogers called What's Mine is Yours - How Collaborative Consumption is Changing the Way we Live.

You can read a review of the book on my business blog - I thought it would be worth sharing this with friends and followers of MIAMI too as the book is so close to the principles we espouse ourselves with Make it and Mend it.

It's all about accessing rather than owning - think LoveFilm or StreetCar, about bartering skills, about sharing and swapping - think StreetBank and Landshare. Why buy and accumulate stuff when you can borrow or rent it for the task in hand? Or as Rachel says in the video why buy the drill when all you want is the hole? (Apparently the average power drill gets used for a total of 12 minutes in its entire lifespan).

Check out the review and read the book - or catch Rachel explaining about the concept at TED Sydney in the video below.



Clare Flynn