I received Amy Karol's book Bend the Rules Sewing from Amazon last Thursday and was determined to make something out of it as soon as possible.

Look what accompanied me to the concert on Friday...

Adorable, no? It was just big enough to fit the essentials (purse, keys , lipgloss, phone) and tucked neatly under my arm for dancing. Perfect.

The creative streak continued over the weekend and I finally hit on a use for the meter and a half of white linen I snagged from the scrap bin in Ikea on my last visit for a whole 0.80 Euros. Following a tutorial linked in the Bend the Rules Sewing Flickr Group I managed to produce six lovely white linen napkins for less than a Euro - not bad going.

The bags and other items I make have been generating a lot of scraps and offcuts lately. I hate to throw things away so I keep anything that might be usable in a scrap box. I thought about using them for the coasters in the book but random surfing led me to this tutorial and I whipped up these coasters quick smart from my scrap box, with no hand sewing required. Incredibly easy and I love that they fit over the base of a wine glass so that wherever you put the glass down it has its own coaster.

So once upon a time Chez Larsson posted about her wardrobe and it had these amazing doors, which she had cleverly done herself.

Image from Chez Larsson

Courtney liked the design so much she made a tutorial about it.

Image from Modern Homebody

Apartment Therapy liked it so much they featured it.

Anneliese liked it so much she painted her whole hall that way

Image from Apartment #412

Which is where I found it and promptly fell in love with it. I see it working either in the downstairs bathroom (if I decide on partial tiling only) or as a feature wall in the living room in a medium grey. Planning, planning...

This was my weekend...

Clockwise from top right:

• A quote designed and framed for my desk, a further copy in a different colour sent in pdf to a friend in the US.
• My first ever attempt at pillows was a roaring success using this tutorial and these photos as inspiration.
• A small stack of tissue holders which I have been making to practice my sewing skills.
• My Friday flowers - white tulips and pink hyacinths to encourage spring to creep a little closer.

I also made puff pastry for the first time, completely by accident. If this recipe had mentioned that the pastry was puff I would never even have tried it (too fiddly, I can't make puff pastry, I'll just buy it or substitute short crust etc.) But I did it and it was glorious. As suggested I served it with mustard vinaigrette doused green veg, but tender stem broccoli instead of beans as that is what I had in the fridge.

It was a good cooking weekend. Sunday night also saw a storming pasta in a creamy sauce of homemade pesto with chargrilled asparagus and a caprese salad on the side.

Roll on next weekend...