Craft - Driftwood sailing boat

Whenever I go to the beach, I'm always collecting shells, sea glass and bits of driftwood. They usually end up sitting in a drawer gathering dust; shells look so much prettier when they're still wet, don't they? But this weekend I decided to try making a driftwood sailing boat. I made one a few years ago and I still love it. This craft is a great use for little odds and ends of fabric.

What you'll need:

2 pieces of driftwood - one for the hull and one for the mast
1 piece of material big enough for a sail
Little fabric triangles or bells for the rigging
String/ribbon
2 pins, drawing pins, tacks or staples

Step 1. Super glue your "mast" into your driftwood boat. Mine already had a notch in it for the mast to sit in, but you could easily gouge a bit out. Prop it up in the right position and leave it to dry. It can help to put a bit of blue tack on the bottom of the boat to help it stand up.

Step 2. Press a drawing pin or a tack into each end of the boat (you might need to tap them in with a hammer). These are to keep your rigging in place. I had run out of drawing pins so I had to improvise with a dressmaker's pin at one end and a bent staple at the other.

Step 3. Prepare your sail. Measure out approximately how big your sail needs to be and cut your material to size. If you have a nice straight mast this is quite easy as you can just make a right-angled triangle. My mast was all wonky, so it took a few attempts to get it looking right.

Step 4. Hoist the sail! How you do this will probably depend on what sort of fabric you're using. My fabric, apart from being hilariously retro, was very liable to rip. I tied a piece of string around the bottom of the mast before using a needle to thread it through the bottom left corner of the sail. I sewed it along the bottom of the sail and tied the other end of the string onto the pin at the end of the boat. I then tied the top corner of the sail directly to the top of the mast, carefully pulling it taut.

However, if your fabric is a bit more sturdy you can just make a little incision in each corner and use an individual loop of string to tie each bit in place.

Step 5. Make your rigging. Tie a piece of string or ribbon from the top of the mast to the pin or staple on the opposite side to the sail. For my first boat, I decided to make little flags by cutting little triangles of contrasting fabric and attaching them to the string with a simple stitch.

This time I made use of the little bells that come on the collars of Lindt bunnies. I looped the ribbon twice through each bell to keep it in place before tying it onto the staple.

These make such pretty decorations and gifts. The big boat currently lives on top of our bathroom mirror and the little one is going to sit on the window frame. They're very light, so it's easy to blue tack them in place. Have fun making your own!

Homemade Pasta - a surprisingly easy recipe

The other day I was scanning through one of my favourite blogs, Bread & Companatico, when I came across a recipe for buckwheat orecchiette. It was around lunchtime and I was starting to get pretty hungry and these "little ears" of homemade pasta caught my eye. They were especially perfect as we had almost nothing to eat in the house except for some cupboard ingredients and a jar of passata.

I decided to give them a go. I didn't have soy or buckwheat flour so I tried them with normal plain (all-purpose) flour, but I'd love to try it with a more exciting gluten-free flour one day. I imagine this is one of those recipes which gets better every time you make it. The joy is that it's so simple.

I changed the quantities around a bit from the original recipe (which you can find here) since I was only making it for myself. However, the quantity of dough definitely makes enough pasta for two people.

Ingredients:

1 cup plain flour (or other flour of your choice)
1/4 cup lukewarm water
1/2 teaspoon marine salt
A sauce of your choice

Step 1. Combine all the ingredients in a mixing bowl to form a dough. Mine was definitely a bit watery and I had to faff around adding bits of flour later, so if it looks really sticky add in a bit more flour; you should be able to handle it without getting bits of dough all over your fingers.

Step 2. Roll into a ball, cover and leave to stand for half an hour.

Step 3. With a rolling pin or your hands, stretch it out on a floured surface until it's nice and thin. If you make the bits too thick they won't cook evenly. Chop into your desired shapes either using your fingers, a knife or scissors.

Step 4. Put a bit of salt and olive oil into a pan of boiling water. Drop in your pasta pieces and boil for around 10 mins.

Step 5. Strain and serve with your favourite sauce. In the pictures I've served it with passata and stirred through some spinach and rocket.

Enjoy! This pasta is very filling (like all fresh pasta) so you really don't need that much! Most Italian fresh pasta is made with egg, so in the future I'm definitely going to try replacing the water with egg and seeing what happens.

Thanks so much to Bread & Companatico, whose recipes I use all the time.