Beautifully easy crackers topped with sea salt and sesame seeds.

When I'm trying to avoid work I seem to bake even more, on Tuesday I made coconut ice, something I hadn't made for years.

I'm on the hunt for the perfect shortbread recipe, I hope rice flour is the answer, the biscuits are being eaten, but I'm not happy with them yet.

http://www.bbc.co.uk/food/recipes/shortbread_1290

Homemade strawberry macarons made following the ladurée recipe

There was no dressmaking course this week, due to it being half term. And I have had so much work to do hence the lack of blogging. Just a quick update to show you bagels we attempted today, not the easiest but they tasted delicious, even if they weren't quite traditional looking bagels.

Pattern magic - This book is amazing (Google it and look at images) They have a copy of it at my evening class and I think it's what I'm going use for my next project, I want to try more of the pattern cutting side of things. Basically it's clever ways of pattern cutting and manipulating the fabric to make amazing shapes. I don't know how well it will go but I'm going to give it a go and hopefully I'll have some impressive things to show. Had an amazing weekend back home, such a lovely time with my family and so much wonderful food.

This week was one of my most productive weeks, I'd already pinned in the jacket lining so the next step was to sew it in, I knew this wasn't going to be the easiest of jobs - linings are horrible. Firstly I sewed the front seams and along the top of the jacket, the collar. Next was the fiddley bit, sewing the sleeve lining into the sleeves, once it's figured out its fine but you need to sew it inside out but making sure you can pull it through after. After severally attempts at pinning I got it right and the sleeves were lined. The final stage was sewing along the bottom part by machine part by hand.

And here is the finished thing. I decided against a fastening down he front and left it open. I'm so happy with it, and it only took four weeks. I may hand stitch on some gold detailing but I'm undecided.