Breakfast in kaikoura in the sun

What a wonderful weekend we are having. Amazing food, awesome walks and a sunny breakfast. About to head home. But could not resist a quick note. I was trying the cell phone camera and connecting to wifi. Hmm photo not so great - why did Aaron take one of me eating??

A practical day

Isn't it gorgeous. Love the big candle

Well today was a day of getting on with house jobs. I did a little bit of work for Longsilver Construction but mainly tried to get on top of all the little things that pile up. I don't know about you but jobs that are 5 or 10 minutes I think that it doesn't matter as I can just do it anytime. Problem is I don't do it!! So today was looking at the glasshouse, checking the chickens, Pruning the roses etc.

The roses are weird. We have a Graham Thomas rose which is meant to go to a max of 3 metres - well it is currently climbing along the verandah (for which I am really happy). The rose to the left of it is loving memory and is just fantastic with an amazing scent and long single stem tight red roses. Then further left is a rose that Aaron bought specifically to climb along the verandah. But can we get it to do what it is meant to? No. We did not want to be boring with iceburg so that rose is yellow with orange edges and it is vivid and amazing, but hideous thorns.

before

After

I have also been looking into age appropriate jobs. Thanks to Audrey for starting me in that direction. We have been stuck in the perpetual cycle of feed the dog and chooks, clear the eggs, empty the dishwasher, sometimes a vacumm and clean the bathroom. Today I started Jakob on folding washing. He is doing the towels, shorts, trousers, undies, socks, teatowels to start with. We will progress to shirts later. I want both the boys to be able to run their own home and be able and sufficient by the time they leave, I feel that as a mother it is important for me to teach them those things.

After all that hard work we had a milo and some birthday cake for afternoon tea. I was really blessed yesterday when Dawn and Mikayla turned up with a birthday cake for me. How amazing is that!!! I never bake my own cake so normally don't have one. Aaron's mum also made one which we had for pudding last night. Wow I am doubly blessed. Heading off for our second try at an anniversary weekend away. Have a great weekend all.

A finished quilt

Yes in the weekend I managed to finally get a quilt sandwiched together, quilted and bound. The pattern is one from Cluck Cluck Sew -I have made a tutorial how I assembled the blocks that made it more straightforward and a lot quicker for me.

I made this quilt out of the leftovers from a quilt I made for our bed - here. This quilt will be for the charity that I support - Hope Homes - an amazing orphanage in Kenya.

I was using this as a trial for quilting as I am a bit daunted over quilting the queen size one for our bed. I was going to be really fancy with flowers etc in each block, but stipple quilting is fast and opening the stipple up and making it really big worked for me on this. I am really pleased with the result. Next job - do our big one.

My morning

This morning I have had a leisurely breakfast and read in bed. Thank you to everyone for the birthday wishes. Aaron gave me a coffee in bed this morning and I got to open my presents. Fantastic. I got the boys off to school and decided to have a relaxed start to the day as my work day is just a pile of phone calls and paperwork.

So I made another coffee (yes I am a bit of a coffee fiend) and freshly poached eggs on toast. Conveniently the chooks laid two fresh eggs this morning, so I used them. YUM. So I went back to bed! Looked at my two fabulous books, kept Morris company and relaxed. Now it is time to get on with things!!

A newly sewn basket for the laundry

Thanks to Roz at Squiltz for the fantastic idea of making a laundry bag for the washing trolley out of laminate fabric. I got my fabric from Sew Pretty, an online shop that is fabulous and I use a lot.
Over my retreat weekend this was one of the non quilt things that I made. I did receive a lot of hassle about it as it takes more time and money to make a new laundry liner than buying a cheap one. Also being laminate it was pointed out that the water will not seep through when it rains. Which means either I need to bring it inside when not in use OR the water can collect in it and weigh it down to stop it blowing away when we have bad weather (it always happens to me - go outside and it is strewn across the section).
I used the old ripped one as a template and was quite worried about the fit. But it fits really well. The bag bit could do with being a tad smaller but at least it will hold a lot of washing.

An awesome apron made from a man's shirt

Finished like this

I saw on facebook a photo of someone who had made a country man's shirt into an apron. I am a big apron fan myself and have always kept that idea at the back of my mind. So while I was away with the material girls at our retreat, this was one of the first things I did.

Started as this

My shirt was a gorgeous 100% cotton cufflink shirt. So I cut the sleeves off, then the back and the cut on an angle from the armpit to partway up the collar. The collar, cuffs and back facing had a lovely contrast colour. I used the contrast from the back facing to make binding for one side and one cuff facing to make the binding for the other side. I used the last bit of cuff facing to make the pocket. One sleeve became the ties. Viola an apron that I really like (I am wearing it while I type this.)

Thanks to Glenis who makes a great official photographer.

Amazing amount achieved in 72 hours

Well I think that I achieved a lot anyway. Way more than I have ever done at my yearly retreat.
I finished

• two entire quilt tops
• 1 pieced quilt back
• I sandwiched two quilts together
• I quilted two quilts
• bound 1 quilt
• made the top of a patchwork cushion
• made a funky laundry basket
• two small bags, one for buttons and one for selvages
• one apron from a business man's shirt.
• Turned up one pair of jeans and put patches on it - to make it "cool" for Eli.

I still had piles of projects that I took that did not even get looked at. But I am happy with this achievement.

Over the next week I will show you each one more indepth.

And the amazing news is that next year the retreat will be FIVE days not three. I will be attending FOUR days of that. Wow can't wait for next year.

How many projects can you complete in 72 hours

I am going to my quilting weekend at Living Springs tomorrow lunch time. I think I have seriously over estimated how much can be achieved by Monday lunchtime.

I have three quilts cut out.
The scrap quilt to get to work on.
Two kids patterns to work out and template up.
Trousers to mend and put patches on.
Five bags to make.
At least 6 other containers of sorts to do.
1 bean bag seat to make.
Plus I have taken my entire stash of material from under the bed (just in case I get inspired to do something else).

I think I have an entire quilt shop in my car!!!!

Cheats Dairy Free Apricot Shortcake

I wanted to bake something for Jess as it is exhausting having little babies. As Jess is also dairy free now to see if that will help Alex with his reflux, I needed to think outside the square. Well I cheated. Instead of spending ages adapting a recipe I took the easy route and dashed to the supermarket and got a margarine that is made with olive oil - hence diary free. Oh my goodness, did you know that some of the promoted "healthy" margarines made with Olive oil cheat and have milk solids in them. I was really surprised and read labels very carefully. So good old Olivio was the only one I could guarantee to be diary free.

Then all I had to do was replace the butter content with the Olivio margarine. Simple, easy and it worked really well.

My diary free shortcake recipe:
4oz Olivio
1/2 cup castor sugar
mix those together well. Then add
1 egg and beat. Then add
3/4 cup plain flour
3/4 cup self raising flour

This is a very soft dough. I do not roll it out as it causes problems being so soft.
Grease the tin you are putting it in (I used a foil disposable tin so Jess doesn't have to worry about returning things). Press half the dough into the bottom of the tin.

Drain a decent sized bottle of home preserves (I used apricots for Jess and blackboy peaches for our one). Give the juice to the kids to drink and put the drained fruit into your baking tin in a even layer. Flour your hands well and flatten the remaining mixture in between your hands and place on top of the fruit - trying to give even coverage. Bake 180oC about 30 minutes. (I check it every 5 minutes after 25 min of cooking).
Hey presto and yummy

Refashioned Shirt

The newly shaped shirt

Ezibuy - capture 100% cotton shirt. I got it at the Op Shop for $2 as it seemed a bit out of date and I was going to chop it up for quilting.

Cuffs altered.

Then Aaron commented on how good the colour looked on me. So I rethought. I put the cuff buttons onto the other side of the cuff so that it now does up as though they are cuff-links. Then I removed the collar, put stiffening in it and sewed it back on but with a slightly thinner collar so it will fold down or stand up. Then in the front I put a dart / shaping from under the breastline down to the bottom. At the back I put in two large shaping darts and two much smaller ones.

It may not look much in the photo but it now looks really smart, well shaped and extremely wearable.

The shirt to start with.

All packaged and ready

Yes, after my big sewing production line on the weekend I now have 8 sets of sewing accessories all packaged and ready to go. I love the colours of the material and have tried to match the colour of the snips to the material.

So each package has 1. Scissor keeper - which is a material lanyard with clip and a pair of the amazing sharp, super useful snips. 2. Finger pin cushion - this slides onto the finger of your choice and means you have pins available. I find this really useful. I thought they would just get in the way but I have not found that to be the case.

For details on how you can purchase them from me click -  here.

Some lucky people at this weekends retreat with the Material Girls will get them as spot prizes.