My latest adventures

beach art

So my eldest turned 14 - wow how did that happen. The next weekend while the youngest was at Soccer trials Jakob and I went for an hour and half walk to the beach and back. Even though it is summer it was cool. Jakob picked handfuls of tiny tiny stones and threw them specifically to make artistic patterns in the sand. We then took photos to analyse whether it looked good or not

The beach always has driftwood houses built. This one was well past high tide and survived well. If the weather was icky it would be the place to retreat to.

The walk goes past about 25 plum trees. A couple still had some very ripe plums on them to snack on the way.

Post operation I have now been permission to get back in the pool. So am doing a couple of mornings at aquasize and then some family length swimming time.

Turning these two chairs into a hallway bench seat is well in progress. Loving it so far, just need to finish.

There has been a lot of travel for work to catch up on the time out from the operations and so a bit of stitching has occurred on a few flights. Sometime I have been too tired on the way home, to do anything.

I wanted to get into running and was managing to get started when my calf muscles pinged a couple of times. Not good. Now I can do these things my body is letting me know that it is a bit old!!

A walk on a hot day to our favourite place. Two days after the walk a huge fire raged and thousand of people were evacuated. The area is now just burnt out.

This was climbing almost to the top of Sugar Loaf. I have not been able to go up for five years. I was so thrilled to be heading back to getting views.

My gorgeous boys.

One quilt leads to another...

In my last post I showed a scrap quilt made of my big bag of strips. Thrilled that the patchwork was finished, I completed a blog post. The next day I found a pile more strips from that same scrap bag that in my sorting I had put elsewhere.

So all inspired, I thought I should crack on and get all the scraps used. 

I sewed them as before but into a long oblong that when folded in half created two squares. Then I put the squares right side together,. sewed it as though I was doing half square triangles.  

And I got it wrong!!! I wanted the stripes going the opposite way. 

So a bit of unpicking and some resewing and I ended up with a different pattern.

I had seen this on someone else's blog but can't remember whose. If I find it then I will add the details to this post. 

In the spirit of using every single one of my scrap strips I then sewed the remainder around as borders. It still needs to be a little bit bigger. So as I cut things wrong in the next few months I will add them on to finish the quilt. So another quilt for Hope Homes International. And a finish enough that this can go into the cupboard until later.

Linking to these places and crazy mum quilts.

Never ending strip quilt - Finished

Finally another patchwork top finished for the Orphans at Hope Homes International. I still have one waiting to be quilted and bound but decided to do some simple sewing instead.  Over my two convalescences I have found it very hard to concentrate on projects etc. So I wanted something that would fill a need but help me to be creative without being taxing. 

I emptied my entire bag of leftover strips. slowly over weeks I put them into piles of their respective widths. Then I chain sewed them together. From there I used the technique that Missouri Star Quilt Company call - The jelly roll race.

It is a very quick assembly, though because I had different sizes I had to put it together in sections rather than one whole. Using a whole bag of leftovers has been great - BUT there are still some leftovers so that might be the beginning of the next quilt!!!

Thrilled to have a finish, it has been great being able to craft without it being taxing. This is a finish for FAL2017 and I link to Crazy Mum Quilts and these places.

An upcycle finish

For a while now I have been upcycling shirts into other clothing. The one I consistently do is to make business shirts into nighties. I choose linen and cotton so they are lovely to wear. This is three shirts into one nightie.

I actually had it cut out before I went into hospital last time, but did not get it made. My other ones are wearing thin so I had to hop to it.

I started with these three shirts

It has been a good time to sew as the summer weather has been like winter. Colleen and I at the river on a day which was meant to be 26 degrees C but, like all other days, ended up cold and windy.

Linking to Crazy mum quilts and these links as well as being my first 2017 FAL.

Cooking from the books - Annabel Langbein

We have a lot of pork mince at the moment as we grew a pig on Aaron's Aunties Farm. So when Aaron gave me Annabel Langbein's latest Celebrate Summer magazine while I was in hospital, I noticed this recipe: Banh Mi Burgers. We love Asian flavours and I had all the ingredients.

I did not want to do burgers so I chose one of her "go free range" options on the page - turn the meat into meatballs.

As it was going to be a meal on rice I made a slightly larger quantity of the salad and added some finely shredded cabbage to the veges when marinating them. 

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It made a gorgeous meal which Aaron and I loved. One of the boys like the salad but not the meatballs and the other boy liked the meatballs but not the salad. I would definitely make this again.

Another Maker in the family

Although I encourage both my boys to be doers and makers of things, it is only my youngest who is really interested. This year he has decided to be retro and make his own skateboard. It has taken a huge amount of work. Pattern drafting, template making, sanding, a big mistake with the holes for the second set of trucks.

The back

The front

The pose!!

He has persevered and with a little help from Pop to fix the mistake - WOW. Diligent, persistent and consistent in applying himself. I am so impressed.

What the Elves made at Christmas

In mid December I posted about how hard the elves and I were working on a present for Aaron. I could only reveal the making - but now that Christmas is over and presents are received. Ta Da... here it is.

Our new leather sofa had such large arms that you want to put your coffee cup and cake plate on it. But we did not want that to happen and we did not want piles of little tables everywhere. So the boys (elves) and I made this. 

The back covered in soft bamboo

The front. A main big piece of wood with smaller on the sides

I had seen an ad on facebook for something similar at $50. But this was just two pieces of wood from the local hardware shop, stapled gross grain ribbon at the top, middle and bottom and then covered in bamboo batting so the leather would not get scratched.

This fits on any sofa or Lazy boy in our house. A great alternative to cluttering the place with lots of tables.

Stapling the ribbon on

Gluing on the batting

I link to these places and crazy mum quilts.

Cooking from the books - Cordon Blue Cookery book

I don't know about you, but I have a pile of cookbooks and magazines for inspiration. But a lot of the time I just don't get around to using the recipes that I mean to. But I have decided to occasionally cook one of the recipes.

The first recipe is .... Berry fruit flan - Pate Sucree... from Cordon Bleu Cookery book page 389

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Years ago when I did my OE in my 20's I completed the Introduction to Cookery course with Cordon Bleu at 114 Marlybone Lane, London, England. At the time there were only a few places you could do Cordon Bleu courses and Marlybone Lane was the original school. I loved it. This is my cookbook from my time there. This sweet pastry we turned into Tarte aux Fraise. (Strawberry tart). Today I turned it into a raspberry and strawberry tart and glazed it with some sieved left over raspberry jam, instead of the traditional apricot.

Although the cookbook advises to use a pastry board or slab, I have only ever used the kitchen bench and there seems to be no impact to the sweet pastry because of that. You use the first two fingers and your thumb held together to blend the sugar, butter and eggs before gradually bringing in the flour. 

Chilling in the fridge is mandatory. Do not miss that step, or make the pastry the day before. 

When rolling out the pastry I put it onto the baking paper that will sit directly on the oven tray and I use the cling film from refrigerating the pastry on top so that it does not stick to the rolling pin. You do not want to add any flour when rolling as it will completely change the pastry.

Watch the cooking time. I forgot mine and it became a bit beyond golden but was OK.

Once the pastry has cooled, brush it with a thinned jam. This seals the pastry and stops it getting soft. Cordon Bleu always taught us to use sieved apricot jam thinned down with lemon. But I had leftover raspberry jam which I used and it accentuated the berry taste. Place the fresh fruit on top and then use your brush and jam and glaze all over. It was as delicious as I remember and I can't think why I have not been making this, I think the last time I did it was when in London while on the course.

Linking to various places including some of these.

Scrap quilt for charity.

 In October I finished this scrap quilt top for the Orphanage that we support - Hope Homes International. I am calling it "red line". Most of the materials are donated bits and pieces from people who I quilt with on a retreat once a year.

The red material was cut to 1 inch strips and I nearly threw it out. But then sometimes scrap quilts need some sort of item making it cohesive and I decided that would work. Now I need to sandwich, quilt and bind it. But really happy with the outcome.

Linking to these places and crazy mum quilts

Raspberries and more

The  berry abundance led me to make some gorgeous raspberry jam, a favourite in our family. Then one thing turned into another. The little bit of jam that would not fit in a jar got sieved for a glaze and delving into my old cook books I made a recipe I had forgotten. The tart was scoffed by the family in seconds flat - no left overs, Oh I had forgotten how delicious it was.

 As the tart uses egg yolks I had some egg whites left over, so of course I made meringues. It was a busy afternoon in the kitchen but what a great result, Jam, Tart and Meringues.