Some sewing for me

Over the last couple of weeks I have finally finished two projects I had sitting around. A nightie and a shirt. Both using the Twig and Tale Driftwood Blouse pattern. The shirt is a rayon I purchased at spotlight.

The nightie is a 100% cotton sheet that I purchased at an Op Shop (Charity Shop) a while ago, specifically to make into a nightie. I just put a frill on the bottom of the shirt pattern and removed the sleeves. I'm pretty pleased with the binding around the armhole. 

A great new biscuit recipe - ginger biscuits

I have been cleaning out all sorts of things, one of them being my recipe book. If I haven't made it yet then there does not seem much point in keeping it. Two days ago I nearly got rid of this recipe and I now know that would have been a disaster. So so easy to make, no butter or diary, comes out looking like the magazine picture and totally delicious. The top is bits of preserved ginger.

This recipe was from a Good Magazine in the mid 2000. Sooo good. As a treat I'm going to make home made vanilla icecream and turn the biscuits into a ice cream sandwich as a sumptuous dessert.

Making Sausages

Delicious. Pork and Beef sausages, then Lamb and Pork and Ras el Hanout spice. 

Eli wanted to make sausages as he only likes homemade ones. Ever since his Aunty made sausages he can't face eating shop bought. So I put all the ingredients together and we headed to my sisters on a wet weekend day. Using the lamb from the one we slaughtered and beef from my sisters farm we made enough sausages for 16 (four person) meals.

All hands in to mix

The course grind

Working in the garden

This weekend I got quite a lot completed in the garden. Items I have procrastinated about for a long time. I am a doer and action person. So when tragedy hit our region in the form of a massacre one of the ways I deal with things is to keep active. The garden was the beneficiary.

I did not think of taking before photos until I was part way through. But I had cleaned up all this area and already installed the first sleeper you see on the left. Where the spade and bucked are is still a higher area due to having been the dumping ground for stuff from our other garden changes. The sleepers have been sitting there since January when I purchased them knowing what I wanted to do.

This is the finished area. I just couldn't handle having the ground at a different height, so as well as squaring the garden beds off I dug out the lawn and flattened it all. 

The piece on the right will be completed after I purchase more sleepers. Then there will only be one area left to complete (the side of the house). I'm really pleased as it now looks like a purposeful area outside. 

I also composted this garden and put in some more brassica's (tiny little bits of green down the left side). The ones I planted last month are now a good size. One of the four beds all tucked up for winter! 

  

It's full on for him but a doddle for me - St James Walkway

Dark, Dark, Dark - 6.30am Aaron starts walking

Misty, drizzly at the Lewis Pass drop off

Gearing up and ready to go

Breakfast by the roaring fire...mmmm didn't want to move

On a drizzly weekend after some very hot weather Aaron and I set off to do the St James Walkway. In two very different ways. We intended to be dropping Aaron at the Lewis Pass end of the walk by 6am. Getting up at 4am meant we were at the trail head at 6.30am. Aaron hoofed off as he had 60 kilometres to cover before meeting me again. I did the genteel start. I drove over the Lewis Pass and parked in the car park to the Maruia Springs Hotel. Having done my homework I discovered they opened for breakfast at 8am. Flipping the car seat back down, I got a quilt and a pillow and snuggled for a rest. The rain pelted and I was comfy. I felt heaps better an hour and a bit later.

 Some other people, waiting for the hotel to open, woke me with their chatting and we all wandered in. Oh the bliss, a lovely flat white, some decent food and a roaring fire. I got the seat right by the fire and even sat on the hearth for a few moments. Warmed and feeling human I then drove back to Boyle Village to walk into Magdelen hut. I started at 10.10am and by then Aaron had already zoomed past the first two huts as pictured. Cannibal Gorge and Ada Pass Hut.

Feeling happy and thrilled the weather was cooler I pottered on with another takeaway coffee in hand. Through the bush. Chatting to the few people I met and loving being out by myself. It's been years since I was well enough to be safe walking alone and I loved it. 

On the open plain an hour to go. Still feeling perky. 

At my accommodation for the night. Magdelen Hut. Not looking quite so perky as I had to take a couple of big deviations due to some cattle and a bull or two. The sun was starting to heat up, which was not meant to happen. 

4pm. By this time I had the knitting out on the porch, had a dunk or two in the stream to stay cool and was loving having the hut to myself.

Starting to be tired.

Aaron on the other hand had rested at the fourth hut for an hour before hitting the Anne Saddle.

at 9.25pm I heard tromp tromp outside and scream with excitement "No way!!" only to shoot out the door and find three fishermen in their 50's preparing to come into the hut. I then had to explain my scream as they thought I was really angry that someone else was coming into my space, either that or one of them thought they were interrupting a 'private moment"...

Anyway, thankfully 5 minutes later Aaron rocked up, corroborating my story and looking trashed. 59 km in what turned out to be a hot afternoon. Starting 6.30am and finishing 9.30pm. Crazy. 

Next day was a doddle out with a dip on the way. 

I loved the weekend

Happy trampers homebound.

Glamping food

Sometimes, when camping, I can muster the energy to go above and beyond for a meal. It tends to be brunch. In the tiny cooking space in the caravan it surprises me just what we can produce.

This weekend it was brunch of Ciabatta bread turned into french toast (or eggy bread depending on where you hark from). Bacon from a pig raised on my aunts farm and banana. Topped with maple syrup

This Tiny messy bit of kitchen top managed to produce the above. The teenager told me he waited hours for food!!!

Idyllic holiday

We headed off to our friends farm for a few days Rest and Recreation. A great New Year and few days with lovely weather, lots of river swimming and time together.

Arriving at the farm, opening the gate to get to our camping spot.

Great swimming hole after an hour walk along the river, in amongst incredible wildflowers. 

A bit of Alpaca wrangling and a tired 12 year old Fox Terrier.

Cushion - A Christmas Tree Bauble

I'm really happy with this make. A Christmassy item that is different, reusing what someone else had discarded. It is a cushion made to look like a Christmas tree bauble.

I was cruising Bloglovin before Christmas and an interesting blog post came up - Studio DIY. She had made cushions to look like Christmas tree baubles. Some of it was sewn, however to simplify it the entire top piece was glued. I knew that I could sew it all and so collected old cushions from the local dump shop to use as stuffing and ransacked my own supplies for material.

However I wanted plush comfort and so in the end purchased some furnishing velvet from the Fabric of Society and obtained the shinny furnishing fabric, for the top, from Fabric Vision. For $32 I have enough material to make two or three of these. A lot of trial and error as for some reason my seams weren't equal, I think I took more seam in the zip. My guessing for sewing the top section in worked well however, the circle given for the top did not match and was too small, so there was some fiddling.

Very excited as it was my first ever invisible zip and I think it was very successful. No more zips showing up unless I want them to be a feature. Woo Hoo. I've shown you the rather ugly bottom but when it's on a sofa you will not see that.

This Christmas present was sewn after Christmas but that's OK as I have yet to see my niece to have a present time. So all wrapped in a brown paper bag that my grocery shopping comes it... Another bit of reusing. I'm going to adjust and try the pattern again as I think they look better in a group and are a bit of fun to make the house look Christmassy.

Redcurrants

 A significant part of summer for me is about picking fruit. This starts in November and goes through to April. I love being in the sun entangled in vines or trees, adding to the bowl, basket or bucket and enjoying warm fruit as it's being picked. We have two redcurrant bushes and this year due to all the rain the currants are enormous. I don't normally net our bushes but was we were going away just when everything was ripening I thought it prudent to do so.

I went out to pick and thought I was done but every time I went to leave I would lift another branch and find it dripping with fruit. Perfection.