What I am working on

At the moment I am working on foundation piecing. I am loving it. Amazing sharp points, easy to do little pieces and looking bright. I saw it on a blog, which then referenced you to the pattern.

This has been designed by Janice at Better Off Thread - Linked here to her tutorial etc for this block.
I was going to do an entire circle but then I have the begining of so many quilts that have no ending somehow. So I thought that a cushion or pillow will be better. I am also trying to do smaller blocks because spring is here and there is soooo much to do outside. Trying to fit that all in with working fulltime and presto, not a lot of sewing gets done. But in the meantime I am just getting a thrill from doing the blocks.

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We get there step by step

Slowly being built

For a long time we have been slowly sorting out the living areas in our house. We opened up from the kitchen to the laundry and that created light but also cold. So tomorrow double glazed doors and windows arrive to fix that problem.

The mess in the lounge

Now I am sanding and sealing

Today our odd job builder has been in putting shelved in an alcove in the laundry. These have been built from recycled Rimu, the same planks that were used to replace our kitchen floor. One shelf has been made using the tiny bit of Rimu that Aaron managed to rescue from his old family home before it was torn down after the earthquakes. So progress is slowly happening to ensure the front end  of the house is all livable while we complete an extension on the back end of the house.

In the meantime everything from there is strewn all over the living room. This is just the beginning. Once this is done then we are back in the kitchen taking out cupboards and putting in extraction fans.

Do we ever finish fixing up our houses?.... and you should see outside. We are still in a huge mess where we are bricking and tiling in the garden.

For the man who has everything - Give Florentines

Well my father in law had his birthday and I am stuck with what to give him. He is really helpful here around the place. Most recently he has been chopping all the firewood that Aaron collects and he has fixed my front door (which was sticking badly - but is no more!!).

The other day when they popped over he eyed up the YoYo's that I had made and snaffled a couple. So a ha, I thought. Homemade biscuits. So I made some yoyo's, Belgium slice, Afghans and then tried a new recipe - Florentines. (I use the Edmonds recipe for Yoyo's and Afghans but do not cook them as long as they recommend - only 12 minutes in the oven is all you need)

The recipe for Florentines I got while watching a recent programme of the Australian House and Garden. Love that programme. It is not cheap by any stretch of the imagination but they are super yummy.

FLORENTINES

180g bran flakes (I used cornies from Kellogs)

150g pistachio nut (not salted)

150g flaked almonds

80g chopped almonds (I had some and added some unsalted cashews to bring up the weight)

100g glace cherries (I did not have any so did not use them but upped the quantity of the other fruit)

60g glace ginger

50g cranberries

1/2 tsp cinnamon

1/2 a nutmeg ground (grated)

1 395g tin of sweetened condensed milk.

Stir all together. Put onto baking paper and bake at 180oC for 10 minutes (seriously that is all you need) Cool and then melt some dark chocolate and spread it on the bottoms of the florentines. 

I had a bit of a problem putting the mixture onto the baking paper. So I used a round cookie cutter on the tray. Put in two spoons of the mixture. Pushed it down with my spoon. Then removed the cutter and that worked really well.

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Rugby Player of the year

Congratulations to Eli. Kaiapoi Rugby Football Club (KRFC) Under 9 Rugby Player of the year. Well deserved, so proud!!

Refashion a business man's shirt - sewing for me

From this

To this

I really liked the material that this shirt was made from. 100% organic cotton and it has a natural look and image to it. I should have taken a close up of it to really show. Anyway. There was enough material in it to make a little cap sleeve top for me. I actually used a pattern this time (very unlike me!). I have decided that the front looks OK but I do not like the back, it is all puffy and doesn't drape. So I am going to try putting the pattern on the bias and see how it goes as I think that will give it a lot more shape. As Gilli pointed out - it could do with being longer, but because it was a refashion I did not have enough material to do that.

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Number 21

Yes this is charity quilt number 21. Off to Hope Homes in the package. A real kids quilt. The centre Winnie the Pooh and the alphabet are a panel. The rest was some matching strips which I have added. But it all looks like it is one panel. I made this when I was on my quilting retreat recently. Started it, cut it, patched it together, sandwiched it, quilted it (some straight line quilting, some stipple and some outlining) and then bound it. All in about 4 hours. Yippeee!!! Was so intent on getting it finished that I forgot to take process photos.

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Best Date ever

Well that is what he told me when I let him watch 20 minutes of the all blacks game while we were on our date night! I took a photo to prove it.

We had dinner out, then went for a walk in a nearby scenic reserve (very reminiscent of when we were dating), then went and had a cup of tea and viewed the Bledisloe Cup match for 20 minutes while waiting for the movie start time. Watched 100 step journey and came home. Great night out and I scored brownie points!!