Devastated today that such a bright young spark with a future has passed away. When he was young we had him for weekends, when he got older my boys looked up to him with awe. He changed from a young 'un that we felt responsible for to a mate of my husband. Words cannot describe the desolation we feel. Remembering him for all his awesomeness.
Monday, January 8, 2018
Memories of my cousin
Devastated today that such a bright young spark with a future has passed away. When he was young we had him for weekends, when he got older my boys looked up to him with awe. He changed from a young 'un that we felt responsible for to a mate of my husband. Words cannot describe the desolation we feel. Remembering him for all his awesomeness.
Saturday, January 6, 2018
A bit of quilting
This quilt has been sitting on the floor waiting to be quilted for so long. I have been watching a lot of videos from "The Midnight Quilter" - Angela. It is inspiring me to just try more patterns. I always thought quilting was too slow so have stuck to stipple quilting (which I still will when I want a fast finish). This quilt is anything but fast!! The stars were rejects from a quilt I made Jakob when he was two and a half (he's now 14).
The original quilt Jakob gifted to the charity we support - Hope Homes International and I was going to gift this one to them too. It is really fitting that I am now trying to finish this for Jakob's 15th birthday in a month. The blocks languished for about 7 years, then got put together, then sat another 2 years before I started doing extra and bordering it. When I was pining it out about 8 months ago Jakob told me that it was his most favourite quilt I had made. So what was stars for his first quilt, now become stars for a teenage quilt. Funny how things work out.
Tuesday, November 21, 2017
Ginger Crunch ....and more
It has been a while since I posted. I have started working fulltime for a while and that kinda takes up your time. Combined with a broken camera and looking at a screen for over 8 hours a day, the desire to blog reduces somewhat.
However, equipped with a new phone and better camera I hope to start again. First up. I made ginger crunch for the first time ever in my life. I wasn't sure that the boys would like it. It's not even cold and Eli has had two pieces. So a hit. The recipe book was found last weekend at the dump shop. The Holst's are such good cooks, so I knew the 50 cents would be worth it. If the ginger crunch is anything to go by then the whole book will be a hit.
We had a great time camping in Oamaru. The Victorian weekend is such an amazing thing. With lots for the boys to do too. The slide is massive and the other items in the playground are great. So a bit of penny farthing race watching, some shopping, lots of walking and a visit to the dump shop.. all made for a great holiday weekend.
Saturday, October 28, 2017
Driftwood blouse
Well it has been a long time coming. Photos are not great as my camera is broken and only the selfie side works. Next time I will make this shirt a couple of inches longer. I cut it lower than the midline on the pattern but doesn't seem to be quite enough. However this material cost me $12 from The Fabric Store at The Tannery and I have heaps left over. A lovely cotton lawn. So great as a trial. I also used self binding but did not make it bias - next time it needs to be bias for the neckline.
I cut the driftwood blouse out about two months ago and parked it as it was just difficult. I love the patterns from Twig and Tale - the wool boots I make is another of their patterns. But this pattern is so large that when printed on a home printer all the A4 pages had to be taped together. When printing none of the notations ie "front", "back" etc print so trying to figure out what was what drove me nuts. Also the A4 pages had no numbering so working out how the pattern fitted took me all of one night. This put me off and the cut out material has sat in my sewing room for about two months.
It was a quick sew but somehow some of the pieces did not align well, even though I was anal about seam allowance etc. Thrilled to have finished it and will try again with my "better" material now that I have worked out the kinks in the sewing.
Spring is definitely heading into summer, the rhododendrons are just about finished and poppies, peonies and roses are starting to come out. These are some mutated poppies from my garden, they all just cross fertilised and now I am getting wonderful colour array.
Linking to these places
I cut the driftwood blouse out about two months ago and parked it as it was just difficult. I love the patterns from Twig and Tale - the wool boots I make is another of their patterns. But this pattern is so large that when printed on a home printer all the A4 pages had to be taped together. When printing none of the notations ie "front", "back" etc print so trying to figure out what was what drove me nuts. Also the A4 pages had no numbering so working out how the pattern fitted took me all of one night. This put me off and the cut out material has sat in my sewing room for about two months.
It was a quick sew but somehow some of the pieces did not align well, even though I was anal about seam allowance etc. Thrilled to have finished it and will try again with my "better" material now that I have worked out the kinks in the sewing.
Spring is definitely heading into summer, the rhododendrons are just about finished and poppies, peonies and roses are starting to come out. These are some mutated poppies from my garden, they all just cross fertilised and now I am getting wonderful colour array.
Linking to these places
Sunday, October 1, 2017
Making Hard Candy - Acid Drops
When I was a teenager my mother found a recipe for old fashioned acid drops. This makes a hard boiled lolly (candy) that you have to pull and twist the old fashioned way when cooling them.
Eli and I made them but the Candy syrup is super hot to handle so when it came time to shape them, the rush is on. We all pitched in to get it cooled and rolled as it is easy for it to set and then you break shards off, which is not nice to suck.
We had a day in Christchurch wandering around the botanic gardens and took the opportunity to wander the city as well. We went to the Earthquake memorial, which was very moving.
Stopping by the cathedral just shows how quickly nature takes over. 6 years on from the earthquake and the paving is gone and trees abound.
Here is the acid drop recipe if you want it. I have no idea where my mother got it from.
2 Cups Sugar
1/2 Cup water
1/4 teaspoon cream of tartar
Heat gently until sugar is dissolved then bring to a constant simmer. Do not boil hard. It took about 20 minutes to just start becoming a pale yellow colour. It should be sort of holding together.
Take pan off the heat and add:
3 drops lemon essence
Take great care and pour onto a well oiled slab. I oiled a roasting dish, other times I have used a oiled baking tray or an oiled stainless steel bench top will do. While it is hot it was easy to do it in a large back dish as it could not run away on me.
Keep moving the sticky mess from the outside into the middle, sort of like folding - do it with an ordinary metal eating knife. Sprinkle
2 teaspoons tartaric acid over and it will slowly mix in using this folding technique.
My mother's recipe says to roll it into rolls, cut with a knife and then roll into balls with your hand. But it took quite a while of folding before it was set enough to consider doing anything. Then we found just pulling a chunk off and folding it until it was cool or solid enough to put in balls worked for us. We chucked them onto a dish that was covered with about 1cm icing (confectioners) sugar.
They were yum!!! It might be our home made Christmas present this year.
Thursday, September 28, 2017
Scraps make another cushion
About seven weeks ago I thought that I should whip up a cushion and use the last of the scraps I had which were already cut in strips. I follow a blog by Tiina called Tilkunviilaaja. She is in Scandinavia - I am hoping she will leave a comment as I cannot remember the country. However we met via an International swap in the quilting world. Anyway, I digress. She was doing uneven lopsided blocks for one of the many bags she makes and it inspired me to do another cushion using that technique.
It should have been a quick job. But I got very bogged down in my study as I have had to do two assignments in formats that I had never used before. When I am a bit stressed I get very demotivated in the craft area as everything just seems like work. So instead of an overnight finish and a post on my blog, it has taken me seven weeks. Finished now and residing in the school library. My current assignment is the last for this semester and then I have another cushion inner to cover and some gardening to get on with.
Linking to these places and crazy mum quilts.
Saturday, August 26, 2017
Gorgeous embroidery heart
I did all my wool blanket dying at Jane's place. She is so inspiring. Linking up to these places.
Subscribe to:
Posts (Atom)
A gorgeous break in Rarotonga
Woo hoo, A holiday with no kids for 11 days. Bliss, relaxing and warm! BTW it was an early 20th wedding anniversary present to ourselves....
-
Mum I have no jersey's. Eek, Jakob has grown and only two things fit. A Merino jersey I made for him last year and a hooded sweatshirt. ...
-
Yesterday I went to the quilt and craft fair in Christchurch . And at a Make area this is what I made. It is a fabulously simple pattern an...