How to deal with different food likes and dislikes.

When it comes to salads our family all like different things. So when I make a salad there is a lot of food swapping on plates when it is dished up at the table. So having a BBQ dinner I decided to make individual salads according to preference. Worked so well.

Pink Lamington cake made from Real Raspberries

Aaron's birthday today and I had bookmarked a cake to do. A while ago Lauren (who's blog I follow) made this for her husband's birthday and it looked amazing.

Let me tell you it tastes stunning, like summer in a mouthful. Using real raspberries makes this a very glamorous cake. I did not have quite enough raspberries so I used boysenberries too. I put jelly in with all the berries and let it set a bit, then mixed some of that through the cream. Click on the link for the recipe if you want to make this too.

Absolutely gorgeous and worth doing again. Thanks Lauren

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My Father in Law may rue the day!!

Well.... Have you seen the flowers on my tomato plants... some close up's included just in case you missed it.

That sentence is for my father in law. The family have a long standing tomato competition for the first tomato of the year and I am feeling confident!!!

For my birthday this year my Father and Mother in Law gave me a mini propagator. Love it. All the plants are looking good. I wonder if he bought one for himself too????

Eli and I spent time potting up some hanging baskets. This on with strawberries, two others with flowers that he chose.

I have even risked planting a tomato outside!!

Great family weekend away

Eli decided to carry the big 20kg pack

We took the Coastal Pacific train from Rangiora to Kaikoura, spent two nights and then took the train back home again. A great start to the school holidays. The train is such a smooth trip it is a shame NZ doesn't have more of a rail network.

Waiting at the train station

Aaron spent quite a big of time being sick in bed

If he wasn't in bed then he was here. Two lovely warm spa pools. The
boys spent time in the spa's but also the normal pool. Brrr 26 oC.

Rather than going walking with me the boys spent time putting
their bodies on the line

We had a gorgeous hot Saturday, rainy cold and snowy Sunday
 and cold but clear Monday

On Monday I found a walk in the Dunes by the beach.
Rugged up tight as the wind of the snow was freezing!!

Wow it has been two years since we could do this

The garage has been so chokka with stuff that we have not been able to play table tennis for at least two years!!

 It has had a house lot of second hand carpet, a little bit of reclaimed rimu from Aaron's parents demolished house, and just piles of junk.

One and half years ago Aaron told me to clear up all my stuff in the garage. I did a HUGE job and had a garage sale. Then slowly in the spare space people put stuff. Slowly I sell, junk or remove it.

We laid the carpet in the house, used the Rimu for shelving in the laundry and today the boys and I cleared out all the rest. A great productive school holiday day.

The boys really enjoyed rediscovering the table tennis table. Today more stuff is going on Trademe and I have yet to persuade Aaron to sell the gym. I talked to him two months ago about the possibility and he has not used it since!! (ok so he has been sick!)

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Embroidery

Well I started and finished this but don't understand why I even did it? The night before going to Kaikoura I decided not to take the stitching I had but took some Hardanger material and flax thread and a pattern. As soon as I started I knew I did not want to do it, but I had a three day holiday and no other stitching. So I made a point of finishing it on the train home. Now what to do with it? Hmmm

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Thai chili beef salad

Getting down to the last of the beef. Wanted to do something different. This gorgeous dinner was from all the bits we had hanging around.

Made a salad base with iceburg lettuce, shaved carrot, shaved cucumber, coriander, spring onions then added thinly sliced fast seared beef which had been marinaded in lemongrass, fresh ginger, garlic and fresh ginger.

Delicious.

I am a starter

Yes I confess, I start gazillions of projects and heaps of them do not get finished. That is why I end up with "orphan quilts". All those blocks started with the intent of trying something new, being enthused and then either not liking the result, finding it boring, or surprise surprise - finding a new cool project to do!! My starting and not finishing has gotten worse since going back to work fulltime. I want to do inspiring stuff only.

This is some of what I have started in the last two weeks.

 Started this project to use the scraps from the projects below.

 Started this and decided to make it into a cushion cover. I might?????? be able to finish smaller projects.

Could not decide whether the low volume above or this bright look was the best. So did both!!!

Yes I am getting on with this. But still don't know what to do with it. Any ideas?

And I helped Eli to start a project of his own.

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Gorgeous Angora Rabbit wool

The Angora rabbit wool jersey which I got from the Op Shop, unpicked and re-balled three years ago has finally all been used up.

Well my finishing of things is not legendary. It is well and truely spring and I have finally finished a winter woolly hat for Jakob. He even went on a school ski trip and I could not get it done. So we are now ready for next winter.

The jersey has done well. It had enough wool to make me a cowl, Aaron a scarf , a couple of new born baby hats and now this hat for Jakob.

Linking to these places and Crazy Mum Quilts.

Reverse bricking

For those of you who are crafters', have you heard the term "reverse stitching"? There is no "unpicking" in my world, it is all stitching no matter what the direction.

The path and garden beds slowly being constructed

Well the landscape gardening we are doing has suffered from some "reverse bricking". I have been teaching myself to be a brickie (I will never make any money from it as a profession as it takes me over an hour to do about 16 bricks!!). Anyway, I have been merrily bricking the surrounds to the new garden bed. (sometimes not so merrily). While Aaron was in Australia for work I thought I would crack on with it.

Just a little fix to do after the reverse bricking.

Sigh, when he came back he pointed out the some of the brick was in the wrong place. So out with the chisel and we peeled away four bricks and there is only one hole to fill, which will be easy.

We have also redesigned the path, so part of the first section of bricking I ever did is going to have to come under the chisel for a bit of "reverse bricking". I got very frustrated with pulling down what took so much effort to put up. But hey - the altered layout will be heaps better.

I'm with Aaron

Yes we are a crazy family. The idea of these T-Shirts came from a photo I saw of an older couple on a cruise liner. So for Fathers Day we printed these all off and presented them to Aaron. We then wore them all to church and to the Market in the afternoon.

Aaron said it was really weird when people he did not know said "Hi Aaron". We got lots of laughs and look forward to wearing them camping etc.

Loom band craziness

Has it hit your place? I think we must be on the tail end of it as all the items are now at least half the price of what they were. So the other weekend the boys bought a loom and bands for the princely sum of $3. It has certainly given more than that in entertainment value.

Note the finished shirt on the left

The little shirt in Eli's palm took forever to get right. Three goes with me helping and more than that before my assistance was requested. It is great to see his tenacity in wanting to get it right. He has been following YouTube videos for instructions.

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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!!

Wow a Christmas present completed already

 Way back here my Mother in Law decided to try making a quilt. It was gorgeous but when she finished I think that was it!! So I was the receiver of scraps. I have been pondering for ages about what to do. In the end I made two cushion covers to go on the spare bed with the quilt she made.

I do hope that she likes them! I am trying to branch out and do different quilting. So am quite pleased with the result on these. It is so much easier to practice FMQ on small pieces! Will have to do more.

The centre of each block

Two cushions ready for Christmas

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