April 2007

April 18th, 2007

Vessel Wednesday

Every Wednesday I usually post a new photo at Vessel Wednesday on flickr. Today I was a bit lazy and put Monday’s photos up and ended taking them down again… ah such is life!!

I was glad I did take them down because I went and found something to shoot just for today and I think it’s one of my best photos. This has definitely got something to do with the new tablecloth. The Swedish tablecloth I had been so looking forward to turned out to be nothing like I had imagined it. The description said 1970s cotton so I had visions of it being a nice, heavy, cotton/linen tablecloth with a nice inky retro print.



Well… it is a very very lightweight dress fabric which seems more to me like early 90s and it isn’t 100% cotton. Anyway – the good news is that because of it I have put on a plain piece of unbleached calico and I absolutely LOVE it!! I would never have thought of doing it otherwise, so thank goodness for the odd off-purchase.

But, more good news – the runner you can see in the background IS heavy linen with inky printing and the colours are divine. Once the walls are painted I will photograph the wall hanging. Can you all tell there are no photos of our walls anywhere!! Soon they all will be white and all will be well in my world. : )

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April 18th, 2007

Hooray for the post



oooh this is what I’ve been waiting for!!!!!!

Need I say anything more ? : )

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April 18th, 2007

Easy top and pants + crochet



I used a Cath Kidston jersey knit for the little top and have so far made 2 pairs of little pants – the kimono ones, and the corduroy pair. On the cord pair I used elastic to gather the waistband and ankles and kimono pair uses vintage silk ribbon.





Astrid’s also wearing her new little hat, which was a nice easy crochet.

The wool is Kimono Angora by Louisa Harding – from Loop of course. The pattern is in the book How to Crochet.



The jumper is made of pretty heavy wool, but I wanted to make a warm jumper that she’ll grow into, that will last the next six or so months.

I just did 2 straight panels: 22 rows of 50 stitches in treble using a 4.5 hook. The sleeves are 35 stitches, 7 rows before I started decreasing. Each row after that I decreased 3 stitches at the start and end of each row for 7 rows. The sleeves are comparatively short, but I will add to the length as Astrid grows.





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April 17th, 2007

Kaffee Klatsch + pumpkin seed pesto.

Every day now at three o’clock I quietly sit down and have a cup of coffee. It’s a wonderful oasis in the day. Time to quietly choose which cup I’ll use, whether the tablecloth needs changing and to see if we’ve got any yummy biscuits or cake! Note to self: bake a cake.

The kitchen is getting tidier after the garage sale blowout. I did a load of washing yesterday and rearranged the cupboards to fit all the new stuff in. The swedish linens have also been attended to, this one had been cut in half and hand sewn – not very tidily, so I re-hemmed it and gave it a good iron. Astrid’s having a nap right now and I think I need one too…



I was going to make a nice warming casserole for dinner but I’ve remembered we have the pesto to eat. The basil in the garden had done its dash so I pulled the entire plant and made pesto out of it. Instead of pine nuts I used pumpkin seeds as that’s what was in the cupboard. Yes, so we’ll be having this with pasta.

Pesto with pumpkin seeds

The leaves off 1 mature basil plant (about a whole food-processor full)
1/2 cup of pumpkin seeds
1/2 cup grated parmesan cheese
Juice of 2 lemons
2 cloves garlic, sliced
Many sloshes of olive oil
Maldon sea salt

Put the whole lot in the food processor and blend for a few minutes until smooth. Add more of anything if you think it needs it!

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April 17th, 2007

Baby steals the show

Well we got the camera out today to take pictures off all the things I have made for Astrid in the past week. She is just so photogenic I was snapping away and ran out of battery – but fortunately not before she totally took me by surprise when she rolled from her tummy onto her back! Another big milestone!!!

So, now. I made the little leaf body suit by buying a pack of 5 bodysuits from Primark for £2.50. That out of the way we only need to make the leaf.

Now, technically one could print the leaf straight onto the bodysuit, but as this was my first go I printed onto a separate piece of cotton and hand sewed it on.



The next step is to apply some fabric paint to a leaf, put the leaf face down on the fabric, cover with newspaper and use a roller to roll over it thereby transferring the paint from the leaf to the fabric. And voila! My first ever fabric printing. For a more detailed tutorial have a look here.

Astid was so thrilled she thought she’d do a victory lap!!



The little pants are made with some really cute corduroy we found at Spotlight. They didn’t actually have any on a roll though – we found it on a dummy made up into trousers. So we sneakily undid the two half metre pieces they had pinned onto the dummy to make up the trousers. When the lady asked where we got the fabric I kind of looked up at the ceiling and whistled while Polly invented a good story.

Here’s Astrid doing her first ever roll in her fab news trousers!!! Look at me world!



They’re lovely and warm. It’s the colder weather that has brought about this sudden bout of sewing and crocheting. And Astrid has just had a mad growth spurt and outgrown all her clothes overnight.

Once that battery is charged it’ll be another modelling session for Astrid.

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April 16th, 2007

A good post day and the joy of foliage

Today my much awaited parcel from Sweden arrived, brimming with vintage table linens and an embroidered wall-hanging. The postman also delivered the SylvaC vases from the Waikato at the crack of dawn. The vases, which I’d forgotten I had bid on, were $1 for all three. Such a bargain if ever there was one!!!! They are all absolutely gorgeous shapes and one is textured in hydrangea flowers. I couldn’t believe my luck that nobody else had bid on them…



I’ve been doing a bit of household admin today, and at three I sat down for my daily quiet reflection and a cup of coffee when Astrid woke up and has been grizzly ever since. As the magic sling is good on these occasions I popped her in and went out to the garden to pick some flowers and foliage. It being Autumn we’re a bit short on flowers, but the leaves and berries are just wonderful. The Japanese Anemones and Dahlias are also in bloom so we picked some of those in between the heavy bouts of rain. It’s been dark and moody today and we’ve even had a spot of lightning.

So in we came and spent an hour or so putting the arrangements together. I really love foliage. I never really realised it existed until late last year when we were selling our house and I couldn’t afford too many flowers so had to buy ‘leaves’.



Wow – well what a discovery that was. They a so good at creating the structure in an arrangement and one then uses the flowers as decoration.

It makes life much easier – before when I had tried to create an entire arrangement just from flowers it would all just flop because there wasn’t anything to hold them up. Now when I use just a few stems of foliage my arrangements are so much more professional looking.



With this arrangement I lay the leafy twigs down into the posy vase and carefully placed the flowers in and around.

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April 9th, 2007

Yet more afternoon tea

Today I decided to make Boysenberry muffins. My way. And gosh, they were absolutely the best muffins we have ever tasted!!!



The rest are going off to mum and dad’s this evening for dessert. A slightly odd thing to have for pudding, but I suppose it’s pretty much cake. Isn’t it? And it’s the world premiere of the wonderful cake tin I bought off eBay only days before we left London. Hurrah!



Boysenberry Muffins

Makes 12 large muffins

4 cups plain flour
4 tsp baking powder
1.5 cups sugar
1 cup ricotta cheese
1/3 cup milk
4 eggs
zest of one lemon
2/3 cup vegetable oil
2.5 cups boysenberries
12 extra boysenberries

Heat the oven to 180•C. Sift the flour and baking powder into a big bowl and mix in the sugar.

In a smaller bowl place the ricotta, milk, eggs, lemon zest and oil. Whisk until smooth. Gently stir the ricotta mix into the flour mix until only just combined (if it is too dry add a tiny bit more milk). Add the boysenberries and stir just once.

Line a 12 x 1 cup muffin tray with paper patty cases and spoon in the mixture. Add an extra boysenberry on top of each one. Bake for 35 minutes or until cooked when tested with a skewer. Cool on a wire rack.

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April 8th, 2007

Afternoon tea and Astrid’s music dvd

{ : May 8th, recipe added at bottom of the post : }

Made afternoon tea today. Tammy was coming around for coffee at three, and while I was scraping wallpaper Kevin kept on asking me when I was going to bake a cake or make the easter eggs. Hmm. It was 2:30 when I emerged from the front room covered in bits of paper and dust, so scones it was (sorry Kevin). I’d even bought gelatine especially to make marshmallow easter eggs. Maybe I’ll do that tomorrow.



As it so happened Simon Raby texted asking when was a good time to drop around the music video that has Astrid in it so I called him and he said he’d come straight over. Now that we had two guests coming I thought it only right to really set the table up all proper-like.



Needless to say the scones went down a treat. I don’t seem to be able to make them like I used to, but then I am using Spelt flour. Grandma always said the trick is to touch the mixture as little as possible and only use a knife to cut in the butter, don’t rub it. Which is exactly what I did. I am suspecting it could be a very good job for the food processor although there’s something about making scones by hand.

Now, just for good measure I’m putting in my second choice scone photo because it would be such a shame not to use it! Anyway, Tammy is coming over again tomorrow because we were going to talk skincare products, but of course that isn’t appropriate for when one has boys in company.



Simon brought around a DVD of the music video Astrid is in – which is the whole reason he came over – to drop it off. Kevin and I are in it too actually! Once it’s on YouTube I’ll post the link. Astrid is so sweet in it – it’s fab!

- – - – ~ – * – - Late addition – The Recipe !! – - * – ~ – - – - -

Thanks Thimbleanna for your request for the recipe – can’t believe I didn’t put it here in the first place!!! Here it is:

Scones

3 cups flour
6 teaspoons of baking powder (exactly 6, not heaped)
Sugar (um I usually just throw in a handful – say 1/3 of a cup)
75g butter
1 – 1.5 cups of milk approx
extra milk

Pre-heat the oven to 220C / 425F / Gas mark 7

Sift the flour and baking powder into a bowl. Cut in the butter with a knife until it looks like breadcrumbs. Sometimes I need to use my fingers a bit to rub in the butter. Or, you could use a food processor with the knife blade.

Add the sugar and 1 cup of the milk and mix quickly with a knife to make a soft dough. Add more milk if you need it. Do not over mix.

Knead it one or two times. The secret to this recipe is to handle the ingredients as little as possible.

Dust the benchtop with flour and press the scone dough onto it so it’s about 1 inch thick. Cut into 12 pieces or use any size cookie cutter. Place scones onto a floured baking tray, brush tops with milk and bake for 10 mins or until golden brown and risen.

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April 5th, 2007

Once in a lifetime

Well, I hope not. But I think the private garage sale we went to last Thursday was indeed a bit of a once in a lifetime event. Polly and I trotted over to her neighbour’s house to go through an entire room brimming with bin bags full of retro fabric, sheets, towels, kitchenware, toys and wool.



I just took everything that looked good and ended up filling the hallway with my stuff! Polly and I were like little vultures and I did have to act fairly quickly each time a bag was emptied as Polly tends to be a bit faster off the mark than me. That said, we do have different taste (sometimes) and I was over the moon with all my new treasures!

This is what the living room looked like before the washing started:



It took three days to wash everything. Especially as I managed to break the washing machine in the process. The washing line did look very pretty for a few days:



I have yet to sort out the kitchen items which are currently all piled up on the kitchen dresser. A lot of this is going to be just perfect for kids parties!!!



I got four old style suitcases which are made of a kind of heavy cardboard. They’re just amazing and will make quite a nice display once we’ve decorated the house. At the time though they were perfect for transporting my fabric haul.



Not forgetting the many balls of wool I picked up which were dated from 1962 and 1967. Did I mention many of the items had their original receipt and date of purchase. What I haven’t photographed yet is all the toys. Most of them are still in their original packaging too. That’s a job for another day.



This pile of sheets and pillowcases is destined to be cut up for summer hats and bags. I’m also going to make a little series of stuffed cubes for Astrid’s ceiling out of these as they’re lovely and colourful, and she just loves looking at the ceiling!



We did need some little towels for Astrid too so I picked up several – they’ll make fabulous beach towels for her too when she’s a bit older. They are just so colourful!



All items were unused and many in their original packaging.
Total spend: $210 (around £70).
Most items cost 10c, 20c, 50c or $1.
A few, especially the kids toys were $4.

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