...the sign of a good buy

A few weeks ago I happened to be walking through a major Melbourne shopping centre (itself a reasonable rare happening for me these days) and happened to pop into a bookshop.

This was unusual because I seem to have fallen into buying many of my books online recently. Most of the time I can justify the drastically inflated prices in the store but that is a topic for another discussion. 

To the point of the post though - I happened to pick up the latest book by Marian Keyes, the latest (last?) in her Walsh family series. Alongside The Mystery of Mercy Close was a copy of a cookbook, Saved by Cake, written by Marian apparently concurrently with the book and while she was recovering from Depression. It came free with the novel and without denigrating the novel (which I am enjoying but not far into it at the moment) the cookbook was an immediately engaging read.

Helped by the recent influx of visitors and the arrival of some chestnuts in one suitcase I have already made three things from the book 

An Espresso and Walnut Cake

 A rich and dense Hazelnut Torte

and the Chestnut and Rum Brownies

If you ask me a page marked like this is the sign of a good buy.

  

...something for Nik

There is an occasionally repeated, misquoted movie line in our house that goes something like

‘Nik ‘aint doing nothing ‘til Nik get something for Nik, get me a hot chocolate, and some pie,... a piece of pecan *** pie!’

So because he is really quite helpful and he does put up with a lot of sewing and quilting time at 11pm Wednesday night Nik did get a WHOLE pecan pie!

On Preserves and Jam

Looking for the Sew Mama Sew Giveaway Post? It's here.

I can't believe that it is already the 16th of December and it has been 4 days since my last post! Crazy times. Here in Melbourne we are gearing up for Christmas, usually a hot summer day, and we still have the heater on in the office today.

I work in education so this last week of school is crazy busy trying to finish all the things before the students all go on holidays. So I have a stack of things to finish over the holidays, but at least I can do it from home and fit it in around some sewing....

Next week the holiday visitors start to arrive, my partners mum and sister on Monday and my parents later in the week .... a full house.

It must be the inspiration of all this domestic planning and preparing from scratch food and homemade gifts but I have also made lots of 'pantry items' in the last few weeks.

With a bulk purchase of mangos as a fundraiser came some Mango Chutney from this recipe. I had to have two goes at this one as a fell asleep during the first rendition and all the sugar stuck to the bottom of the pan. Cleaning the burnt sugar took longer than finishing eating the first jar, great in chicken sandwiches.

My Dad also loves fruity mince items so there has been some fruit mince set to cure in the fridge for pies when he get here next week, a Christams Fruitcake is settling in the sealed tin and plans are afoot for a boiled traditional Christmas pudding from Nigella's Christmas.

And because I had got in the groove I made some peach and passionfrut jam from the CWA Preserves

There is also some ginger beer curing under the trough in the laundry (just in case the fermentation breaks the bottles) inspired by this post from flowerpress. The first batch is ready for the fridge when I get home this afternoon!

Next up on my list is the menu planning, finishing the hadmade decorations and a few gifts as well as some projects set aside for the Christmas break.

Today I feel mostly human again. It has been a little while. It turns out I need sleep, not a huge amount, but enough. And about 10 hours in three days is not enough, not for me anyhow. And getting up at 5:30am to go to work when you got back from the airport at 2am is not going to make for a pleasant work day. I don’t know how parents do it, keeping those sort of hours for years. Perhaps some sort of hormonal cocktail that has yet to be discovered. Whatever it is I could have done with some the last few days.



We did finally get to Perth, and when I say finally it was only about 4 hours later than planned but the knowledge that we had been at the airport in enough time to catch the early flight as planned and when we didn’t that we had gotten up at 4:30am for no reason made it a little hard to swallow. My brother’s wedding was lovely, I’d show a photo, but I didn’t remember to take any. I was also able to catch up with some friends I wouldn’t have otherwise seen until next April. So, a great weekend all round, just tiring.


I did have a list of projects that I wanted to complete last week before we left. I didn’t. But that is OK, because it was making me stressed and a hobby shouldn’t make you stressed, it should relieve it.


So over the last couple of nights, in the hour or two before I got so tired I was likely to sew my finger to the fabric I completed my November block for do. Good Stitches {a Charity Bee}. The founder of this wonderful bee, Rachel, is out Bee Mama for this month and requested we make blocks for a quilt to be given to a very young mother to be who has a baby daughter due in January. Rachel had asked us to choose a particular block in the quilt to complete, with each of the diagonal rows being a slightly different colour scheme so the diagonal rows in the finished quilt would go from tan to yellow, to orange to pink to red. We had free reign with the design of the block, as long as we included and embroidered panel Rachel sent to us.

My panel was 6x3” and I sat on it for a little while as I didn’t want to do another log cabin (it seems to be my fall back design) but couldn’t think of anything else I could do that would include a rectangle design. In the end I though ‘pinwheels’ but know that I would have to piece then differently to normal as the block couldn’t bee all pinwheels (it would be too ‘busy’ and the embroidery would be lost)and they couldn’t be regular and still make the 12.5” block requested. In the end I look my graph paper pad to work and started sketching at lunchtime. I blocked out an area for the panel in an off centre location and then just started drawing pinwheels of different sizes, leaving some gaps. When it finished I was really happy with the layout. I just had to find a way to sew 1” finished pinwheels and work out the fabric.


In the end I made most of the small pinwheels in a larger size and cut them down at the end, with a different yellow print for each size pinwheel. It did make for some fabric wastage, and I am generally not keen on that but it was the only way I could get them done accurately enough. It also really helped with getting the bulk of the units through the machine, considerable at the centres as I had used some linen as well. I then went down to the LQS and bought a solid that blended well with the different yellow prints in the pinwheels. When this was added to the outside of the pinwheels it made the linen rather than the print stand out which I had not considered at the beginning but the overall ‘look’ is still the right colour, I think. It also really helps the panel stand out which I good too, I think.


Tiredness aside, this was a marathon piecing effort with all the different size pinwheels and different prints to cut, about 3-4 hours all up at a guess. I really think, though, that the time was well spent. I really like the modern twist on a traditional look, but I wouldn’t want to make a whole quilt that way!


On the cards this week,


• Mango chutney Note to self: do not fall asleep when making it this time and burn the sugar to the bottom of the pan

• Ginger beer plant from flowerpress (followed by the ginger beer in 9 days)
• Finishing and posting my St Nickolas Swap items (SOON!!)
• Peach and Passionfruit Jam
• Planning for Christmas (including making the pudding and some fruitmince)

• Tracing some patterns for some new summer clothes for myself.


Sometimes I really think I should be a 50’s housewife....