Sew, Sew, Sew

The weather this week in Hobart has been dull and dreary. It has not stopped raining and the sun is no-where to be seen. After spending the morning at a friends place, I came home and started sewing. I have a sewing room but with the cold and dullness of the day I prefer to sew in the lounge room where I can listen to music, make cups of tea and be warmed by the heat pump. It feels lonely in the back room by myself.

I feel a bit overwhelmed by the amount of sewing I want to do before baby comes. Only about 5 weeks to go now. So I have stopped procrastinating and am beginning to get on with the job. As I was sewing today and even though I was already listening to music, I kept thinking of this crazy 'Sewing Machine' song by Steve Poltz. Daniel and I saw this guy a few years ago at the Republic Bar and Cafe . I think he was supporting Bob Evans. Anyway, this is the only song I remember from his set as it was unique, strange, crazy and just a tad terrifying.

I hope you enjoy Steve Poltz's song :)

How does our garden grow?

This year our effort at growing veggies was dismal. The corn kept being eaten by snails, our leek was stunted and our tomatoes were few. Instead of growing pumpkins, which we have had no success in during the past two summers, we decided to try for squash (same family but smaller) and we still failed. The only real success we had were the strawberries and zucchini. Maybe next year we will have a bit more of a green thumb :)

Anyway, here is a photo of tomato love-heart, from one of the few tomatoes that actually did grow this year.

Blackberry Love!

I love blackberries! I love blackberry jam, blackberry and apple cordial, blackberry nip (when I'm not pregnant), blackberry roly-poly, blackberries in my morning porridge, blackberries by themselves. I would be happy to eat blackberries all year round if I could, and this is why I have spent hours picking blackberries from my parents property in the warm March sun.




We made two lots of blackberry and apple cordial this year, so as to avoid running out like we did last year. I used a recipe I found from The Cottage Smallholder. It is a lovely recipe, which is quick and easy to make, plus the cordial tastes much nicer than the shop bought stuff. I did change the recipe a little, by adding equal amounts of blackberries and apples. This way it has a stronger blackberry taste than apple. I recommend you try it. I'm not sure yet, but with the left over pulp I think I will have a go at making some blackberry and apple cheese. I'll let you know how it goes.

View from parents property while picking (photo taken from phone, so the quality is not that great).

Today, Daniel and I had the company of my parents' chickens while picking blackberries. A few of them were more adventurous then the others, going places no chicken has gone before. The others, meanwhile, just followed us in the hope that we would feed them blackberries from our bowls. It was nice to have little funny creatures keeping us company while picking :)




Blackberry roly-poly. Another easy recipe I found on the interwebs and altered a bit (from About.com). So good. Nom nom nom. Pictures are inadequate to express how tasty this was.

The Boy!

There are a few blogs that I read every week. They are mainly blogs about craftiness and food (from other vegetarians), sometimes photography or maybe even books. Made by Rae is a blog I have been checking out for a while. She has a range of kids patterns (lots of them free) and tutorials. I find it a great place to learn new skills, and very interesting.

Anyway, for the next month on her blog she is "Celebrating the Boy". This is because, in sewing, boys are often forgotten. So for a whole month it will just be about boys. I'm excited about this as I am having a boy, and I had noticed recently that there is just not the same variety of boys patterns and clothes as there are girls.


I am hoping that over the next month I will find some interesting projects I can achieve before my little boy comes along. So come and celebrate the boy with me and check out Made by Rae :)

Also, this link will take you to 'celebrate the boy' archives from the previous year.

Fruitful labour!

When I spend the whole week preserving fruit, making jams, chutneys and cordial I definitely know that summer is here. This is all the preserving I have achieved this week.


On Sunday my cousin gave me two full shopping bags of greengages. I have been receiving greengages from this tree for the last three years and sadly this is probably the last year because he and his wife are selling their house. As greengages are one of my favourite summertime fruits, I decided to use them wisely.





I made a greengage up-side down cake, although I didn't do the up-side down bit.



...as well as some greengage and orange jam. I found the idea while searching the web and thought the taste sounded too interesting to pass up. I couldn't find a recipe on the net so I just made it up - greengages, orange rind and juice, lemon juice and sugar. It tasted a little bit like marmalade, just not as strong.


I also persevered some of them in bottles and those that couldn't be bottled whole were stewed and then bottled. The apricots from the tree were used in a similar way also. I bottled as many halves as I could then stewed the rest of apricots left on the tree before they turned mouldy and gross. I also made jam and chutney.

Apricot and vanilla jam - yum!

Apricot and ginger jam for Daniel (one of his favourites)

Apricot chutney

I was also able to get my hands on some mulberries and elderberries, so I made jam and cordial.







Now to find somewhere to store everything!

Apricots and Patchwork

Our apricot tree is laden with fruit. However, because of the odd weather we have been having this summer, the apricots have taken a really long time to ripen. I have spoken to a few people who also own apricot trees, and they also said that their fruit was taking a long time to ripen. Two years ago, at this same time, I remember picking the last of the fruit off the tree to give away at my 25th birthday party, but not this year. It is only in now that it is finally beginning to soften and have some taste. This means that the next few days are going to be a bit busy washing Fowler jars, picking apricots, halving and bottling them, as well as making jam and chutney. I love this time of year because of how much fresh fruit there is around.

As you can see the tree is quite heavy laden. We did prune the tree during winter, but I think we will need to do a bit more this winter because for the past few weeks I have been worried that a strong wind would come and break a few of the branches.










Also, this weekend I am starting a beginner's patchwork class at Frangipani Fabrics in Sandy Bay. I am very excited about this as I have been wanting to learn how to make patchwork quilts for a while now. I went into the shop yesterday and choose the material I would use. I was extremely impressed with the level of customer service in the shop. The women who helped me went through the pattern with me and helped me decided which fabric I would use and where I would use it in the pattern. She made the whole process a lot less overwhelming than it would have been otherwise. I am very grateful for her help. Plus, the range of fabrics in the shop is large enough that there is something for everyone's taste. With so many beautiful fabrics in the shop, choosing which fabrics I wanted to use in the quilt was a little difficult, but I am happy with the final selection (even Daniel liked the selection).









I am not personally a huge fan of snails, mainly because they are slimy and have been chewing away at our vegetables this summer but this fabric was so cute that I couldn't resist.

The class is set out over 4 lessons, 12 hours in all, and this is the pattern we will be using. I hope our little boy will like it :)

Colour be gone!

Things here in the last few weeks have been a buzz. With Christmas and New Year things are always on the go, but since then it just has not stopped. The last few months have seen us spend many weekends painting the house, mainly the bedrooms but this weekend we attacked the living area.

It was a huge job, but thankfully it was finished by about 6pm last night. If it wasn't for our mums helping out the job would have taken so much longer. It is true what the cliche says - many hands make light work. I am so happy all the colour is gone and there is no resemblance of the ugliness of the rooms former-selves.



















I can't believe we lived with that colour for two years before we decided to take action. And what a difference a bit of paint makes. The room feels much more spacious and is unbelievably bright, even in the evenings!

And just for fun, here is the soundtrack to our weekend of painting (in no particular order):
- Triple J's Like A Version Four
- Olöf Arnalds
- First Aid Kit
- He Will Have His Way
- Florence and the Machine
- The Grates
- The White Stripes
- The Dandy Warhols
- The Doors
- Washington
- Godspeed You! Black Emperor
- 40 Most Beautiful Summer Classics
- Matthew (TNIV, read by an enthusiastic American voice)
- Radio

And now sadly, I have to go and clean up!

Cake, Sweets and Owls!

In the last few days I have eaten soooooo much dessert. Soooo much sugar. I feel desperately guilty and I really need to go for a jog. I have come to the point where I think I could be satisfied not eating another sweet treat for a long long time, and this for me is quite surprising seeing though I love chocolate.

For Daniel's birthday we had a dessert night and everyone brought something to share. I made a banana cake, some muffins and a Mississippi mud cake. It was delicious, but by the time we sang happy birthday to Daniel everyone was so stuffed with food that hardly any of it was eaten. I will take the left over half to school where everyone else can eat it.

Daniel and his cake

We also got to taste this wonderful ice-cream cake this evening in honour of a friends birthday. It not only looked great but it tasted even better. I want an ice-cream cake for my birthday next year please.


To celebrate my friends birthday this year, I decided to make her an owl pin-cushion because I know that she does a bit of sewing and cute pin-cushions always make sewing a little more fun. I have never made a pin-cushion before, but decided it wouldn't be too hard considering I had made a few owls before. It didn't take too long to make, and for my first pin-cushion ever I am pretty happy with the outcome. Maybe next time I would make the owl a bit rounder in the would-be stomach area and I would blanket-stitch the bottom so you couldn't see it. I might also put some kind of flat weight in the bottom of it to stop it from falling over, as I can imagine that could become annoying when taking pins out of it regularly.

Here is the owl posing in different places around its owners house :)