Hexagon round up and an awesome new find

Look at this awesome little score of mine! can you believe it was given to me! GIVEN I tell you. Such a sweet little piece of retro heaven. I quite literally got goosebumps when I found out it would be mine and I knew straight away what was going to live in there.

 Sewing things of course, this way I get to disappoint a whole new generation of kiddies who will be expecting baked goodies.

 A closer look at my many many hundreds of squares cut and ready to fold.

 The bottom container all full of bits and pieces. Including this huge stack of papers...

 So picture this, its a rare, rare moment, the kids are clearly settled in well to playing lego, or colouring in or otherwise engaged. Your heart is racing - its time to actually sit down and relax, pick up the sewing and find some peace... you are stitching away, one hexie, two, then three... by George you have your groove on, this quilt is going to be yours in no time! Then.. then... you go to reach for another hexie, none there... none! that can't be, off to the main stash, none there. Sigh! off to cut paper hexies, fabric squares and get out the bostic. Then it goes VERY wrong, the kids notice your increased movement. Clearly if you have the inclination to move from one room to another, you also want to read a book, get a milk, play a guessing game, and watch a rendition of 'Old MacDonald'... Sigh, moment gone.

This really happens to us Mumma quilters, and happened to me too many times, this quilt was never going to get done, so I put my foot down... sweet talked my own mother to help (oh the irony there) me. She is doing some very cute things with paper over at Huckleberry Blue. I enlisted her machine to cease cutting pretties and to cut some boring plain white hexagons for me... ohhh so much quicker than cutting them out one at a time, but hand, for hours, like I was. I also cut out every square needed to complete to quilt ( I think) and have begun a massively, insanely, exhausting (and not to mention boring) quest of gluing 500+ hexagons.

Thought I might share my 'to go' bag for this quilt.

The bag was gifted to me some time ago. I still love it. Perfect size and so beautifully made - from Buttontree Lane
The thread is never a particular brand, just what ever suits me on the day I am at the fabric store. I do however always go with a cream, almost pale yellow colour.

The needle always changes too, sometimes I prefer bigger, other times smaller, so I carry a mixture. I keep them in a little container that came inside a kiddie chocolate with a toy in it - works perfect!
The scissors are old as the hills and were a hand-me-down from god knows who
The thimble was made by my dear friend Carly (from over at Dreaming of a Garden Utopia) other half.
The wax is not proper thread wax, just a candle. Really, I prefer this, its nice and soft this wax, and smells like tangerine, YUMMO.
The project is mostly kept in my  pastry tin, but I count out just what I need for each block and put it into my to go bag, sometimes 2 or 3 blocks - depending on the time I will be away for.

Wordless Wednesday

Macro Mail

Guess who just got a macro filter in the mail :D

Wordless Wednesday - 17-8-2011

When 2 chickens are no longer enough

Well you see our 2 chickens are slowing down wit their laying, so many suggested that we "put them in the pot". Clearly we will never make it as any sort of farmer, we just couldn't do it, so we had to upscale. Our 'crappy corner', you know... that spot in the back corner of your garden that has the compost bin, the loose pavers etc... That area that is never going to grow grass or look pretty.... well ours is now a chook yard. they don't care about the compost bin, the pavers work great to 'dig proof' the bottom of the fence. So now our 2 old Isabrowns can retire there, we can bring in a couple of new younguns and keep the cycle going as apparently this yard can hold about 10 chooks if needed. No head chopping required.

Now the irony of this is, that once we put our old chooks who hadnt laid in months, into their new bigger yard, they were so happy they started laying again..... so we will just go with the chooky flow with that one.

It isnt quite finished in this pic. the timber on the right of the pic still had to go up and after the worst of winter is over we are going to plant some berries along the exposed side to screen it off a bit. Hopefully this will make it a little more attractive than it is at present.

The yard itself was quite easy, 3 sides were already there, we just had to build 1 (and a bit) and the gate, which id actually bits of our old fence, reclaimed (thanks to Dad and his welder)

so thats that we have a proper chook yard, finally! yay!

When pumpkins are on special

When pumpkins are just 99c a kilo, its only 5degrees outside at lunchtime and its overcast and sleeting, when the kids are snuggled up in front of the heater watching a movie, and ask for something super yummy for dessert that night... Seriously how could a mummy not go and cook up a storm! Pumpkin pie and pumpkin scones. The good were received with nods of approval all round whilst they ate. They even knew about the pumpkin in it... go figure!

There are few things sweeter than a bunch of freshly picked flowers. Except maybe when that bunch of flowers are painstakingly cut, trimmed, and forced into submission, I mean delicately arranged, and handed to me by a sweet 5 year old boy. It mgiht be my parental bias coming through here, but they are the most beautiful vase (ok Vegemite Jar) of flowers (well wild daisy's) ever.

The Academic's Munchie Buster

There are only so many websites a girl can look at in an attempt to avoid study before she gets bored and needs a snack.... Enter "The Academic's Munchie Buster", a super dooper moist and rich, chocolate self-saucing pudding. It is made as a single serve, in a big coffee mug or any container you want. It is quick to make... but once it is cooked, the rule is you have to study while you eat it! Deal? deal? DEAL!


Ingredients
2 squares of chocolate (crumbled or chopped up)
1 tablespoon of vegetable oil
1 egg
3 tablespoons sugar
3 tablespoons of cocoa
2 tablespoons of self raising Flour
100mls hot water (from the tap is fine)

Method
Place the chocolate and oil in the cup or bowl you wish to cook the pudding in, and microwave for 30 seconds on high.

Give it a quick stir to blend, if there are sections that are not totally melted it doesn't matter.

Add egg and mix well (the choc/oil mix should only be warm, not so hot to cook your egg, but it is best to check..)

Add the flour, 2 (1tbsp reserved for sauce) tablespoons of the sugar and 2 (1tbsp reserved for sauce) tablespoons of the cocoa, mix well.

Pour the warm water on top and sprinkle over the remaining sugar and cocoa and give a gentle swirl to mix it.

Microwave on High for 2 minutes.

It will rise quite a bit and bubble as the sauce settles to the bottom so you really do want a big cup.

When it is done, top with some cream and HIDE to eat it...

Enjoy, and get back to your studies.

No bullet points this year.

There seems to be so dang many people posting new years resolutions. I don't want to. Sure I have tried to set new years resolutions in the past, both you and I know I didn't keep them. By the end of January I cling to them as they become painful chores. February sees them become twinges of guilt. June.... What new years resolutions??

I do see the appeal though. I am honestly finding it hard not to say to myself in my head "this year I will..." and it is probably best I restrain because honestly when I think of it, all my declarations really only bring forth an image of me being some demented reincarnation of the perfect 50s house wife.. making more clothes, baking more, meals from scratch, my perfectly renovated 50s house and sure I want to do all those things but public announcements made in bullet point format are not going to get me that.

So it has been a while since my last post. I do have some Xmas wears to share with you, some baking, and I am sure a few other things.. they will come later. For now I just want to share my op shop purchase... a whole whopping fifty cents worth
To be honest though, I cant see myself using any patterns really soon except for maybe the sun hat, it is divine. I hope to attempt one for Moo very soon :D Otherwise, some of the designs will make great starting points for a few of my on ideas.... hmm.... Talk soon guys

They say you can't make omelettes...

Without braking some Eggs...

Well here is my broken egg of a hallway...


The floor sander man, a family friend, comes on friday to polish the floors, which Despite their appearance here, are actually in fantastic condition and should come up great!

The Quilt Top

Here is the quilt top for Bryn's bed, complete and ready for quilting.... I am still not Entirely happy with it... But Bryn loves it. so that is the main thing.

My Creative Space..

I have been meaning to do this for a while... so here goes a tour of my creative space... Note, Its not pretty, or spacious, but i love it all the same. It looks cramped and as though there is way too much stuff in there.... thats correct :D

If you take a quick little walk along the garden path, past the herb garden, this side of the the fish pond, you come across a little door at the back of the shed..... look inside..

and you have my sewing room. so working my way aound clcokwise...

The heating and cooling lol, obviously and not very exciting,

the 3 tubs are all my wool..

and my "for me" sewing area.

I keep a seperate area for sewing for myself and for money. I find that important.

The shelves are stacked with my quilt books, embroidery cottons and projects on the go or in waiting

I keep my domestic Overlocker, sewing machine and embroidery machine here.

the Drawers stock all my notions

the tub you see there is my quilts on the go.. (4 of them eeek.. me bad) and the blankets for them next to it..

My storage cupboard, this is actually the old pantry that we took out when we renovated the kitchen

Inside is (line per shelf)

Stationary and machines, inc my knitting machine

fabric, cottons, some small random craft items

nappy fabrics and my airbrush setup

Quilt fabric

Other random fabrics and patterns

Acrylic nail stuff and old text books

This is my 'for money' sewing area. what you see is my Rimoldi overlocker and sadly atm I am forced to use my domestic sewing machine on this same table till I collect my industrial sewer

This is my snapping table and cutting area,
underneithis my scrapbooking stuff...
the black cabnet hold snaps and other stuff
the crap you see in the corner is, well, crap, DHs that I am waiting on him clean it all out, thats where my sewing machine needs to go :D

so thats it... my humble little sewing room, studio, whatever you wanna call it...

the sorting of the stash....

Just so happens to be more then just an afternoons sorting, This has been a 2week ongoing project, and I am about half way there... this is what I ahve sorted so far...

This is the poor little shelves holding my nb/small stash... so shelf by shelf I have...

NEWBORN STUFF

first 2 rows, front and back. All lotus AIOs, some normal PUL some minkee and some poly print AIOs

Third row back is home made fitteds

Third row front, is XS bubblebubs

fourth row back, is snappiable fitteds

fourth row front, is lotus fitteds

Fifth row back, is all swaddlebees fitteds

fifth row front, is mostly Kissaluvs with some cuddlebuns on the bottom

There are about 15 -20 more fitteds to be sorted through and about another 20-30 aios to be done aswell

Ok this middle shelf is a mix

Left is mixed small prefolds, and some fitteds

middle is small covers

Right is nb covers

I am sure I have another Doz or so dyed flats to dig out and some more small PUL and wool covers too...

on the very bottom of the right is a few woolies that went astray, I havent actually gotten to the small woolies box yet.

SMALLS

First row, front and back is Bubblebubs

second row back and front, is just assorted AIOS, mostly minkee

the rest, assorted fitteds

I still have a good 30 odd nappies missing here from memory lol

MEDIUMS

This is all I have come aross so far for the mediums... All my nappies are still in several removal cartons, being there is only a handful of smalls and NBs left to account for, the rest are mediums. So I could barely hazzrd a guess how many are in there, DOZENS of lotus aios I know lol, a few Fuzzibuns, some ittis.... oh god it will be like Xmas time again... as for larges.... there are none, Bryn never got into larges

This one is for you Mel...

Firstly
omg 2 food posts... whats the go...

Pics for mel who asked about lunch sandwich ideas and reminded me of my brushetta addiction, now I have been eating it almost daily....

Last nights Dinner...

... was so devine I had share...

Thai beef salad of our own design, Craig (aka DH) made the dressing, I did the rest.

There is a tonne of dressing left and it will keep indefinately so I can see this dish coming up often... mega quick cheat dish..

7 fish..

....now have this lovely new home in my back yard.

Hubby made me this devine water feature with working pump, the pictures dont show the water flowing, but it does, please ignore the unpainted wall behind, we are yet to paint the outside of our house.

our house - before..

Well after chatting with people on NC about renovating and being that my renos have picked up again, I thoguht i should begin blogging about it, so first i should show you some before photos...

of the lounge/dine

the kitchen

and the back room some how didnt get any pics taken..... but will show a mid reno pic soon which should give some indication of the horid colours....

so that is how these rooms started... a bit feral.