18 months

Time flies when you're having fun, so the old saying goes. But I'm wondering where on earth the past 18 months has gone? And wondering how my child-bearing days whizzed by without so much as a 'by your leave'?

Here's proof that it has! Tristan has grown a lot since I took this photo at one month old (on his fab 'Winter's Garden quilt made by some lovely friends in my online quilting group).Playing 'peekaboo'!And one with his big sister, who he loves and adores (and sometimes shows his enthusiasm by whacking her with whatever whacking object he can lay his hands on, all the while cackling like a madman!).
And here's one of Miss Romily herself, after the party on Saturday, where she 'won' a mini-face painting set in pass the parcel. I promised her a butterfly when we got home. Then I tossed her into bed for a sleep - she's got a slight summer cold/cough and was absolutely wrecked - you can tell from this photo!

Six years of happiness

Today I celebrate six wonderful years with my true love. We were married on a stinking hot day in Canberra, surrounded by friends and family and it was the best day of our lives. We are so happy and are having a wonderful life. Long may it continue!

Christmas craft

I did promise to post some photos of the last-minute crafting I got done while we were staying at my parents' place the week before Christmas. This is the table runner I made for my brother Bill and his partner Kate. They bought this Amy Butler Belle fabric for me last Christmas - you might recognise from the quilt I made for my mum. I still have some of it left too! Here's a close-up of the quilting - random diagonals (click for a larger image if you can't quite make it out here).And here's the back - aqua homespun.I also made a flower brooch each for Kate, my Mum and my other sister-in-law Jacinta. The rosettes are great, because you could wear them as a brooch, or use them to decorate a bag or a hat. I didn't follow a specific tutorial or pattern, but there are loads of tutes that I've read on the 'net, so I guess my brain just smooshed all the instructions together and voila. I handstitched a gathering stitch along an edge-to-edge strip and pulled the thread gently as I sewed to create a curved edge. I then simply wound the fabric on top of itself until I was happy with it, stitched it all in place, sewed a button from my tiny button stash over the centre and added a brooch pin to the back. I love the pinked edges on the pre-cut strips - perfect for this project. The Denyse Schmidt fabric wasn't pinked, so I pulled a couple of threads from the edge of the strip to stop any ravelling. The biggest was made from a 2 1/2" strip - the smallest from a 1" strip.

Sadly, not much crafty stuff has happened since then. It's been too hot, we've been too sick (all better now, thankfully) and I've gone back to work (first four days made me feel like I'd never been away!). I've got lots of projects in mind, it's just a matter of finding the motivation, time and energy - a common complaint around here!

Picnic by the lake

We've been so busy (and tired) this year that we haven't had much time to catch up with friends. So we invited several groups of friends to a picnic in Weston Park last Sunday. It was a perfect late afternoon, hot but with a beautiful cooling breeze coming up off the lake. Romily and Tristan had a great time grooving around, with Romily taking great delight in physically stopping Tristan from wandering into the ablutions block! She loves that she can pick him up and move him and he seems to find it amusing, so we don't intervene too much. We know we're fortunate that she's only recently started doing this!
Rom buddied up with Charlie and they spent an hour or so climbing on the rope climbing rig in the park. Let's just say that both Romily and Tristan slept very well on Sunday night (Tristan still woke up several times, of course, but what's new?)
I actually baked some yummy treats for our picnic, which we complemented with some lovely Croser bubbly. You'll find the recipes for the muffins and zucchini slice below. They are perfect picnic fare.

Banana-Choc-Coconut Muffins

This is my own recipe and it’s pretty much failproof. It’s also very flexible. You can chuck in whatever you like!

60g butter, melted
2 eggs
½ cup of milk
1 small tub of vanilla yoghurt (I use Vaalia toddler but you can use anything on hand)
2 very ripe bananas, mashed
2 cups SR flour
½ cup of shredded coconut
½ cup of caster sugar
½ to 1 cup of choc bits (milk, white or dark, or a combination)

Preheat oven to 180°C. Line a 12-hole muffin tin with cases.

Sift the flour into a large bowl. Stir in sugar and coconut. In a small jug, combine butter, eggs, milk and yoghurt. Make a well in the dry ingredients and tip in the milk mixture. Combine with a wooden spoon. Do not beat or over-mix – this will make for tough muffins. Once just combined, tip in choc bits and stir in gently.

Spoon mixture into cases – fill to ¾ full. Sprinkle with extra shredded coconut. Bake for 20-25 minutes or until the muffins are starting to go brown on top. Do not overcook!

Zucchini Slice

This recipe is from the Homemade recipe book that I have blogged about several times.

1 grated zucchini
½ cup frozen or fresh corn kernels
1 onion, finely diced
Sprinkle of fresh thyme
2 tbsp fresh parsley, chopped finely
3 rashers bacon, finely diced
1 cup grated cheese
½ cup olive oil
3-4 eggs, beaten together
Salt and pepper
1 cup of SR flour

Preheat oven to 180°C.

Place all ingredients, in the above order, in a large bowl and combine well. Pour into a greased slice tray and bake for 30-40 minutes. Cool in tin, turn out when cold and cut into slices. Serve with a garden salad, if desired. Yum.

Funky Chicks for a funky chick - a finish

I am so pleased with this little quilt! The meandering in a lovely soft variegated pink King Tut thread really complements the quirky fabric and I am glad I chose yellow binding over the pink. It's a simple quilt but I love how it's turned out. It just needs to be washed and dried and it'll be on its way to my auntie who lives in Sale in Victoria. Her chemo is off to a rocky start so hopefully receiving Funky Chicks will brighten up her day a little. I haven't seen her in years, but if she's well enough we'll see her in late December at a family get-together in Healesville, just outside Melbourne.
The quilt measures 43" x 36". For fabric details, see this previous post.

Granddad's visit means baking!

Granddad's visit over the weekend (he went home Tuesday) was the perfect excuse to bake - more people to eat it, less calories for my hips! I took the opportunity to make a lemon and coconut tart from Homemade. It looked delicious, and it was. Unfortunately, despite baking it for the alloted 40 minutes and allowing it cool, upon slicing it up I discovered that the middle hadn't cooked through. So, we changed the name to self-saucing lemon pudding :D
The kids adore Granddad and he dotes on them. They haven't seen him since out lightning visit to Bendigo in July, so it was great that he could take the long journey from Bendigo to Melbourne Airport by bus and then plane up here. At nearly 82, the eight-hour drive each way is a bit too much. I'm just grateful that he is still able to travel under his own steam. He's a lovely fellow. I'm very fortunate in my father-in-law!

* * *

And in crafty news, this gorgeous Kokka Trefle fabric arrived last week from the Retromummy Shop - it's to become shorts for Tristan, with a matching applique tee. Summer is here and now that he's on his feet (yes, he's walking! Just. Still can't stand himself up - can only pull up, but he's taking steps between close objects), he's getting pretty dirty from lots of time outside - I'm discovering boys need more changes of clothes than girls!

Quilting for comfort...and speed

I know, don't die of shock when I tell you that there has been some quilting going on around here. My darling mum was recently diagnosed with a malignant tumor in her bowel and underwent surgery nearly two weeks ago. Being so far away, I felt pretty useless, more so by the fact that we have all been sick again, so I couldn't even fly down to visit, let alone help look after her in the early days of her recovery.

What to do, I thought, other than make her a quilt? Because mum's surgery was scheduled so quickly I didn't have much time to put it together. I also didn't have any time to go fabric shopping, so I delved into my stash, finding the 1/2 yards of Amy Butler Belle that my brother and his partner bought for me for Christmas. I thought it was perfect for this project as it all coordinates. I decided, that since time was of the essence, I would make a strippy block quilt. I wanted it to be fairly big so I sashed the 5" finished blocks (rotated at each setting) with 5" white sashing. The finished quilt measures 45" by 55". I was really happy with how the quilt top turned out. Fresh, bright and modern.

(Photo by Rom!)

Not so happy was I with the quilting. I know I've complained of this before, but it doesn't seem to matter how careful I am with the basting, the fabric shifts as it's going through my machine (even with a walking foot - which seems to be next to useless) and it ends up bunching. I think part of the problem is that my base-level Janome has such a small work surface that the weight of the quilt drags the fabric out from under the needle, despite my best efforts to support the weight of the quilt. It also means that my 'straight lines' are often not, due to the dragging. I guess this means that I need a bigger machine! Sadly, our finances are not in a state where this is even a remote possibility. I will just have to persevere. Maybe I need to do more stippling, as this will help avoid the bunching issues I'm getting with full width straight line quilting. I am also investigating different batting/wadding options, as it's possible my choice in that area is also affecting the end result.
I also made my first pieced back, not completely happy, as I somehow managed to get it slightly offcentre, and with the straight line quilting this really shows. I hope mum will forgive the quilt's imperfections. It's the thought that counts, right?

Anway, while it's not perfect, it made it to my mum a couple of days after she got home from hospital. I'm hoping it feels a bit like a long-distance cuddle every time she sees it/snoozes under it. It's the best I can do until we see mum and dad again - hopefully in a couple of weeks, our state of health pending.

Mum's quilt

Mum finished the quilt I showed you a while back - a gorgeous log cabin quilt in beautifully muted modern fabrics. I just love how the deep red brings it all together. I still can't believe she made a queen size quilt for her first quilt - and how beautiful it is.Well done Mum! (And doesn't it look nice in my childhood bedroom?)

Trip to the Emerald City

Playwright David Williamson penned a play called the Emerald City back in the 1980s, where one of his characters described Sydney as:

"The Emerald city of Oz. Everyone comes here along their yellow brick roads looking for the answers to their problems and all they find are the demons within themselves."

Well we followed the yellow brick road and found some demons - not of our own making - in the form of germs! Carl and the kids managed to pick up some kind of 24-hour tummy bug which was not pretty. I escaped it, but after our arrival back in Canberra came down with a dreadful chest cold, including fever and delirium last night and this morning! Our wonderful winter of woe continues on the health front. Never mind, tomorrow is the last official day of winter and then we are into spring - and READY!
In between bouts of illness, we managed several outings, including to the Taronga Zoo, where I was thrilled to see the seven-week old elephant Luk Chai, and the Sydney Aquarium. We also caught a couple of ferries around the harbour, taking in the spectacular views. Sydney really is a beautiful city when you can get out on the water. The kids had a great time, although we absolutely wore them out. Sadly, I didn't make it to Ikea - Carl was sick as a dog the night before we were due to leave Sydney, so I drove us straight home. Here are some photos from our holiday. You can click on any of them to see a bigger version - I love the one of the mummy Chimpanzee with her baby. Reminded me of me!