Craftapalooza

new kitchens and friands

The past weekend I managed to sneak in some baking time in the kitchen. Awesome. The oven and I are still circling each other but we'll get there. More pictures soon. Tomorrow the floor is being put in! WOOT!!

The Son found this awesome recipe for strawberry friands. YUMMMM. I've added Milk and Cookies to my bloglines, nice that they're an Aussie and I don't have to translate their measurements. Great little blog too.

I also gave the strawberry and ricotta shortcakes a go. Nice recipe I'd try again, I overcooked mine a little, but still tasty.

Gearing up for Christmas around here. Planning baking and food and pressies. I have printed our Christmas cards on the gocco this year and a calendar, when I can photograph them in decent light I'll show. I'm loving the gocco.

We also have a new little buddy coming for Spud, well for us too! More details later next week. He's small, furry and will be named Teddy/Ted. I dunno it we'll be seeing Spud enjoying his box time as much in the near future :)

Happy crafting!

a bit of this and that

Howdy there. I know, it's been a while. There's been a little baking, a little crafting, a lot of unpacking and organising.

I actually don't have a lot to tell you at the moment without boring you with my domesticity. I'm loving it, but writing it here for you guys to read is another thing! It's the blog's birthday on 27th July, three years. I'm planning on doing something so come on back on the 27th. I'm impressed I've kept it going for that long, doesn't feel like three years.

I'll leave you with some pics, I seem to only be able to photograph at night at the moment, no flash, so they're still grainy, and a link to Jen's blog. Go on over and welcome her.

Homemade apple pie, sorry the pastry is out of a packet.

London Beanie, a little small, a Dublin Beanie will be next.

WIP, for the crafty space. Tutorial over at the Purl Bee and flickr group.


A present for The Son's birthday, a Wee Wonderful's kitty. Great pattern, fun and easy to follow.

Spud's tower of power has returned to the living room. He loves lording it over us up there.

*Sigh* a partly organised crafty space. Yes I sewed amongst this chaos. Maybe this week it'll be finished. For the voyeurs an annotated pic over here.

I can't promise I'll post again before the 27th, so until then, happy crafting!

channelling the inner goddess

Slowly getting back my domestic goddess groove. Still surrounded by unpacked cartons, waiting for the painter to come before we finish unpacking. Today there was oiling the outdoor setting, cooking and baking. Had a little time to play with the D80 today, slowly feeling my way around, you'll all be my guinea pigs so be patient with my over exposed, under exposed, out of focus shots!

Today's the first day that I've started yearning for my crafty space. I'm itching to sew and play in my new craft room. I love that I can stick stuff on walls and pretty much do what I want, no landlords to worry about.

So. Today. Mother's Day - out to breakfast with The Son and my parents, they're moving to Noosa next month which I have mixed feelings about. Then home for a mid morning nap and trashy magazine read. An afternoon filled with oiling furniture, cooking beef bourginon and baking banana cake using my new stand mixer, she's a beauty.

Living room - replacing the green, think orange is the winner, or a different pink.

Beautiful housewarming present from Al and Wes on the Noguchi reproduction coffee table.

Spud loves the new backyard...

AND new cushions.

Happy crafting!

making it up as I go.

That's what I've been doing around these parts lately. Got my cooking mojo back. This was last night's dinner, made on the fly, a joy to cook for S who digs tasty stuff. There's enough of this baby left for lunch today and possibly dinner tonight. YUMMM.

Free range chicken cous cous salad with the "sink"

• Poach the chicken breasts with lemongrass and lemon.
• Whilst they're poaching, cut up a couple of handfuls of sugar peas, throw in some dried cranberries a julienned carrot, toast a handful of cashews chop them up and throw them in too together with a bunch of chopped celery and flat leaf parsley. Stir this up.
• When your chicken's almost done, throw in a cup of frozen peas into the water with the chicken. After a couple of minutes pull out the breasts and drain the peas.
• Grab a cup of uncooked cous cous and pour over a cup of boiling water, cover with a tea towel and leave for 5 mins. Then fluff with a fork and add a little seasoning, butter and olive oil.
• Slice the breasts which will be nice and juicy as you've poached them and throw them in the bowl with the other ingredients. Rinse the peas under cold water and throw them in too.
• Whilst all the above is happening make a dressing, using this which you bought months ago but haven't used. Put a clove of garlic, salt and some dried herbs, lemon juice and whole egg mayonnaise in the shaker and shake the bejesus out of it then pour over the salad and toss, toss, toss. Sit down with your favourite person and enjoy.

The blog meet up is only days away (well it's Saturday 17th) and I had a plan and then stuff wasn't working but I think I've resurrected and sorted it. Trying to put aside performance anxiety "will they like it" thoughts and just making and enjoying. LOVE this fabric which I bought from Superbuzzy last year.

For you Aussies did you know Toni Collette and the Finish are touring in March? I've just started listening to "Look Up" and "Beautiful Awkward Pictures", gorgeous songs.

Thanks for all your sweet comments. We take our eyebrow grooming very seriously ;)

covered, baked and loved...

I found some photo's taken at Christmas 2006. First an apron I made for a friend's birthday. Pattern created on the fly. I'm pretty happy with my curved corners and pocket. Using Amy Butler from the stash in Cherie's favourite colours.

Here's the baking I managed to do last Christmas. Apricot, cinnamon and clove jam (my own recipe), and cranberry, white chocolate and toasted almond slice (a variation on a Donna Hay recipe). Very simple packaging created using some royalty free photography. More pics at flickr.

I don't go into a huge amount of detail here about my personal life but I wanted to share a snippet. I met Sondra in December last year....let's just say some friends have been surprised at my giddiness since we met. Here's a peak at the reason why the blog's been a little quiet...

snapshots and flesh casserole

Above, snapshot of the work in progress for the blogger meetup next month in Melbourne. Finally made a decision and it's full steam ahead. It'll be great to meet up with bloggers I've met before and  all the other crafty bloggers, it'll be a crazy crafty fest. Yes, yes in the top left corner that is the yoyo WIP for the belated 40th, Gillian....it's nearly there! I know, don't hold your breath.

I'm looking forward to going back to Melbourne, though not looking forward to leaving S behind, she has to work, though it's lucky for Spud no vaccination or cattery for him. Visiting old haunts like Babka (french toast to DIE for), Brunetti, Flinders Lane, Degraves, Brunswick Street, Fed Square and Borders. Also going to give Amitie a visit (it's where the meetup's being held) and also Patchwork, Zakkaya, the button store (flinders lane?) and MagNation. Anyone got other crafty, foody, interesting ideas/places for me to visit? Last visit to Melbourne was over 2 years ago and it's over 6 years since I lived there.

The NEK as she's know around these parts was AWESOME. Her voice is stunning live, the band are tight and Kelly Hogan, backup vocals, is hilarious and obviously can sing. The only downer? It was about 39°C (about 102F) and the Fly isn't air conditioned. Nice....not, not when you're standing and you can feel sweat running down your legs. At one point Kelly Hogan commented we looked like a flesh casserole. Aside from the heat Neko and the band were troupers and I'm so glad I finally got to see her play live.

Lastly, "just for you Liana" are the words I emailed when she kindly tagged me, "just this once" :P .

Six things not yet mentioned here.....

1. Ummm I was a very shy, chubby child. Possibly from spending quite a lot of time from the age of birth until I was about 12 in and out of hospital with asthma.  I preferred books to people, you couldn't get my head out of a book.
   
2. I left high school at age 16, directionless, so I went to "secretary" school. I've been working fulltime since I was 18. For the past 10 year's I've worked as a production manager in various graphic design businesses, self taught.
3. I'm allergic to capsicum it gives me chronic indigestion.
4. This is hard. Aaaah. I'm left handed but when I play sports involving a bat, I bat right handed.
5. I played netball from the age of 12 until 20. Managed to play at competition level from the age 17 to 20. I'm no sporty woman, but I was a mean goal shooter.
6. I laugh easily, too easily sometimes. I have one of those laughs that people comment on. I also laugh when I'm nervous or in awkward situations, often at inappropriate times.

Tagging....noone - go for it if you wanna play.

Happy new year!

Well hi! Long time no visit. Finally come up for air and thought to myself "hmmm maybe you should blog". So here I am.

What's been happening in my land? Lots and nothing. Make sense? I met someone...Christmas came and went. New Year's was amazing and 2007 is shaping up to be a humdinger of a year. A friend has some very exciting news that I can't share yet and well, at the moment I'm feeling "giddy", to quote Al M.

Oh, you read the "met someone" comment. Well not a lot of detail to share here yet, but let's just say she's amazing and the word smitten is being bandied around.

New Year's day started off with some excellent french toast I made. My version. Buy a brioche loaf. Slice it up, whisk up a couple of eggs add a dash of milk, combine some caster sugar and cinnamon or your spices of choice (cloves would be yummy) and spinkle this on a plate. Heat up a fry pan or a sandwich press (I use a sandwich press). Dip the bread in the eggy mixture, then place bread on the sugar plate, do both sides. Then put the bread in the sandwich press and let it cook. The sugar caramelises a little and it's all toasty and warm. You plate it with some maple syrup and maple soaked strawberries...what you don't see here is the wicked addition of a dollop of fresh cream. DIVINE.

Craft wise....well a little sluggish with the craft at the moment. Working on socks and an overdue birthday gift. Al and I are starting to talk and think about BT4 which is exciting.

The Kim Family Auction is up and running, go on over and bid.

Finally, Spud says whatever you do in 2007, make sure it includes lots of napping.

cinnamon and monkeys

Yep a really original title.

Busy in the non-Craftapalooza world at the moment. In the Craftapalooza world lots of projects in my head just need to find the time to finish WIP's and start the new brew. I've booked in for a class to sew a Moroccan foot stool....pics to come in the next few weeks.

On request here's the cinnamon chicken recipe, I didn't end up making it, but definitely will one day.

Delicious magazine, October 2006, recipe by Valli Little. If you click on the pic you'll get the larger version for printing.

I was doing some research for a Clover tool I want and came across this free wall pocket pattern. I will be making some magazine holders for a friends toilets and might use this as a base.

I have recently been charmed by a book Sock Monkey Dreams, documenting the daily life at the red heel monkey shelter. Whilst there aren't any patterns there is a tonne of inspiration and tips and is quite funny. Very sweet book. ISBN 0670038083.

Well, have a great weekend everyone!

"Eating your way through the petting zoo"

Warning - post mentions the eating of small cute critters, don't read on if you find this offensive.

Yep, Alison's comment had me laughing and squirming at the same time, after I'd mentioned the itty bitty bunny rack I was presented with on Saturday night.

As you can see from the menu below there was a lot of challenging foods on this menu. Lots of firsts for me, rabbit, black pudding, pigeon (including pigeon LEG meat, we were told), pork belly and oxtail. Yep, the petting zoo. I'm not even going to try and wax lyrical about the food, let's just say it was a roller coaster of foodie tastes and surprises and some delicious New Zealand Sauv Blanc, heavy on the passionfruit, just the way I like it.

The only one I really struggled with was the black pudding, but I think it was a texture thing. This is one of my favourite restaurants in Perth however I was a little disappointed with the timing of our dego. Something went squiffy and we started off well, then there was this lapse and then all of a sudden a flurry of dishes, bang, bang, bang. What you don't see on the menu is we also opted for the additional 3 chef's choices. I can't even remember what they were, though they were delicious. We started at 8pm and finished after 12pm!

Excuse the flash on the bunny below, the lighting was very low and I had to resort to flash to share the itty bitty ribs with you guys. One of the ribs could fit whole inside my mouth, for scale :)

When we arrived this is what greeted us, bunches of cutlery. This wasn't all of it, we needed additional cutlery at some point. It was a fun night with my knitting buddies, I reckon something like this should be done annually, you guys agree?

Degustation

de·gus·ta·tion - The act or function of tasting. The sense of taste.

It's been a while since I've really enjoyed food. Probably due to being single and having to cook for one is not quite the same as cooking for 2. Aside from my usual local eateries that generally have no surprises I haven't had any fine dining for a while.

This weekend's turning out to be quite a fine dining experience. Tomorrow night I'm off with the IV's to one of Perth's finest restaurants, Jacksons. We're booked in for the "dego", tasting menu. Wanna peak? Here you go. 3 of us are going the full hog and the other 2 are doing the vego dego (one's preggers, she has an excuse). Mightily looking forward to this.

Tonight Gillian's taking Paul and I to Tsunami. Spoilt rotten. AND then tomorrow morning Kate and I are off for breakfast at Milk'D. I think by the time Sunday rolls around, or I roll into Sunday, I'll be well fed.

Oh, crafting. You want to know about crafting. This week's been a little quiet on the craft front. The socks are coming along nicely, I have lots of sewing in my head, but not a lot of productivity at the moment. I have the yarn to make me some Fetching's, but yet to start.

I'll also be doing some reorganising and spring cleaning around here on the weekend. There's a few cobwebs and it's been ages since I changed the banner. I'll let you know when it's ready for those of you using a feed.

Have a great weekend and if you get the chance go and see the film "Junebug", excellent viewing. There's a song that plays in the opening and ending credits that I'm having trouble finding and buying as a single mp3, it's by Syreeta and it's called "Harmour Love". She was briefly married to Stevie Wonder in the 70's and he wrote this song. It's in my head. If anyone has any ideas feel free to leave a comment or drop me an email.