Off the sewing table

This week, when I'm not fiddling with pattern pieces to try and get the most out of remnants of vintage fabric, I've been creating in a different sense!

I tried a Nigella Lawson chocolate cake (I found it on the internet somewhere, but can't find the link now!):

Even with icing on top! I'm amazed I had the patience!

And my pile of crochet squares is growing!

For the blankie to cover our entire bed, I'll need 90 squares, and I've made over 30 now! The wool is Morris and Sons homebrand (from that shop in the Dymocks on Collins Shopping Arcade in the city, Melbournites) and it's really nice. I didn't want to use any synthetics or unnatural stuffs on our bed, so this will wash up and keep much longer (according to the shopkeepers of Morris & Sons!).

I just read through my blogroll, and see that Christine from 'What's Up Cupcake?' has published her Q&A that I wrote up last week! How sweet!

Just one little Doggie Party Update ... Promise!

 

  

  

 

1. I made some of those carrot peanut butter dog cakes for Doggie Darling. Wearing an Op Shop number and pin curls (of course!)
2. Someone is REALLY happy it's her party
3. And someone really loves her toy
4. Did Mummy really make her a tutu for her party?

Yes. Yes, I became one of 'Those Dog People' for one day only (or maybe today too, she is lying right on top of me as I type this, my laptop is on my knees, her head is on my left arm and my right arm is over her trying to reach the keys. OH&S much?) and it was so fun. It actually turned out really hot, so these photos (Thanks to Husbie again) totally have the 'look' right! I don't have an iphone (a work blackberry is always in my hand) but Husbie has one and he got this app called the Hipstomatic or something and boy george it's unreal!

I've just got a little button sewing and a little redo of an elastic bit and I'll have some cool things to show you soon! Woo!

Nostalgia, Memory Lanes and just great food

*** Beware - Crush/Gush/Nostalgic Post Alert ***

Well, I usually live in Sydders right? That's my darling nickname for my darling current hometown of Sydney. I love it 'cause it's warm all the time and my work is there (which I love) and all those lovely bunny friends of mine. My husbie and I have lived there for almost 4 years... and before that we lived in MELBS!

I have so many great memories of Melbs, and being here for only a few days has totally spun me out! It's like we've never left! I guess it's changed a lot, but not in a really 'I don't know how to get around' kinda way, and it's just so fun seeing friends, drinking out and eating out!

Last night we went to Misuzu's in Albert Park (right around the corner from where we're staying, in fact) and it was delish!



Photo care of this review site and it's a gorgeous Japanese place that's lit really well (huge problem in Sydney, and my Husbie's pet hate) with darling big lanterns out the front for outside dining, but lovely warm lights inside. And the food was UNREAL. We mostly stick to vegetarian diets, at home, but when we go out we do dabble with seafood... so we had a bit of crispy salmon and whitebait tempura. UNREAL!

What I love about Melbs is that you can go to a random place and it's just so delightful in all areas.

I'm cooking our tea now (corn on the cob!) and I'm totally going to do some knitting asap. I'm planning a city shopping day on Friday, and googling Tessuti as I type! Yay Nichola! The sad thing will be if I buy some fabric, I can't sew it for yonkers! (Unless I buy a travel machine? Ebay anyone?)

xoxo

Giveaway skirt finds a home!

A few weeks back I had a giveaway (my first ever! Can't believe people applied for it!) and I drew Bethany's name from the hat, and doesn't she look AWESOME in the little checked skirt:



Even better, she sent me the photo and blogged it here! CUTE STUFF! You're a total darling Bethany! You look great and I want those boots! I had a great pair of doc marten steel caps when I was little, but I wore them every day for about 5 years and left them behind in England cause they were too heavy for my luggage. CRY! I think I'll have to get another pair now that I've seen you wear them!

Just as an aside, I did an online whip around for some cheap veggie meals to have over the next few days and came up with this list! (Sorry to blog my shopping list, but I wanna update my computer now with new firefox etc, so wanna save the pages!)


Vegetable Crumble

Chickpea Curry

Soba Noodles with Spicy Tofu Peanut Sauce

Delicious Vegetable Paella

Leek and Corn-Stuffed Peppers

Yum! Can't wait to eat them all up!

Husbie and I are cooking up something big for the future soon, so we're minding our pennies and saving up dosh! We're dreaming up traveling schemes and family schemes, so hopefully they'll all come together soon.

Cable Au Go Go

Hey!

Thanks for your knitting comments! I'm over halfway through my darling bathroom mat, and I think it's working ok!

I totally googled the hell outta cable instructions and found these links particularly helpful!

http://home.howstuffworks.com/knitting-instructions6.htm

http://books.google.com.au/books?id=4yr7vLUI5mkC&pg=PA77&lpg=PA77&dq=c4b+cable+knitting&source=bl&ots=SEtbrOO7R4&sig=YEKslXAfHdVIz2n1DlrgPUB9dZ0&hl=en&ei=PEWKSqb8E4KBkQW7hfAn&sa=X&oi=book_result&ct=result&resnum=1#v=onepage&q=c4b%20cable%20knitting&f=false

So YAY! I'm going to bed now and draping my mat over my lap like a granny and knitting my cables! It's seriously easier that I thought, and I'm using a chopstick as my cable thingie! Please don't think I'm crazy if you don't know anything about knitting!

My parents arrive tomorrow and as I have an abundance of strawberries (left over from my Ladies Lunch clothes swap) I'm considering making this dish for dessert!

Yum!

New (old) Tiki Curtains

Sugar! The internet stuffed up again! Yikes! I've got it all fixed, it was a modem problem followed by a wireless problem, but it's all ok, thanks to darling call centre peeps. I spoke to two lovely boys, and they must just get such annoying callers so I tried to lend them a bit of Veronica Darling gush and we got on great!

So, here are the tiki curtains I got from the op shop the other week, here is the sewing room:


And our room:



Gorgeous and thick enough to block out the sun!

OMFG, and I just made this delish Pasta with Goats Cheese & Mushrooms; I googled mushrooms, pasta and goats cheese cause that's what we had left over in the fridge, and YUM x a million. Totally try it, I've never made a cheesy sauce before and cause of time omitted the baking in the oven bit, and it was delish!

Brunch (and a bit sicky) on a sunny day

It's the Long Weekend, it's sunny and gorgeous outside, we have the papers, we have a cute dog to walk, and I'm SICK! Nothing serious but just annoying.

Husbie and I made this omelette this morning, adding ginger (for Sickie Me) and leftover tofu (with the mushrooms):


And it's well worth trying! No cream or cheese, so very healthy and fresh (we had coriander in our garden ready to go!) and delish.

We went up the road earlier to shop (have to order the Melissa shoes in my wee size) and ended up buying a heater for the house. Last winter was totally freezing (high ceilings, big glass doors and windows and concrete floors) so we thought we'd get a little small gas heater to take the edge off. I also finished one little knitted critter, and halfway through a yellow wiggle dress, but onto West Wing and more knitting tonight.

Happy Saturday!

Running HOT for errands

With a sore back, I ambled home today and tried to do things outside my usual schedule, so as to stop it aching. It's on the left side of my back, so can't be computer related and perhaps (HORROR) it's the sewing machine. EEP!

So I made some toasted muesli, using maple syrup and orange juice as the gushy wet stuff. I left out the sugar, cause maple syrup and cranberries do make it sweet:



And then a lovely parcel from My Mother in Law arrived for Doggie Darling:



I did manage a yoga class, a stop over at Remnants Warehouse (for elastic & some navy cotton fabric), Pet Barn and the grocer, and now am making a few delish things for my Husbie (hopefully he gets home soon). A Penne primavera and Baked chips with parmesan.

I'm watching the first episode of Master Chef Australia (and getting HEAPS hungry) and love the quote "Food is like an inferno in my heart".

A good veggie kebab recipe!

We had these the other night, and just LOVED them to bits! Have you used allrecipes.com.au yet? I tried these Tofu Satay kebab thingies and they were GREAT! So delish and really easy to make. Also as we're kinda Hunter Gatherers in my house, Husbie found a BBQ on the side of the road that works! It's very cute and little and he fixed it all up (Man Project) and we cooked these on the BBQ! Yum!

My doggie friend and I have been sewing all afternoon, but it's a little trickier than I first thought, but not too bad. I made an unreal concealed zipper, I'll show you tomorrow!

Gotta go, am heaps busy with a friend coming over now!

Full on Fettuccine!

Just got back from eating out at our fave Italian place up the road, and gosh I'm full on fettuccine... it was so creamy and gigantic and I ate probably a THIRD of the plate... Luckily they do Doggy Bags!

We also stopped off at Mop Project Gallery, where my friend had an art exhibition opening! He's just excellent and was last year included in the Archibald Portrait Prize (big painting comp here in Australia for all you lovely overseas types) and this is his first large solo exhibition.

His name is Leslie Rice, and my fave pictures of his is the acrylic on velvet ones, but mostly the cut up bodies ones...

(don't get too scared, think of Caravaggio!)



It must be so hard to photograph his work, because the velvet is so dark black and the paint is so sparse you can hardly see the objects. But it's kind of still life, but with a deathly unsettling (yet strangely comforting) twist.

Love it!

My week of non-blogging and little projects

There's been a lot of little things on the go this week, plus a lot of night time activity and events, so I haven't done much blogging.

But here's a little bit of what I have been doing:


Starting another knitted artwork piece, for my friend's street, I think I'll do slabs of colour instead of little stripes for the next one. I started this during season two of West Wing. When I look at my old pole (when I drive past of a morning) I always think of West Wing. It's surviving the weather ok too, still looks bright!


I started on a pair of trousers for my Husbie, Mr Veronica Darling, and am quietly pleased with my FLY, as it's the trickiest part! We went to the Remnants Warehouse for the fabric last week (the guy there is so nice, gave us minties, and gave me extra material without charging) and it's a woolie but light type trouser material. Husbie will look ace. I've made shorts before (did I forget to post them?) but never trousers. I myself do not wear trousers or jeans, so don't have much FLY experience. At least men's trousers are little bigger and I can dig around and get them nice and flat.


I got 2 dresses in a major sale on the weekend (vintage, so ok for Wardrobe Refashion Pledge) and here's the cut off from an $8 Moo Moo Florida Swishy Dress. I wore it to a short film festival on Wednesday and it looked ace with tights and tall black boots. Of course, forgot to take a photo for WWW (Watcha Wearing Wednesday!).

And lastly, I made this easy peasy Curry Noodles dish last night, and it was totally delish!

Happy Friday!

I can't WAIT for the bloody weekend

I don't like going into too much personal stuff on my blog, but my rant/whinge/sigh starts here and will end here in this post!

We live in a lovely street in a lovely and vibrant suburb of Sydders, and last night our street lost hope in our council as now we'll have 4 stories of apartments towering over our backyards. Sob sob sob. The best thing is that our street is filled of amazing people, and we all came together through this thing, and we all love our street. ANYWAYS, we bitched about it all last night, drowned our sorrows etc etc, and today I started thinking about how to re-landscape our yard to block out the view.

But work was so busy this morning, with meetings popping up all over the place when I had to coordinate all these other things and people and silly-billy deadlines for things. So obvs I was running around a lot, and (sob sob sob) my last pair of shoes from Japan busted:



I've never really had this happen before, but they make a good sound when they flip around and there were important people around and I was flopping and flipping everywhere! Pretty funny! But totally made me grumpy! I loved these shoes! I bet I could get them glued, but they're honestly on the way out as they're also pretty chipped. Now I HAVE to go back to Japan. I got these in a department store in Yokohama, my friend said "You'll love this shop" and I said "Ok, let's go..." And then I stopped because it was an entire FLOOR of shoes. Not a floor of 'ladieswear, children's wear, beauty products' etc like they do Myer/DJs... it was a massive massive floor of shoes. I didn't even have time to go to the next level cause I spent 2 hours just on the shoe level!

And so I flipped home off the bus after work and cooked Anzac Biscuits:



They are vegan for my vegan colleagues! It's a REALLY simple recipe, you just use Nuttelex instead of butter, cause it's dairy free. Oh and I think I used brown rice flour cause someone might be allergic to gluten or wheat or something. Can't remember!



But once I finished baking,I remembered the washing, a lot of new (old) fabrics from the Op Shop! A tablecloth on the right, and some weird (but good) denim ones from my Mother in Law. NICE! She's an opshopper too!

I hope you are having a good mid week, bring on the weekend I say!!!