January - Photo Scavenger Hunt

Another year and more wonderful opportunities for photo scavenging.  Thank you Kathy

for hosting this fun activity.

Soft

Stripey's fur

2

Rainbow lorikeets in the backyard

Blur

Yellow daisy

In season

The Australian Open Tennis takes place in Melbourne, January every year.

In my bathroom

My owl nightlight in the ensuite.  Isn't he cute?!

 Mess

Linen cupboard before a spring clean.

Information

A book that will be put to very good use in a few months.

Company

Bungee keeping Genevieve company or is that Genevieve keeping Bungee company?!

 Warning

My apologies for using a photo I've used before.

Odd

Genevieve in dress-up mode

 In the distance

Looking west towards my parents farmhouse, Western Australia.

Entrance

Entrance to the church in Kalorama

I'm looking forward to seeing February's list.

Anne  xx

No bake slice

Good morning.   Today is beautiful as the sun is shining, the temperature has dropped to something more bearable than 38C and there is a refreshing breeze blowing through the house.  We had 8mm of lovely rain overnight which has freshened the garden up beautifully.  We are fortunate to have our own rain water tanks so I can water the garden when I need to but there is something about water from the sky that is so much nicer to the garden than out of a tank.

Do you ever have that sinking feeling when you discover there is nothing in the bicky tin?  I did last night and it was up to me to make something even though it was boiling hot.  I was desperate not to add to the heat by turning on the oven, so I did a Google search (oh how I love thee Google) and found a recipe for these.

No-Bake Weet-Bix Slice
Ingredients
1/2 x 410g can sweetened condensed milk
10 Weet-bix crushed (gives the fingers a good work out)
125g butter
1/2 cup coconut
1 tablespoon cocoa
1 cup mixed dried fruit and nuts (I used 1/2 cup slivered almonds and 1/2 cup of craisins)
Icing
1 tablespoon butter
1 tablespoon cocoa
1 1/2 cups icing sugar
1 -2 teaspoons boiling water

Method

1.  Melt butter and add the condensed milk, stir to combine.
2.  In a bowl mix the Weet-Bix, coconut, cocoa, dried fruit and nuts.
3.  Pour over the butter mixture and stir to combine.
4.  Press the mixture into a slice tin (I used a lamington tin), lined with baking paper.
5.  Combine all the icing ingredients together and spread over the top of the slice.
6.  chill and store in the refrigerator.
7.  Cut into squares to serve.

Recipe from www.bestrecipes.com.au


I didn't bother with the icing as I think the slice is sweet enough.  But if you are craving a sugar hit, go for it. 

I hope you have a great day whatever you are doing.  I have a pile of washing to fold, a huge pile of ironing to do including slip covers for sofas (won't that be fun) and other general housework that doesn't get done when it's hot.  But I am going to make time for some fun things involving yarn.

Anne  xx

Little crochet hanging hearts

Hello.  Last night I showed you some little crochet hearts I've been working on and now I can show you their new home.  Ta dah!!

This is a corner of my bedroom and you might be able to see the bunting I made here
in the top left hand corner of the photo.

For the hearts I crocheted a long chain and as I went along I slip stitched into the back of the heart to attach it to the chain.  There were about eight chain between each heart and I left a tail of chain either side of the hearts.  To the tail of yarn I attached a bead to finish off.

This little project has added some cheer to my bedroom and I'm thinking something similar to this would look nice on a door handle.  It would probably drive hubby nuts having something flapping against the door and the cats would think it was a new toy to play with, but what the heck, it's FUN!!

Now I just have to go and work out why the blocking of my bunting has not worked.  I've used acrylic yarn, whatever I had to hand.  Oh well, perhaps I'll just have curly bunting and have to live with it.

Enjoy your day,

Anne  xx

Little crochet hearts

Hi everyone.  I thought I should mention the little crochet hearts in my last post were from a free pattern I found on the internet.  For the life of me cannot find the original site, so I can't credit the person who designed the pattern.  The bunting I'm working on mentioned in the same post came from a tutorial from Heather at Pink Milk

Here is a sneak peak at what I've been working on tonight.

If you are interested, here is the pattern for the crocheted hearts.  It was the simplest and easiest pattern I could find and perfect for a beginner like me.  I made one very small alteration to the pattern to make my hearts look a bit more symetric.  That's my wonky crochet for you.  :) 

Little Crocheted Heart Pattern

Ch 4. Work 3 tr (triple crochet) into first ch, 3 dc, ch 1, 1 tr, ch 1, 3 dc, 3 tr. *Ch 3, sl st into center and fasten off.  

*My alteration was to Ch 2 rather than 3.


Bye for now,

Anne

Flaked out

What would you expect a cat to do in hot weather, find the coolest spot in the house?!   If I were a cat I would probably choose to sit on a window sill or in a doorway where the breeze is likely to come in.  Perhaps lie down on a tiled or wooden floor, surfaces that are cooler than a chair, mat or bed.  Well this is how Stripey chose to cool off last night. 

On the ironing board!  Absolutely no breeze was happening in the laundry so I have no idea why he thought it was such a great place to flake out in the heat.  And no, the iron wasn't on.

In other news, I've been fiddling around with bits and pieces of crochet.

Things are being blocked and ends woven in.  Claire from Sweet Birdy Love
can probably guess what I'm up to as she pointed me in the direction of the lovely blog Pink Milk and am I having fun!

I hope you are all having a lovely weekend,

Anne  xx

Creating

Last night I was itching to get creative but as it was so hot I didn't feel like pulling out the crochet.  So instead I delved into my jewellery making supplies and made this necklace.

I bought the components, the pendant part and leather ribbon from a craft supply store and just put them together.  Easy really and the total cost was about $5.00.  I found a little brown cardi the other day which looks rather well with my new necklace I think.

The pendant has little bells on the bottom so I can't sneak around when I'm wearing it, my family hear me coming.  :)

I forgot to show you this beautiful vase my Mum passed onto me when I was home in December.

It's Brentleigh Ware - Norfolk and beautifully made.  I'm looking forward to putting some grapevine leaves in this vase in the autumn.  I think the autumnal colours will look gorgeous together.

So tell me, what do you do creatively when the weather is hot?  I'd love to know.

Anne  xx

Kumara (orange sweet potato) and chickpea patties

Good evening from a very hot Melbourne, it's 7.15pm and the temperature is still 31C.  On nights like this I don't feel like eating much, perhaps a salad with something.  What to choose for the something is difficult at times because I don't want to put the oven on and I really don't feel like eating meat.  Last night was hot like tonight and I remembered a recipe I hadn't made for some time and as I had all the ingredients I went ahead and made it for dinner.  Here's the recipe.

Kumara and Chickpea Patties

Serves 4

500g kumara (orange sweet potato), peeled, cut into 2cm pieces

420g can chickpeas, drained, rinsed

1/3 cup couscous

1 1/2 teaspoons garam masala

salt to taste

2 garlic cloves, crushed

1 egg, lightly beaten

3 teaspoons olive oil

Greek natural yogurt

sweet chili sauce

1.  Steam or microwave kumara until tender.  Transfer to bowl.  Add chickpeas and mash mixture until almost smooth.

2.  Add couscous, garam masala, garlic, egg and salt to kumara mixture.  Mix until well combined.  Using damp hands, form mixture into patties.

3.  Heat oil in a large non-stick frying pan over medium heat.  Cook patties for 3 to 4 minutes each side or until golden and heated through.

4.  Serve with yogurt and sweet chili sauce.

Adapted from Super Food Ideas - March 2005

My apologies for the poor photo.  I suddenly realised I hadn't taken a photo and as Charlotte was the only one still eating, I persuaded her to let me take a photo of her meal.

These patties are delicious especially with the yogurt and sweet chili sauce.  They are a great vegetarian recipe and just as yummy in winter.

I hope you enjoy the recipe and I'd love to know how you go if you make them.

Anne  xx

A change of plans

Hi everyone, how are you?  Today I had planned to go to the nearest large shopping mall to make some purchases for travelling overseas.  Unfortunately circumstances prevented me from doing that, so what to do with the day?

When the weather is hot and dry (34C) it seems to be the perfect day for washing and when it was hung on the line, I decided to sit in the garden room for morning coffee and a little hooky time.

View from garden room.

I love this time of year as the backyard is an extra living space.  The windows and doors are open to let the fresh air in and since hubby installed a front wire screen door, we have a beautiful cross breeze through the house.

While sitting on my chair enjoying the garden, I realised that I have so much to do to bring it up to scratch.   It needs digging over, composting, mulched, weeding, tidying and more plants added as some of the perennials are looking rather sad.

Content with the fact that it was too hot to garden today, I got on with my experimental crochet inspired by Lucy over at the gorgeous blog Attic 24.  I really shouldn't experiment because my crochet knowledge is not that good.  This is what I ended up with.

It's wonky, smaller at the bottom than at the top although I swear I didn't add anymore stitches and I measured my starting chain around the tin I wanted to cover.  I thought it would be fun to add some beads and rather than waiting for Lucy's tutorial on how to attach beads to crochet, I thought I'd be clever and try it myself.  Although the result is rubbish, I had fun.

All is not lost though because I had success with Lucy's idea and here is the proof.

O.k., I did deviate with a scalloped edge thingy but I think it will pass.  I decided to line my tin with some fabric as I wanted to use my new container for storing my hair clips in my bathroom drawer.  No sewing involved here.  I just had a small square of fabric which I pushed into shape in the tin, popped the crochet cover over the top, pulling it down the sides of the tin and trimmed the excess fabric at the bottom making sure I didn't cut the crochet.  Easy.....LAZY!!  :)

Not only do I now have a nice clean and relatively tidy bathroom cabinet drawer (you should have seen it before), I have cute little container for my clips.  So much nicer than the plastic thing I was thinking of putting in there.

Well it's time to get the washing off the line, herd the one remaining chook out of my garden and think about what we are having for dinner tonight.  I hope you are all having a lovely day.

Anne  xx

Photos from the Australian Open

Hello everyone.  I had a wonderful day at the Australian Open with the weather being perfect.  It was overcast and with a temperature of about 24C instead of being the usual 30 - 35C with the sun out and boiling hot.  We were sitting in row E, so five rows from the action and behind the Umpires chair with an incredible view.  I managed to get a few good action photos and a few others for pure entertainment!!

Still having problems with ill fitting undies.  Would someone please, please design some undies for Rafa that fit properly.

He's buff!

For Mum!  :)

Rafa's opponent Lukas Lacko was very good too.

 

The Fed played brilliantly.

Sorry for the photo overload, but I had a REALLY good day and wanted to share.  Have a fab weekend everyone.

Anne  xx

Australian Open

Tomorrow I have the very good fortune to be going to the Australian Open Tennis.  My sister's husband receives tickets from his work and my sister invites me to go with her, her neice who play tennis and another friend.  I have been a number of times before and it is such a wonderful day with the opportunity to see world class tennis players doing their thing.

Our tickets allow us into the Rod Laver Arena where we will get to see Rafael Nadal and Roger Federer and  others playing on outside courts if we wish.  It's amazing to see these superb athletes hitting the ball with immense power and moving around the court with speed and agility.  We have seats quite close and have a very good view of the play.  I hope to take some action photos to share with you in my next post.

I hope you are having a great day/evening.

Anne  xx

Having crafty fun

There is no better way to relax than having a trawl through Pinterest or Google.  I like looking for interesting craft ideas and to see what is inspiring others in the crafting world.

I was inspired to make one of these.

http://www.mygirlthursday.com/2011/09/do-this-yourself-wire-hanger-makeover.html

Wire coat hangers are a necessary evil, the only redeeming feature being they hold your clothes.

Boring and ugly!

An improvement but I can do better.

Better

I decided to add a little crochet flower to hide more of that ugly wire.  I have no idea what I crocheted, I just made it up as I went a long.  I have made a few of these hanger covers now with this one being my favourite so far.  It's a quick sewing project and a great way to use up scraps of fabric.  I might even make some up using two different fabrics.  Now wouldn't that liven up my wardrobe!!

I also saw this and wanted to make one immediately.

http://handmade-by-just-in.blogspot.com/2010/09/cat-bookmark-free-pattern.html

My little fella is a bit wonky but he serves his purpose.

He was very quick and easy to make even for a beginner like me.

Doesn't he make a great bookmark with that tail sticking out of a crochet book of all things?!  :)  I think I might be making some of these to put away in the gift box ready for when you need to give an unexpected pressie to some little or big person.  I might try embellishing my cats with spots or stripes or perhaps I could give one a sequined collar.  Oh the ideas are endless.

I'm going to be more trawing for more ideas.  I wonder what I'll be making next?

Thank you for visiting and taking an interest.  Your comments are always very much appreciated.

Anne  xx