Things I Love

I love collecting things and I especially love collecting fabric and things made out of fabric. Some of these quilts were bought new and some were made by myself and one or two of them have been rescued from secondhand shops. The second shelf down holds two small quilts on top of two larger ones. These are the most precious ones in my collection as they are the two I made for my children when they were very small. They were my first attempts and not very well made but bring back so many good memories every time I handle them . Even though they have been washed many times I am sure I can still smell my babies on them.
When not in use my quilts have often been hidden away but not any more. I am now the proud owner of this lovely piece of furniture bought from Redcurrent. Every time I pass I have a quick glance over my quilts and smile a bit to myself.

My sisier-in-laws birthday today and as she had given me the idea for this style of peg bag I thought she should receive the first one.


Muffins had to slip into this blog as my son has recently discovered the gym and healthy eating.
Ages ago someone gave me this recipe for what are called Energetic Muffins! So to fill the son up with something good I made a batch of these yesterday. They are really moist and full of fruit, nuts and seeds and declared "awesome" by the gym bunny.



The very ugly iron in my sewing room finally broke - I had been willing it to do this for a long time, finally it worked! I wanted the replacement to be retro/vintage style and in keeping with the rest of the room. After looking unsuccessfully at the local chainstore shops I had the bright idea of checking out the secondhand shops. I found this fabulous looking thing at Whites Traders - a huge secondstore jam packed with everything you can possibly imagine, and its only minutes from our home. Its very heavy and heats to a ferocious heat so I will have to be very vigilant about turning it off and the best bit is : I only paid $5 for it! I figure that even if I decide its too heavy at least I haven't lost much and it fits neatly into the recycling ethos too.




In case you are interested I made a peg bag out of this Soleiado style fabric - you can buy it here.





Popular posts from this blog

Ginger Crunch

Image
Ginger Crunch - a New Zealand classic with a twist. Lois Daish ( much missed food writer for The Listener a couple of years back) says this version is from the Wholemeal Cafe in Takaka. It is absolutely delicious. Two good sized pieces have been eaten rather quickly already. Base: 150g butter 2 tbsp golden syrup 3/4 cup soft brown sugar 3/4 cup desiccated coconut 1 1/2 cups rolled oats 3/4 cup plain flour 1 1/2 tsp baking powder 2 tsp ground ginger Preheat oven to 175C Line a 20x30cm slice tin Put butter, golden syrup and sugar in pan and melt gently together. Remove pan from heat and mix in all the other ingredients. Press into tin and bake for 15 minutes - I find if I go over this time it goes too crunchy when cool. Mark into squares while still warm and spread with icing. Leave to cool completely (if you can!) before cutting through icing. Icing: 60g butter 120g icing sugar 2 level tbsp golden syrup 3 tsp ground ginger Melt together and beat till smooth.
Read more

Lavender Life

Image
 With the best will in the world, I still haven't managed regular blog posts here. Lots going on re: my lavender filled sachets so if you can please come and see me on my Instagram account you will see very regular posts there. Please click HERE  ðŸ’œ
Read more

The Wool Story

Image
Te Koha organic, biodynamic wool, fresh from the sheep. Cleaning and sorting the wool to use in my lavender and wool filled pincushions, see the previous post. One gorgeous pile of the softest, sweetest smelling wool for me to use. Now to the story which my friend Bev, of "French Street Plum Jam" fame, told me last week. I have typed it out exactly as it was written: I was five years old when my mum invited me and my five siblings to go wool picking and the wool would be made into half-quilts for our beds. Mum would make a picnic of fresh homemade bread, butter from our churn and delicious plum jam made into sandwiches and a bottle of cordial for each child which we stuffed into our leather school bags and slung over our shoulders. In our hand we each carried a sugar sack to gather our wool in. We walked up hills and around the fence lines picking the wool off the barbed wire fences where the sheep had stopped to scratch, leaving behind little tufts of wool snagged on the...
Read more