The 5-50-5 knitted dishcloth

I have never been a good knitter.  I seem destined to be a 'beginner' knitter forever.  It doesn't bother me though.  I am slow and steady, like the meditative rhythm of plain knitting and hey it stops me drinking the evening glass of wine too fast! 

I have been knitting these dishcloths one after another for about six months and love them.  They are nicer to use in the kitchen than disposable wettex type products, are washable and actually improve with age. It feels good to make and use something that is not adding to landfill.

I have several in my kitchen, have given them away as gifts and have also made them for the granddaughters to use as dolly blankets.

So here's the pattern for the 5-50-5 dishcloth:

• Ball of cotton - I use Lily Cotton 4 ply (Sugar 'n Cream)- a 2 oz /56.7g  ball makes about one and a half dishcloths
• Size 5mm knitting needles

• Cast on 5 stitches
• Knit one row
• Then increase at the start of each row until you have 50 stitches
• Decrease at the start of each following row (by knitting the first two stitches together) until there are only 5 stitches left
• Knit one row
• Cast off
• Knot and tidy ends

This one is about 5 months old and has been washed many times.

  

On the sewing front I have finished another patchwork skirt, this one for 4 year-old Marie. I think I am done with patchworking for a while now!

School holiday fun

Lucky me - today spent time with the adorable Ms Eliza aged four and also managed a bit more of my sewing addiction.  A skirt for another granddaughter Chelsea. At times chaos reigned.  I forget that the attention span of a four year old is about ten minutes and also about their amazing ability to rearrange the house while you take your attention away for a minute or so.  But we had fun - drawing, fairy houses, cutting out, peg play (you had to be there), a walk to a park, endless food requests and deliveries (slave nana), book reading, singing (Eliza) - I am not allowed, silly talk and games etc.  And it will be lovely to have another day off work tomorrow for Anzac Day. Life is good.

A rare quiet moment

The finished skirt for Chelsea aged 9

A little bit twee

'I don't really like patchwork,' I tell Ann in Frangipani, the fabric shop in Sandy Bay.  'I think it's a bit twee.' 

Needless to say I am there to buy yet more fabric to make another patchwork item for the little people in my life. 

What I do like about patchwork is that it a bit of a mystery at the beginning what all the fabrics are going to look like together.  It's also rather meditative, the repetitive task of sewing little squares together.  I guess it's like anything - the more time and effort you put into it, the greater the satisfaction at the end.

So twee or not I have a bit of a patchwork addiction going...

A birthday skirt for 4 year old Maia

A quilt for baby Jaxon

A Babushka skirt for Eliza, size 5

A little aproned skirt for Zoe, aged 18 months

 

 

Persian Love Cake

Yesterday we scattered my dear Aunt Cissy's ashes off the rocky little island near the end of the dog-end of Kingston Beach. A very magical little place.

My aunt and uncle's ashes have been scattered from there before and someone commented it is becoming our family's spot for such events. It was a moody afternoon - raining at first but then the sun came out and even a huge rainbow. I think Cissy would have been pleased with the occasion. It was a step up from the garbage bin request she'd first made!

We sang along (thank you too to Sarah on her mobile from Brunswick) with Frank Sinatra to 'Strangers in the Night' and then with Dusty Springfield to "I only want to be with you'.

Afterwards we had cakes (and whilst both mine and Micaela's had turned out a little flat they were delicious) and other afternoon treats. Everyone enjoyed my Persian love cake so a good recipe is always worth sharing. I've made it before at another family gathering and it's gone down well. 

Here's to you Cissy! 

Persian Love Cake

3 cups almond meal

1 cup raw sugar

1 cup brown sugar

120gm unsalted butter

2 eggs, lightly beaten

250gm Greek yoghurt, plus extra to serve

1 tbsp freshly grated nutmeg

1/4 cup pistachios, roughly chopped

 

Preheat oven to 180 degrees C. Combine almond meal, sugars, butter and 1 tbsp salt in a bowl.  Rub with fingertips until coarse crumbs form.

 

Spoon half the mixture into a lightly buttered and baking-paper lined 26cm springform pan. Smooth out evenly.

 

Add egg, yoghurt and nutmeg to remaining crumble mixture and beat with a wooden spoon until smooth and creamy. Pour over prepared base. Smooth top and scatter pistachios around edge.

 

Bake until golden (30 - 35 minutes). Cool completely in pan on wire rack.  Will keep a week.  Serve with yoghurt.

 

 

The Gridlock sewing competition

OOOhhh what fun - a sewing competition!  My fav online fabric shop is running the Gridlock sewing competition.  Great idea - everyone who enters has to use the same fabric, which is available for half price from the competition organisers, Tuessuti, until the competition closes on 3 April.  I like this - it reminds me that some of the best sewing I have done in the past is when I have found a fabric I love and then had to find a pattern to suit it. 

I love the fabric but it takes me slightly out of my comfort zone. I usually only sew cotton or linens. The weight of it though is perfect for Hobart where it can get a bit chilly even in the middle of summer.  It's a great in-between seasons kind of weight.   What to make, what to make... a skirt, trousers, a tunic?  In the end I decide on wide-legged trousers, using a pattern I've made before, because the blue sketchy texture and design on the fabric looks a bit Japanesey to me. 

I'm very pleased with the results.  Very easy to wear trousers - very me!

The waistband is made from the reverse of the fabric.

 

I'll be wearing these to the next book club dinner

 

 

The pattern is New Look No. 6656

 

I've already discovered that our new living space is perfect for cutting out!

 

Inside out - thankfully I didn't have any hiccups with the sewing of these

 

This goes with that - I can see I have lots of things in my wardrobe that are going to go with the pants!

 

 

 

With thanks to dozy husband who reluctantly got off the couch to be my photographer (take one) and to my lovely daughter Lilli (photographer and stylist take two) who told me I looked shapeless in the yellow top and advised my what to wear instead!

 

 

 

 

So we sew again

Hullo - I'm back.  A new year, a new house and a resolution to get back into creative stuff again - including sewing and blogging now that the long and exhausting process last year of selling our old house (aka endless housework) is over!

 

I must be feeling relaxed in the new house because I have just had a flurry of sewing. Two linen dresses made with the wonderful Lily pattern and fabrics from Tessuti.  With the first dress (the mushroom coloured linen) I made the same silly mistake I have made in the past: I doubted that the size I was planning on cutting out would be big enough so I moved the pattern out just a tad from the fold for the front and back to make it bigger.  Of course all I did (STOOPID girl!!) was make the neckline too wide, which meant I had to do some creative tucking at the front and back neckline to make it sit right.  Regardless of the tweaks it looks pretty fab and I received lots of compliments when I wore it to work.

 

I made the second one exactly to the pattern size and it worked out perfectly.  Even though this one is tickety-boo I still prefer the first - I think I like muddy colours on me the best.  It just goes to show that sometimes less than perfect can be a winner all the same.

 

Lily dress 1

 

Lily dress 2

 

 

 

 

A little bit of happiness research

Last week I was lucky enough to attend a half-day course for work called 'The Science of Flourishing'. Fantastic course. I wrote the following for our Intranet but thought I'd shared it via my blog too...

Now this is the kind of workshop I like! The presenter, Katherine Street, passes around individually wrapped Ferrero Rocher chocolates and we are told to spend a few minutes savouring the smell and anticipation of biting into the chocolate. After we are finally given the okay to eat our chocolate someone comments they have never enjoyed a chocolate so much. It’s perfect timing too as morning tea is just about to served and it’s also rather luscious – tiers of cakes, scones and cream and jam, and croissants. Now this is much better than being at work!
 
Katherine Street is a local psychologist who is very well versed in the science and latest research into ‘happiness’. One of the first exercises are asked to do in our groups is to match the percentage each of the following three components of happiness have on a pie chart (40%, 50% or 10%): Genetics; Life Circumstances; and Intentional Action.

Most of the groups put Intentional Action at 50%, Life Circumstances at 40% and Genetics at 10%. The big surprise is when Katherine reveals that our genetics account for 50% of our ability to be happy, our life circumstances for 10% and our intentional actions for 40%.

Research has found that wealth, age, attractiveness, gender, health, intelligence and education have very little impact on our level of happiness. And yes as we often hear the research confirms that winning the lottery is not the way to find happiness.

What can impact on our happiness is the intentional actions we can take to gain pleasure through engaging all our senses - from doing things like listening to our favourite music, hugging a grandchild, seeing an amazing scene, tasting great food, smelling our morning coffee brewing...

Happiness also comes from:

• engaging in activities (including work) that involve us experiencing 'flow' (periods when we lose track of time)
• finding meaning in our lives (including meaning in our work)
• being connected to and doing things with and for others, and
• through celebrating our achievements.

In the workplace successful team environments need to have a positive to negative ratio of 5:1. So how can we improve the ratio of happiness in our own workplaces? Our group decides that by being happier ourselves this will have a ripple effect on our colleagues and that we should also all engage in more random acts of kindness and cake!

Katherine Street has a lot of interesting material on happiness worth having a read through on her website: www.flourishing.com.au

Changes are afoot

Yes I know it has been a very long time between posts.  What happened? I think I just got sick of nattering on about sewing, which I've actually taken a break from.  I have also been on more intensive Nana duties since the arrival of little Zoe last October plus we had a trip to NZ to see the kiwi grandkids at Easter.

Just before our trip to NZ I spotted a house on realestate.com.au I liked the look off, talked husband into having a look at it and foolishly we bought it, before selling our existing house.  What a recipe for making life a little bit more stressful. 

After our return from NZ we launched into preparing our house for sale. In three weeks we had nine tradesmen and a very helpful brother on board to help us tart the place up.  Several rooms painted, new cushions, rugs, more modern lino in the bathrooms, a garden makeover, carpets dry cleaned, new quilt covers, lamps, pot plants etc. etc. plus a myriad handyman jobs repairing the many dodgy bits of the house. It was great to have a stylist's report (a free service of the agents) to roughly follow. Of course now it has never looked so good and we have wondered at times why on earth we are selling it - but too late now. 

We are now working very hard at being TIDY people (unbelievable!) and the house is in a constant state of 'inspection readiness'!  Phew!  Just don't look under the beds...

The new house when we move in to it will be fantastic.  A blank canvas.  Brand new, totally devoid of a garden - so a lot of fun to be had adding 'our stamp' on the place. 

In the meantime though a celebration of our old house.  These fabulous photos were taken by Ron Verdouw to advertise our house with our agents, Charlotte Peterswald.  We haven't sold our lovely home yet but our very friendly real estate agent Dion Flanagan is muttering that we might be getting some offers very soon.   Fingers crossed.

Yes - we are going to miss the oak tree!

Please note matching towels!

Le shed

Sewing summer here

Gosh - long time between posts although I must admit I have been unfaithful and have another blog too. See http://thursdaynightbookclubhobart.wordpress.com/
Winter has officially left us, which feels good - although I am sure we have lots more chilly days ahead and yes I do have the fire on now.  It was a long hard winter with some tough times for the family but we are coming through it all. 

I've been sewing again - my little activity I do when I need to switch off.  Really I need to find a new hobby.  At least I will have lots of summer clothes for our trip to Fiji, planned for November...but before that we have a new baby to welcome into the family soon.  Hurry up bub.

Here's some of my recent things I have made including two tops from my fav book - Yoshiko Tsukiori's 'Stylish Dress Book - Wear with Freedom'. The little dress was made for Eliza but she much prefers her Dora dress.  I will have to make one for Maia in NZ.  Tra la...

The zen of scrambling eggs the NZ way

I love it how when you stay at other people's houses you get to see some different ways of 'keeping house' and cooking.  I'm just back from NZ (dodging ash clouds both ways) and staying with my daughter-in-law Kerry and my three adorable grandchildren - James, Zach and Maia - while my son was away overseas.  I am very impressed with Kerry's sustainable living lifestyle.  She feeds the kids wholesome and mostly unprocessed food plus bottles huge quantities of stewed apples, keeps chooks, bakes bread, makes yogurt, cooks yummy slices for lunch boxes, conserves power and energy where she can, reuses, recycles...and just generally keeps her household humming along in a very efficient and thoughtful way.

Ye gads Kerry even folds her 'fitted sheets' after washing them so they lay nicely flat in neat piles in her linen cupboard. (Never never even open my linen cupboard unless you want to risk an avalanche of unfolded sheets and clumsily piled up towels.)

Hmm this glimpse into a life of domestic grace has made me to want to pick up my game a bit more...my old yogurt maker has been dragged out of the cupboard and I am going to have a go at recreating some of Kerry's wonderful vego recipes.  I'm also going to make lightly baked risotto cakes from any of my leftover risotto meals and try cooking scrambled eggs the kiwi way.  (For years I've made scrambled eggs by stirring the mixture to buggery with a fork in a saucepan on the stove - whereas Kerry makes her in a frypan and kind of gently folds the egg mixture just a few times with a spatula so it ends up in a soft gooey creamy almost-omelettey mix.)

So here are some of the recipes for the Kerry-meals I enjoyed most on my visit to Hamilton and some photos, mostly from my morning walks around Rotorua Lake in Hamilton.

Kerry's Flapjacks

(An oaty gooey slice, which Kerry says is still 'a work in progress')

250 g rolled oats (or 1/2 rolled oats and 1/2 oatbran)
150 g butter
75 g golden syrup
75 brown sugar

Melt butter then add all other ingredients.  Press into a slice tin, which you've lined with baking paper.  Cook in oven at 175 degrees celsius for 15 - 20 minutes.  Leave in tin until cool before slicing.  Should be chewy. 

Amazing crumbled (and zapped in microwave to heat a little) and served on top of a bowl of ice cream.

Kerry's Roast Pumpkin and Feta Frittata (from Ray McVinnie's recipe book)

500 g pumpkin, cubed in 3cm chunks and roasted in 3 tbs olive oil for 30-40 minutes in a hot oven (or other roast vegies)
2 tbs pumpkin seeds, dry roasted in a pan
1 large onion
3 cloves garlic
6 tbs olive oil
2 tbs chopped coriander stalks
200 g feta cubed
6 eggs lightly beaten

Fry garlic and onion in oil in a large frypan until soft then add all other ingredients.  Cook on stove top until bottom is cooked, then place frypan under grill to cook and lightly brown the top of the frittata.

The roasted pumpkin seeds add an interesting texture to this frittata, which is nice served with some homemade chutney and a salad.

Healthy Apple Pie (courtesy of Kerry's friend Vee)

Pie crust1/2 cup wholemeal flour
3/4 cup coconut
3/4 cup rolled oats
1/2 tsp cinnamon
1/8 cup raw sugar
1/4 cup sunflower seeds
1/4 cup oil
1/4 cup water

Mix together dry ingredients.  Whisk together oil and water and stir into dry ingredients.  Press into flat tin or pie dish and chill in the freezer for a while.

Pour stewed apples (or any kind of thickly stewed fruit) into the chilled base and bake at 175 degrees celcius for 30 minutes.

Fond memories and choc-mint brownie slice

We are just back from Sydney from a big family get-together for the scattering of my father and brother's ashes, which we did at dusk on Tom's birthday at Paradise Beach. 

I think Dad and Tom would have very much approved of the occasion. We lit candles on the rocks and launched seed-pod 'boats' into Pittwater. I attempted to read a Gaelic blessing by candle-light while competing with the bizarre ring-tone of Blake's mobile - which was all a bit amusing. Afterwards we drank wine on the beach.  The rain held off until we got back to Shauna's.

It was a very reflective but memorable time.  During our four days in Avalon we even managed to visit the old family home in Ruskin Rowe (thanks to the very friendly new owner who spotted us taking photos outside and invited us in).  We also visited the grave of my grandfather and uncle at Mona Vale cemetery and added a sprinkling of more family ashes to the gravesite.  

I tend to remember occasions by something I ate.  (Ha - yes for me my emotions are all tied in with my stomach.) The whole four days in Sydney was pretty special; the culinary highlight of which was definitely Shauna's slice, made to take to Pru's. I will probably forever more associate this yummy slice with this time.

Shauna's Choc-Mint Brownie Slice

185 g butter melted
1 1/2 cups castor sugar
3 eggs
100 g plain flour
1/2 cup cocoa
50 gm After Dinner Mints (roughly chopped)

• Grease and line a slice tin with baking paper.
• Whisk together butter and sugar and then add eggs, one at a time, whisking some more.
• Stir in flour and cocoa.
• Spread into tin.  Push After Dinner Mint bits into the slice mix (make sure all are covered an none touch the side of the slice tin).
• Bake in a moderate oven for 30 - 40 minutes.
• Sprinkle with icing sugar to serve.

I am looking forward to making this slice soon.  Here's to you Dad and Tom!

Sewing days

Oh I do love sewing.  It's like therapy for me. As soon as the weather gets cooler I feel inspired to sew.  Funny how I  really only like sewing summer clothes though - perhaps by sewing these  summery things I am vicariously imagining warm days again! 

In the last few weeks I have made four new things - two 'shearwater' kaftans, a 'far away  tunic' and a 'madison skirt'- all easy peasy patterns I have bought online.  I have become obsessed with sourcing patterns and fabrics online.  I have discovered that buying fabric from OS on Etsy is much cheaper than buyng online in Australia and it doesn't really take too long to get here.  Ordered fabulous Cloud9 fabric from Oregon less than two weeks ago and have already received it in the mail and made up the new clothes! The world really is becoming a much smaller place these days.

It's been a wonderful couple of days to sew this weekend listening to Radio National and the Sydney Writer's Festival.  Must read Philiph Roth's new book - he is such an amusing raconteur.  So anyway tra la here's my new summery clothes and the view I see while I am zipping away on my overlocker:

Time to get the icecream maker out again

Mmm - I was wondering what to do with all the frozen blackberries in the freezer and hey presto this blackberry recipe was just sent to me to put up on our Intranet at work.  Will feed it to the five Melbourne uni geology students who are staying with us for a week.
Blackberry Icecream
Ingredients:
• 2 cups blackberries, about 12 ounces
• 1 cup granulated sugar
• 1 1/2 tablespoons lemon juice
• 1 1/2 cups heavy cream
• 1/2 cup sour cream, full fat
Preparation:
In a large saucepan over medium heat, cook blackberries, sugar, and lemon juice until sugar is dissolved and berries are soft. Put the berry mixture in a blender and puree for about 1 minute. At this point, you might want to put the puree through a mesh sieve to remove the seeds. If you do remove the seeds, return the mixture to the blender. Add heavy cream and the sour cream and pulse a few times. Pour into a bowl and chill thoroughly. Freeze in your ice cream maker following the manufacturer's directions.

Ten Days on the Island

I will remember this year's Ten Days on the Island as it has coincided with around ten days of angst and form-filling RSI moving my Aunt Cissy into a nursing home.  Poor Ciss, on one hand she seems accepting of  it being time to make the move -  especially as her beloved doctor has been so keen on her doing it, but on the other she has resisted it all the way.  

My feisty 83 year old aunt has become the new rebel inmate at the nursing home - smoking in her room and making surreptitious calls to ex-landlords to try and get herself back into her old digs!  It has been both painful and hellish for her kin trying to help and harness her! 

Cissy-moving aside, with Shauna down from Sydney, we did manage we did to get some 'culture' in.  'Power Plant' at the Botanical Gardens last Saturday night was a magical experience, evoking that childhood wonder of nighttime.  Mona was great too.  Hobart can sometimes really be impressive in the arts stakes me thinks...