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