Ahhhhh- Holidays

I spent the early part of last week ordering plantation shutters and custom made sliding plantation doors for our house. When I told Mr. P the final tally I just said it really quickly so it didn't sound like one of us was going to  have to sell a kidney to pay for it. He totally bought it. Then I went completely nuts and bought a new bed for our guest room because I have big plans for a complete revamp in there over the next couple of months. This extends out to a double but gives us a ton more space when we don't have guests. Genius. 

I had lunch and a sewing day with the delectable Loz last Tuesday who is also on holidays. Since I was in the area I popped into my favourite mettwurst shop and loaded up on manufactured meaty goodness. I gave one of these to one of my nephews who is also a mettwurst addict but I've managed to eat both of the others in the week since.... 

Plenty of sewing and crafting this past week. My postage stamp blocks are all done - just waiting to be trimmed and then made into something that resembles a quilt top. 

I reupholstered two sad looking chairs that now look completely happy. So am I.

Before 

After 

And I did some more work on my orange peel applique blocks. I am over the halfway mark and sliding down the other side. I even got brave and starting pulling the freezer paper out. 

Thursday was the day that little old Adelaide was the hottest city on earth, so I stayed inside and taught my niece to be how to make bunting. No pictures because this is for the big wedding that's coming up in November and everything has to stay a secret. Feel free to imagine bunting in lieu of pictures. I'm in cahoots with my niece to be on another secret project for the wedding at the moment too....this must be what it feels like to be a super spy!

My greengrocer had a super special on strawberries on Thursday so I bought a few punnets.

This is what 7.5 kilos of strawberries looks like with the tops cut off...

I made strawberry pie with a strawberry coulis ...and ate about a kilo of strawberries in the process. The plan is to make jam with the rest. 

I made two lots of fudge -one went to live in the bin 

the other in my stomach. 

My Littlest Nephew celebrated his 21st birthday yesterday.  Happy Birthday Nephew of Pyjamas! You totally rock!

I did a ton of other stuff too....but this post is already stretching the boundaries of length and I'm sure a few of you have probably already fallen asleep. 

Before I go I want to share some mail I've had over the last few weeks from some very generous and thoughtful people.  

From Terri - a lovely white fat quarter of fabric. So cute- Thank you Terri! 

 Karen at Laughter in Quilts had some gorgeous embellished tea towels on her blog a while ago, and was kind enough to offer to send me some plain tea towels so I could create my own. Look at this pile of gorgeousness! I'm going to have so much fun making these look all pretty.

And Cardygirl - who should seriously give up her day job to go into stand up comedy- very quietly and pointedly sent me this ...which had me in fits of laughter every time I saw it for about three days afterwards. 

Looks like I have my ginger bread house covered for this year. And I think I can put this together using superglue without the sides melting. Just have to be careful not to add too many rhinestones and crystals to it so it doesn't implode from the weight. 

A relaxing weekend

I was given strict instructions this weekend not to post anything incriminating about family members on my blog. That pretty much means I have no photos and nothing much to tell you. I can say that it was a relaxing weekend, in a wonderful location and as a family we really should make an effort to do this more often.

Friday night was heralded by this gorgeous sunset (taken from the balcony of the house we stayed in which was just lovely) 

Saturday morning we were up bright and early to go to the Willunga Farmers market. This was my breakfast at the market along with a very large cup of coffee. There  was  also free taste testing of boutique beer at 9 am which my oldest nephew thought was the best way to wake up ever.

I love going to markets because you can buy things you hardly ever see at the regular shops. 

These spice mixes looked tempting....I'm not averse to a bit of spice 

I've wanted to use preserved lemon in something for just about forever and now I can finally give it a crack. The Jamato sounds interesting too and that Moroccan jam ...yum!

I snuck in some op shopping (even if my Dad did grizzle about having to stop )  I couldn't leave this soup tureen to the mercy of someone who wouldn't love it as much as I did.... 

Other Nephew of Pyjamas (who says I don't mention him often enough in my blog) taught Miss P  how to play chess.

Giving Other Nephew his 5 minutes of fame here ....

It is tradition in our family when we all get together to try and eat as much Mullers Metwurst as possible. This was my effort . I did see one of the boys wandering round with a 4 inch hunk at one point so I couldn't declare myself the winner this weekend. It took us less than 24 hours to completely polish off about a kilo. 

On Saturday night we went for dinner at The Star Of Greece which sits atop a cliff and looks straight out onto the sea. 

image source 

The happy couple celebrating 50 years of wedded bliss. Dad jokingly asked Mum for a divorce. At least I think he was joking. 

Miss P , me and Sister of Pyjamas after a few cocktails. It was about 100 degrees so we all look like we're melting. 

Nephew of Pyjamas and The One who always looks gorgeous. (who actually has the same name as Miss Pyjamas which means things get very confusing sometimes when we are all together ) 

It's going to be a busy week.  Dad goes into hospital today for surgery and Little P is  scheduled for surgery on Thursday. Once we're through all that kerfuffle we have another big celebration on Friday. Somewhere in amongst the pressures of the week  I'd like to get some sewing done!

Spring Break!

Let me just say that what happens on holidays stays on holidays so there will be no tattling in this post ( I bet 20 people just clicked out of this post without reading any further) Little Miss Sunshine and I are sedate mature ladies and we behaved accordingly for my entire stay. Despite what she may tell you over on her blog, it's all lies and I did not lead her astray one little bit. There was one slightly drunken night (and the tables were too high to dance on ) and not a whiff of potential arrest until I was leaving. More about that later. 

I packed so much crap going over I was only 200 grams under the weight limit at the airport. Thank goodness they didn't check my carry on because I took the biggest handbag I owned and stuffed so much in it that it weighed approximately 43 kilos. Then to add insult to injury I got picked for bomb and drug testing going through the scanners. Apparently I look suss or like a drug courier. 

I was met at the airport by Marg holding a box of Krispy Kremes instead of a name card saying "Mrs. Pyjamas" because I live in a dimension where KK doesn't exist. As far as I'm concerned donuts are the perfect welcoming gift and the week just got more sugar fuelled from there. Chips, Chocolate , Booze, Cheese, Oreos and prosciutto for protein. I think we covered all the main food groups.  I didn't actually poop for three days at one point which gives some credence to the idea  that vegetables are probably necessary for good bowel health. 

I was completely inspired by the Quilt show in Brisbane and these were a few of my favourites. There were lots of Ooh's and Ahhh's from me while people around me talked about the technical brilliance and colour placement of the blocks and tone and shade and other things I know nothing of because I just look at it and either like it or I don't. In fact I pretty much left my brain at home and was content to utter non words to describe how I was feeling. 

I popped in to see Natalie Bird who created the 'Tis the Season stitcheries and to have a look at Michelle's fabulous patterns which were being sold on Natalie's stand. Yes- I name dropped that Michelle is a friend of mine. I love to ride on my blog buddies coat tails since I have no actual talent of my own.

We massacred some frog cakes that I brought with me (that got slightly smooshed during transit ) That chocolate one looks like he's screaming doesn't he? I think he knew his time on this earth was limited. If you've never had a frog cake- sucked in because they rock. It's probably one of the few good things about living in Adelaide. 

Little Miss Sunshine seriously is the hostess with the mostest. I had a fabulous time and everything was done to make sure I enjoyed myself to the max.  I finally got to see her house (utterly gorgeous and exactly how I want my house to look if it ever grows up) and with a view like this to stare at every time I went outside who wouldn't have thought they were in Paradise? 

I was a bit slack on the taking pictures thing while I was away and only got two pictures of Little Miss Sunshine  . In one she is flipping me the bird (which I intend to use for blackmail purposes at some point ) and in the other she is fuzzy. It's all a bit spooky because when I looked at her that night she WAS all fuzzy. But I cant recall a lot about that night so perhaps we should move on. 

The biggest thrill of the trip was driving with Young Miss Sunshine who has perfected the art of driving round roundabouts at 100 kilometres per hour on two wheels. She has a career in the wings as a stunt driver if her other career doesn't pan out.  It was a bit like being on the Matterhorn after drinking a bottle of Vodka. I'm just grateful to have survived. 

Kirsten this one is for you . I saw yellow watermelons!

I retail therapied my credit card to the max . I highly recommend having a secret credit card so when you spend money with wild abandon you don't give your husband an apoplexy. It works for me . At one local quilt shop, I was recognised as Quilting in My Pyjamas before I even had a chance to open my mouth .That's because I'm a rock star and I'm recognised everywhere. 

And now for the fabric spoils. By the way, I've given up on only buying 100 yards of fabric for this year since this pushed me over the 200 yard mark for 2011. I have no willpower.

 (I'm blaming you for this latest Japanese obsession Kate!)

As an aside , outside of Spotlight, I have never seen so much fabric in one place in my life as I did at Maison Sunshine. You know that saying "She who dies with the most fabric wins" . Don't even bother trying to compete . Little Miss Sunshine has already won. This is a small part of her obsession collection. I have already called dibs on her fabric stash when she dies. The friend who has been charged with packing it up in a semi to send it to me has told me that will take so long I may as well come up for the funeral and stay to start sewing my way through it all. 

We did the markets and I forgot to take any pictures. We ate brunch twice and I forgot to take any pictures. We went out for dinner and I took this picture and then promptly forgot to take any more pictures because I was too busy stuffing my face with half a cow's worth of steak and the best potato and onion galette I have ever tasted. 

Minor crafting did occur while I was away. A stack of hexies got cut and glued with significant help from Young Miss Sunshine who also flipped me the bird when I tried to take a photo of her doing such an awesome job. I'm starting to think that flipping the bird thing may be genetic. 

The sum total of my craftiness while I was away amounted to this. (and two half finished sunglasses cases that I cant find in the wreck that is my house at present)

I shopped. Oh how I shopped! I bought clothes, I bought bags , I bought fabric and I bought thongs (the foot kind not the other kind ) and some where along the way I realised that if I was at my weight limit coming up it was likely I was going to be well over going home especially when I factored in getting this on as hand luggage on my way home. Through wonderful unexpected circumstances I am now the proud owner of a Go! Baby Fabric cutter. (Was I doing the Happy Dance or what!) So I posted 10 pounds of other stuff home via Australia Post. The added bonus was that it was a way to circumvent Mr. P seeing all my new goodies when he picked me up at the airport. It looked like I only bought three things during my entire trip (coffee, rocky road, a present for Mr. P ) because I picked the rest of it up from the post office while he was at work the day after I arrived home. 

Unfortunately security at the airport had never seen a Go ! Cutter and when it went through the scanners, bells went off and people came running and I got rugby tackled to the ground by three burly guys and then got hand cuffed while they searched my handbag for other illegal weapons. I'm not saying my picture has been circulated round every airport in Australia as a drug mule but twice in one trip is a bit of a coincidence don't you think?  It was lovely to finish off my trip with a strip search and twenty questions about whether I intended to attack the flight crew with a fabric cutter during the flight. Perhaps they thought I was going to cut them into hexagons? 

PS. Don't you believe a word Little Miss Sunshine says about Bitchy Poo . She's utterly delightful!