The Dangers of Cooking

This post is for all the people who think I should eat more vegetables....

Vegetables did this to me today . Yes that's right I was attacked by a turnip.

And a very sharp knife.....

My doctor says if I'm going to try  re-creating Assaggio chicken vegetable soup at home because I'm too cheap to pay the 15 bucks a bowl I should be cutting vegetables with a butter knife.

Don't panic. These are making me feel wonderful.

We'll see whether I'll get to keep the top of my finger on Monday or whether I'm forever doomed to have a weird angled pinkie.....

Favourite Things Friday

Welcome to Favourite Things Friday for another week.  

 

After our brief hiatus for Easter last week I was almost tempted to write an entire post about chocolate today but I resisted. Feel free to link up with a chocolate post though if you want to so I can live vicariously. At least your post wont double the size of my butt the way Easter eggs did this week.

I've had a week full of deep thoughts. I've been ruminating about things like how to maintain  a positive mental attitude, the beauty of autumn mornings and whether I really need one more Easter egg. The answer to the Easter egg question is always yes.  I'm taking suggestions for number one.

Red is my favourite colour and always makes me happy.  Red is fun and funky and screams "look at me". Red completely reflects my personality. There is no other colour that instantly peps me up like red does.

There's nothing like a red winter coat to chase the rainy dreary blues away. While everyone else is breaking out the browns and blacks, my red coat will be making it's first winter appearance shortly.

Mmmmmmm..cocktails.

Red Fabric makes my heart sing. I have yet to make a fully red quilt but one of these days I'm going to take that leap.

Can't you see me at a cocktail party wearing this? Right after I lose all that Easter egg weight.

Romance anyone?

A sunset like this one makes you realise how beautiful our world really is.

My new placemats . I hope they are a self fulfilling prophecy for every future meal.

My babushka has pride of place in the kitchen.  I love that she adds a pop of colour and fun.

We all know I love red shoes. Dorothy had the right idea.

And I own several of these in varying shades of red.

Red is such a happy colour and it's my favourite this week.  Now lets see some linking people because I can't wait to see your favourites. I'm suffering from linky/blog hopping withdrawal.

A Crafty Week - 15 Minutes with Kate

I am happy to report I had a great week this week, probably helped by the 5 days I didn't have to go to work because of the Easter long weekend.

Tuesday I did nada which didn't auger well for the rest of the week. Instead of sewing  I made a mountain of fudge and rocky road and bagged up a load of Easter gifts for people at work so my entire evening was taken up doing that. Sometimes real life intrudes and that's just the way it is.

Wednesday - I attached the binding front and back to the Sparkle All the Way Christmas Quilt. Yes - I cheated. I machined that binding on. What's even more shocking is I used zig zag. And guess what - my head didn't explode.  This quilt was a PhD from August of last year. I'm glad to see the back of it. This years Christmas quilt is so much prettier.

Thursday - I attached the binding to the front of Little P's Go Crows quilt in preparation for hand sewing it to the back .

Friday and Saturday - I hand sewed the binding down on the back of the above mentioned quilt. Another finish. Extra brownie points should be added because I also taught Little P  to scream "Go Crows" at the top of his lungs.

And here he is examining all the different Elmo's and having quite an earnest conversation that only he and Elmo understood.

I bought Christmas ribbons on sale  ...yep I'm getting in early this year. Now I need one of those ribbon holder doodads because I am amassing quite a collection of ribbons.

Sunday - I finished two stitched blocks for the 'Tis The Season quilt. I'm hoping to find gorgeous fabric this week so I can complete the blocks as I finish stitching them. Naturally I have 100 metres of Christmas fabric in my sewing room and nothing goes well with what I have in mind for these blocks. I'm pretty happy with how they're turning out given my track record with hand sewing. An even stitch length would be nice but one can't have everything.

And I only just realised my reindeer and my birds are blind...poor eye-less things. Tough.

Monday - I finally got round to making 4 Paper Pieced Blocks for the PP Quilt Along.   I'm hoping to get a load of these done this week since I'm so far behind I'm probably never going to catch up. I've already amended my original "I'm going to do a full sized quilt" to "this would make a great baby blanket ".

And I started another stitchery for 'Tis the Season. It's actually really hard to stitch in a moving car, especially if you're driving.

I'm kidding. Mr. P was driving.

I'm pretty happy with this week. 2 quilt finishes , a new project and two stitcheries.  I'm feeling like the Queen of the Crafting world!

Hop on over to Kate's for more 15 minute reports.

The Gratuitous Easter Post

Most of you know I went "home" for the long weekend. Home is a relative concept isn't it? I've never lived in the house my parents live in now but I always say I'm going home. I guess home is where the people you love are.

When my family gets together it's loud. Everyone talks at once. We're all sarcastic. Anything goes. Case in point at one point my Dad played this song and told my sister that this was her theme song because basically she'll do anything to get out of cooking.



There's shouting and laughing and teasing and eating and drinking. Yep- my family can pretty much make a celebration out of nothing so you can imagine what actually goes on when we do have something to celebrate.

So with Little P visiting his great grandparents house  for the very first time my mother spent days child proofing the house and within 5 minutes of arrival little P had found her best crystal, a lamp with dangly glass beads, a vintage vase and the keys to the front door. Been a while since you had munchkins in the house Patty?

Little P  also discovered wheel barrow rides are a lot of fun. Grampy discovered children don't care if you've raced them round the garden 100 times and are on the verge of having a heart attack. They scream "More" regardless of your imminent demise.  This picture is blurry because I was laughing so hard and alternately almost wetting my pants the poor child would be flung to his death.

Father of Pyjamas kept us well supplied with cocktails , which made for a pleasant if slightly fuzzy weekend. I don't care - I enjoyed myself. I think...

Some of us enjoyed more than our fair share....and were slightly piggy about it.

Miss P realised if you're going to party hard with the big girls the night before you better start the next morning with a lot of coffee.

Little P kept us all amused with the screeching out of everyone's name every three minutes. My sister is now known to all and sundry as LeeLam. 10 bucks to the first person who can tell me what her real name is. (Marg - you're excluded because you already know) We have all starting screaming LeeLam at her because  she finds it bloody annoying.

Mr. P channelled a cocky

Dumbarse of the weekend goes to LeeLam who watched Little P paint and then had a heart attack when he toddled towards her looking like this because she thought his brain was leaking out of his head....

Bella did some painting too...before breakfast, hair brushing or doing her teeth. Attractive. The things you do for grandkids.

The boys did the manly thing and went hunting and gathering. We girls went shopping. Much more civilised.

They caught about 2 million yabbies and everyone had to pose for yabbie conqueror shots.

We had an easter egg hunt and found 400 chocolates scattered round the garden. Little P subsequently ate 399 of them and was cranky for the rest of the day. I bet we find some we forgot when we go hunting next year.

And Patty kept us fed with wonderful food. I put on 2 kilos. Damn you Patty.

Calamari with Chinese 5 Spice and Szechuan Pepper (I stole the recipe because this was really good )

Bacon , Eggs and my Mum's famous potato cakes

The genius at work in the kitchen lovingly caressing the chicken into tenderness.

It was a wonderful weekend but I'm not sure my liver could take that level of fun every week...

Just as a matter of interest has anyone ever heard a child say "I don't like chocolate"? Hope your Easter was restful and relaxing and that your cocktails were as nice as mine. I'm off to detox.

It's Not Favourite Things Friday

I figure everyone is going to be too busy going to Church, eating hot cross buns, spending time with family and friends  and/or stuffing themselves with chocolate to post for Favourite Things Friday this week.

I'm off to my parents for the weekend where Mother of Pyjamas  has banned sewing machines for the entire weekend. Once I'd gotten over my initial panic at the thought of not being able to touch my Janome for 4 days I realised I still have options.   I'll be sewing by hand. Computer access is limited so I'll have plenty of time.

Have a happy safe Easter.

15 Minutes a Day Challenge with Kate

I missed posting last week because aside from my quilting class on Saturday and Sunday I didn't manage to get diddly squat done (that means bugger all in Aussie )  for the rest of the week. I felt like I should go to confession except I'm not Catholic and I don't think God cares whether I sew or not when he has bigger fish to fry.  That's not me being irreverent about God - I'm being considerate. I don't want to waste his time with my whining when he has so many other important  things he needs to address.

This week has been about the same sewing wise. I didn't get 15 minutes a day done on any more than 4 days.

Last Tuesday I dropped two quilts off to the Quilter. While I talked creative process with Sharon (my uber cool help me because I'm sick of straight line quilting Quilting person) for about an hour I don't honestly feel right calling that 15 minutes of creativity. Maybe if I hadn't also gossiped at the same time and drank coffee I could have pretended it was a lot more creative.

Wednesday I pressed the strips for the Zig Zag Quilt . I actually thought I might get that put together last week but alas ..alack it was simply not fated.

Thursday and Friday I did absolutely nothing. Going to work just plain wore me out. Ive developed a really bad habit of falling asleep on the lounge at 9.30pm if I actually sit down at night. Do you think that's the first step to getting old. My Mum regales us with takes of how I used to fall face down asleep in my mashed potatoes at 6.30pm every night when I was 18 months old. Do I have that to look forward to again? Oops sorry - off on a tangent there.

 

Saturday - I made up Little P's new quilt top and sorted out a load of blocks for the zig zag quilt after I'd fixed the tension on the machine. I must admit this process was accompanied by lots of really bad swear words. At one point I even made myself blush. (A friend of mine assures me that when I say "freaking" everyone knows what I really mean and so it's as bad as saying the actual swear word. Is that true? Does that mean saying mofo is also banned?)

Sunday was a major activity day - I basted and quilted two quilts and cut binding strips for the aforementioned two quilts.


Monday - I made up the binding for both quilts .

I had high hopes for tonight but I've been faffing around making rocky road and fudge  and making up Easter bags for people at work. The big one on the back right  is for our marvellous administration staff who treat me royally and unfailingly do everything I ask them to do even when I need it done at very short notice. Those chicks rock and know all my secrets.

So all in all I made 4/7 this week. I'm hoping to get some slow sewing done over the weekend.  Yes I'm going to do some hand stitching....Be afraid , be very afraid.

For more creative genius pop on over to Kate's.

Blogger recognises bugger all as an actual legitimate spell check  word so I figure that's not swearing. Bugger would have been swearing 100 years ago...

Pyjama Party Sunday

Little Miss Sunshine has started a linky party. It's in honour of the fact that everyone knows you're most creative when you're in your pyjamas. Pop on over and link up and show us what crafty goodness you got up to over the weekend. Pyjamas are optional.

It will come as no shock to anyone who reads my blog regularly  that I spend most of my weekend in my pyjamas. Last time Mr. P actually took me out socially was in about 2007, so I don't make a big fuss about getting clothes on anymore unless I have to go to work. Frankly if I thought I could get away with it-I'd wear my pyjamas there too but my boss has pre-empted me on that score by banning pyjamas as unsuitable work attire.

I piked on FNSI this month and spent Friday night gossiping on the phone , first to Miss Pyjamas, then to Mother of Pyjamas, then to sister of Pyjamas, and lastly to my friend Bec. Bec and I can yak the leg off a chair and that phone call lasted well over 3 hours and by the time it  was done it was almost Saturday.

I woke Saturday full of resolve and pressed the strips for the zig zag quilt and cut them into squares. Then I pressed them again and squared them all up. You all know I'm a perfectionist. 

Then I started the new project.

Sunday I got up and basted two quilts. And then I quilted both of them ....

The Christmas quilt was not without incident. The fabric I used for the back is slightly coated and dragged the entire time I was quilting. There was much profanity too when the tension on my machine kept playing up. Who knew changing bobbin type would be such a pain in the arse? These bobbins were recommended for my machine , and I got a real telling off for using the metal ones for the last 7 years (without incident I might add ). According to the sewing centre lady I'm only meant to use the plastic ones.  I went right back to using the metal ones today and had no problems after that . I wonder if bobbin washers would help with the plastic ones? I'm mega pissed I spent 20 bucks on useless bobbins and dont want to waste more cash I dont have on useless bobbin washers.

This is the quilt I started yesterday. Top done, quilting done, waiting for binding. It's an Adelaide Crows quilt and I wanted to start brainwashing educating  Little P nice and early about which Aussie Rules Football team he's going to support. His great grandfather, his grandfather and his father all  support this team and he is being expected to follow tradition. I'm planning to make one for Mr. P too and this was the prototype. This is not a technically brilliant quilt and neither is the quilting but I wanted to use the fabric this football season since I've been babbling on about making a Crows quilt for the last 5 years or so.

And to make sure Little P  loves this quilt and wants to use it all the time I backed it in this. Mr. P's probably won't have Elmo on the back when I finally get round to making it. 

Then I made a load of binding strips to go on both the quilts.

I fully intended to get those together before I went to bed but I have just woken up from falling asleep on the lounge at 9.30pm. It's now the middle of the night here and I can't get back to sleep. I wonder if the whirring of my sewing machine would wake Mr. P? Maybe making some fudge would be a bit quieter? Or I could pick up all the sewing crap  and put it away.  It looks like a crazy creative genius exploded in every single room of my house.  

By the way I didn't get out of my pyjamas until around 3.00pm both days this weekend. I would have stayed in them all day but I had to go Easter shopping.  A bra-less 44 year old woman wearing Cookie Monster Pyjamas in public is not a pretty sight...

Here's hoping the crafting Gods smile on you this week. Feel free to wander over and link up to the official Pyjama Party Sunday post.

My Goals for this week ...

Make and attach Binding to the Christmas Quilt and Little P's new quilt
Finish 4 Paper Pieced blocks for QAL.
Start and finish 3 stitchery blocks for Tis the Season Project
Make 10 circles for Dresden Centres and start sewing them on.