Advent Calendar

Mr T's advent calendar is good to go. All presents are actually present and accounted for as of this afternoon. Phew. And the stacked glasses seem to be holding! Double phew.

Guerrilla Knitting

It's happening in my neighbourhood! I noticed this a couple of weeks ago, but only have I had time and weather cooperation today.

Sketch Saturday

Better late than never. More experimenting with ink & watercolour.

It's been a bit of a crazy week with plenty of pre-christmas cheer already. Wednesday was Japanese with old training buddies, last night was Rockwiz filming and tonight we're off to our second Cafe Vue cocktail night experience. Phew, there's been little time for much else. I have however had time to go nuts with the scalloped edge punch!

Shades of grey

Just like today's Melbourne skies.

The Postman's been

All the way from Scotland! I entered a giveaway over at Pikaland for some Hello Jenuine prints. I was a runner up and scored this little gocco print in the most perfect colour. Thanks Amy & Jen.

Afternoon bars

I desperately wanted to believe these wouldn't be too sweet for breakfast, but they are, and I didn't even use all the sugar. I was looking for an alternative for muffins for breakfast, you know, to mix things up a bit and thought these might suit. Don't get me wrong, they are delicious for afternoon tea!

Paper planes

I just know the engineer in Mr T will like these paper plane ornaments for our tree. I've used the colours & circle shapes from the advent tags. They're to go with the simple garland and will make up the contents of one of the first advent jars.

It's raining

We have had November's average rainfall come down in one day. Today! After a record heat wave to start the month, it's almost gone full circle. The garden is soaked through and the water tank full. There's been a lot of time spent indoors. Plenty of crocheting been done and we've sorted out most of our trip through Vietnam. Just Japan to go.

Sketch Saturday

On my 10 things in 2010 there will be an aim to post a week's worth of drawings over at What I Wore Today. It's not so much that my wardrobe is amazing, it's more that I'm hoping to develop my own distinct drawing style before then. Above was me just playing around with some of the items in my cupboard.

Harvest

The first of the seeds sown in autumn has come to fruition. This mini beetroot had almost pushed itself out of the ground. I used the leaves, wilted, amongst other veggies with some udon noodles. And grated the beetroot in a salad sandwich.

Here's hoping the forecast rain for this weekend actually comes. The garden and tank are desperately dry.

Creative Space

It's a snowstorm of floss and round white stickers. This week I've been working on simple paper decorations and ornaments for our tree (read: a bunch of decorative sticks). I know, know, know it's early for Christmas, I'm just trying to get organised, because come December 1 Mr T's advent calendar comes into play. One of the first jars will be filled with decorations to adorn our "tree" so we can get into the festive spirit. I came across the idea last year and was drawn to the simplicity.

Visit Kirsty and a slew of creative spaces.

My how you've grown

This week marks the anniversary of moving into Mr T's house. We've been living together a year now. I'd initially taken a week off to do Yoga, drink lattes and find my inner calm. But I spent a hot week driving back and forth over the bridge to move my small apartment into his large house. It could not have been more worth it.

It was just prior to moving in that I helped Mr T tear down his previous garden and build the new fence that doubles as raised garden beds and a bench. The previous garden was full of thorns, fake plastic flowers and spiky things.

Now we've got a lemon/lime tree, rocket, basil, beetroot, carrots, strawberries, coriander, potatoes, parsley, passionfruit, oregano, sage, rosemary, garlic, mint, rhubarb, olive trees, and an avocado tree all doing their best to make it in the West. Just like me.

Chemistry

Somehow while setting up home, I never did acquire a silver cloth or silver cleaning product for that matter. Odd because when I'm not wearing Dinosaur designs resin, I'm wearing silver. But I found a nifty and environmentally friendly way to clean.

Line your sink with aluminium foil and place objects to be cleaned on its surface. Cover with hot water (don't burn yourself) and sprinkle with bicarb soda (the stuff is good for everything!). Watch the bubbles form (there's your chemistry) and watch the tarnish vanish. Dry and polish with a soft cloth for best results.

Back into the swing of things

There was a fair bit of time spent in the kitchen over the weekend. There had to be, I've been a bit slack recently. The heat was to blame. Thankfully the weekend was mild compared to the last few weeks we've had.

I love that these muffins can handle a multitude of changes. I never use all the oil or sugar, and quite often substitute another fruit for the apple, in this case berries.

Bill Granger's Ricotta Hotcakes were a pretty good, if not a decadent post ride recovery breakfast (I halved the recipe and got two days worth of pancakes). Still I prefer Jamie's recipe. I'd try Bill's again, but I feel the recipe needs tweaking, perhaps only one egg?

Finished the weekend with Sunday night pizza. The Parmesan and sage was our entree pizza.

Softie for Mirabel

Can you believe it? One post after the other with the tag finished! Unheard of round these traps.

Friday night saw me with the house to myself and time to sew with no distractions. I worked on this guy during the week and realised that my overlocking around his ears wasn't quite up to scratch - gaping holes would describe it adequately - I pulled apart the work and started again on a new body. He's wonky, and not really all that owl-like (might have something to do with the mustache) but you know what he's a softie and he's ready to be named and fingers crossed, adored by someone come Christmas.

He's flying off to Pip on Monday.

Sketch Saturday

The top image shows the botanical composition completed in Thursday night's class.
The bottom is just painting because I could, something I should be doing more of.

Quite liking painting watercolour in this heat, it dries so quickly!

Next time

Those close to me know I have an aversion to blue (I'm getting better I swear). Still, I do like the cover for the instructions to the hand-me-down Singer sewing machine Mum gave me.

I hope to spend a bit of quality time with the machine this weekend. I'm keen to finish off the owl softie. Which isn't going as well as I'd hoped, next time I'll follow a pattern! There's been far too much swearing.

Creative Space

Half way through a botanical illustration that hopefully will be finished by the end of class tonight.
Many many other spaces here.

If you can't stand the heat

The thought of turning on a heat generating appliance for any amount of time is rather unappealing as we roll into our fifth day over 30C, even if the kitchen is 7C cooler than up here at blog HQ. Thankfully soba noodles cook in 4 minutes max. A rather tasty salad to which broad beans, grated carrot, spring onion & celery were added. Based loosely on the one I found here. I went light on the vinegar in the sauce though, because too much of that stuff has destroyed a meal or two in this household.

It's beginning to look a lot like Christmas

It's a good thing Mr T doesn't pop by here. These are the tags for his advent calendar. I thought about sewing one, but really I wanted to make use of things we already have. The quilted mason jars I ordered for my party as extra drinking glasses will do nicely. I'll fill them with a small gift/trinket/in-joke/activity/or map to bigger present that doesn't fit in a 375mL jar. My Christmas shopping is well underway!

Stomping the Divots

It would have been a perfect weekend had I not lost my wallet. *Sigh*.
Saturday involved some time on the bike before it got too hot, time in the garden and time at the beach. Sunday was all about the ponies at the Polo. What a way to spend a Sunday afternoon! It was glorious. The game is quite amazing in that each player has 6-7 ponies that he'll ride through the game for about 3 mins each time. The skill of the players and the agility of the ponies was impressive and the Moscato to accompany the day was delicious. Spectators are invited onto the field during the break to stamp down the divots. The girls took the request seriously, the boys not so much. Thanks BG for a lovely day out.

And no I haven't forgotten, Papa, Happy Birthday.

Sketch Saturday

It was all about the double watercolour class this week. Attendance at both Wednesday & Thursday night sessions. The first night I was able to catch up on what I missed last week. Namely an ink drawing. The process went as follows, trace said plant, in this case a strawberry flower and associated leaves. Transfer tracing to paper and go over with ink. Old school, in that there was a nib involved. New school in that the ink is waterproof. Well new to me.

I failed to grasp the hang of using the pen until well after finishing this drawing/painting. Elements I'm happy with include the stem & flower. The leaves, well they're just a disaster. I'm pretty keen to explore this further. I quite like the effect.

Starting the day right

With the arrival of the Christmas edition of Inside Out magazine last night I decided to get up early this morning and treat myself to a flick through. So many wants! Accompanying me was my Turkish coffee. I have a tiny ibrik that serves one. In it I put in water, 2 tsp of Turkish coffee and a tsp of vanilla sugar. Then it requires gentle heat until tiny bubbles appear at the side. A quick stir off the heat, then back on the heat for a brief moment or two. I watch it like a hawk, too many times it's boiled over and been disappointing. This morning it was just right.