Sunday, 29 November 2015

Cook book find, cake baking, and current sewing projects

The JediKid (also known as "The Tall One"; or " Shorty" courtesy of my Dad!) turned 15 last week. So I baked a cake, & my H decorated it. Perfect for a geek/ nerd teen...



( shown with an actual controller for scale & design!)
The tradition in our house is that the birthday person gets to pick where to go for dinner. The birthday boy did suggest Vue de Monde (as if!) ,... but settled for curry at Kake di hatte in Lygon St instead. We parked in a side street and had just started walking to the restaurant, when I spied a pile of books on the front fence of a small block of apartments. A sign on the fence said something like " try a new recipe - free cookbooks, please take". How could I resist?



The cupcakes book is really just fancy smancy ideas for decorating cupcakes, so I might donate it to the opshop. A couple of recipes in the Philly cheese " simply heaven" books look good. Always looking for a new cheesecake recipe to try!
I finally got some sewing done this week, first time in ages the overlocker has been out. I picked up this little retro sewing table a while back, and although I have to store it outside ( in the outdoor loo in fact!) and bring it in the house to use, it is the perfect height for sewing, I don't need to have an extension cord across the floor, and it frees up the dining table for cutting out etc. The bracket for the other side table bit (on the right side) is missing, but I don't have the space to put that bit up anyway.





And what did I sew? - three more scoop tee's of course! i love my last stripe/ print combo one so much, I made a spot/ stripe one, shown in progress here. Will have to remember to take photos if the 3 new tees for next time.



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Tuesday, 17 November 2015

Chicken love

We have 2 chooks at the moment, one "new girl" Lily, the only surviving "baby" from January, and Amy, who is about 3 years old I think. We let them out in the garden on the weekend, I have to fence them off now the veges are planted, or they would dig everything up!
They still have a fairly big grass area beside the shed to explore, plenty of grass and weeds to eat. But no, they both wanted to be in the same little patch of bare dirt next to the bunny hutch, both having a dirt bath. They were in there for ages, and had such a lovely tine that when they were back in their run hours later, I they had a thorough preen, then sat on their perch "purring".













You can see the dirt all over their backs and wings! They step on each other, and kick dirt over each other (and all through the bunny hutch & her water bowl too!). Happy hens indeed!

Thursday, 5 November 2015

Sour cream and ginger cake

Thanks to seeing a recipe over at The Second Hand City the other day ( from a Kyle Kwong cookbook) we have been eating this yummy cake for dessert -


Super easy to make, and all stuff I already had, with a couple of shortcuts like finely chopped buderim naked ginger instead of grated raw ginger, and cream soured with lemon juice instead if sour cream. I was fascinated to see how the cream poured on top of the cake mix before baking would work out, it kind of sinks to a lovely gooey centre in the bottom centre of the cake.

Ginger & sour cream cake
185g butter
1 cup muscovado sugar
3 eggs
7cm piece of ginger, grated OR 6-8 pieces of naked ginger
1 1/2 cups SR flour
2/3 cup sour cream
1tbspn raw sugar

Preheat oven 170.
Line 22cm round tin with baking paper.

Cream butter and sugar, add eggs 1 at a time.
Add ginger, blend til smooth.
Fold in flour, mix well.
Pour cake mix in tin, make indentation in top of mix.
Pour in cream, sprinkle with raw sugar.
Bake 50 min or til cooked.

Enjoy!

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Tuesday, 3 November 2015

Cup Day Craft

Watching "Have you been paying attention?" on tv last night, I was enchanted by the crochet flower necklace that Cal Wilson was wearing. Half awake/ half asleep this morning, I was thinking about random craft/ sewing ideas before getting out of bed, then I remembered the necklace. And I remembered buying a selection of these crocheted flowers from the discount table at Spotlight a few years ago -


The colours are a bit "meh" really, which is why I have never done much with them. But now I have a box of fabric dye sprays, so now they look like this!



Plus once sprayed, they become a bit stiff, so it gives them a better shape & structure. Once they are all completely dry I will play around with making a necklace. But first I am going to bake a ginger and sour cream cake, saw the recipe this morning over at the second hand city and it looks delicious!

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Sunday, 1 November 2015

Hand made halloween

Even though we have had the invitation for weeks and weeks (and just how cool is this for a party invitation?! - pickled eye ball in a jar!)


as usual it was a bit of a last minute "Mum can you make me...?" costume drama in our house this week. Well, actually we did have some plans, the Jedi Kid had his outfit planned since an op shop trip in the school holidays yielded this- and a white dress shirt.



Although I don't think he actually wore this, since I made this mitt for his outfit instead -


I came up with my plan last week, found a skirt at the op shop, cut and painted a white mask from Spotlight, and added a flower headband from the 40% off table also at Spotlight.


Tigerboy took a bit longer to decide, but a quick look through 2 oppies, Savers, and Super Cheap fabrics in Sydney Rd late this week, provided a $1 black shirt, $4 vest and the perfect " bright coloured animal print fabric" ( who knew that would prove to be the hardest thing to find?). Walking back to the car park, I passed a bargain shop with $2 plastic masks out front, I tore the black fabric from around it, cut to make a bit smaller, painted and turned into this half mask ( original on left, new version on right)



An up- past-midnight sewing session had the jacket/ vest and tie made-



I wasn't sure about sewing around the lapel, and kind of used the pin-it-try-it-on- then-cut method (inspired by the cartoon in Susan Boynton's chocolate book about how to make a giant chocolate rabbit - "get a giant block of chocolate and chip away any bits that aren't rabbit- ish").

For the shirt - I suddenly remembered, " hang on, you do know how to sew, you do understand basic garment construction" DUH! So I traced around the black shirt and basically made a front, back, and brand new sleeve from pink animal print flanelette from Spotlight.
Then I cut the black sleeve off from the inside, cut the cuff off the other sleeve (it was a women's shirt with 3/4 length sleeves) and reattached some of the other sleeve, to make it a full length sleeve. Then I quickly made brand new button holes on the pink side, so it was a proper " male" shirt ( why oh why are men's & women's shirts still made with buttons on different sides,as if women still have servants dressing them!?! But men of course are able to do their own buttons up!). Anyway -


Shirt and jacket together - oh, and the tie too!


Funnily enough, while writing this I am watching a doco- movie on SBS2 about Comic Con - featuring people making and wearing their cos-play costumes! I reckon we are all set for Aus Comic Con next year!

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