and the week rolls on by...

we have a vegetable garden!! YAY!! ... newly planted out with a variety of lettuces, spinach, silver beet (one of my very very favourite meals is poached eggs on silver beet or spinach on wholegrain toast with fresh shaved Parmesan - oooh mouth watering!).... hmmm and a few cabbage and broccoli. Yum Yum!

and the lavender has all been cropped and hung to dry

the first batch all ready...

and some stitching at nighttime - I love these Cottage Garden threads, they are soooo lovely to work with,

and of course, I am a real fan of redwork, a gal can never do too much redwork now!

such cute girls these 2 - remind you of anyone...

the local group that I belong to - is currently on summer break until school goes back in February - but in October we were all issued with a challenge; we all had to contribute 3 x 21/2" strips so with the 12 or so all participating in the challenge, that's about 36 long strips of fabric,

what a mixture huh! Lots of lovely fabrics, but not likely what you might choose to put together in one quilt, BUT that is the challenge, should we choose to accept it - nothing will self destruct however - so not quite mission impossible then...

lots of lovely purples - if only purple was a favourite colour - but alas... anyhoo - Stephanie has a challenge going on over at her blog, and maybe, just maybe I can kill 2 birds with one stone (hmm that is such a dreadful saying!), pop over have a look, and join up in the "no strings attached challenge"...

this looks better in real life - truly it does, sometimes photos just do not do our work justice, but I put together several of these this week,

and this is the only one that I have left. Some of our Twizel holiday friends are plunger coffee addicts, so I made some much brighter cheerier ones for their coffee pots,


and I got the dregs so to speak.

and I did these gorgeous Rosalie Quinlan stitcheries and made up the cutest little needle cases from one of her patterns that I have had for bit now... ad made before, they are s quick and easy.

I quite like this life of mine really....

(and before you think that I am sad and pathetic posting on a Saturday night - Rowing Man is on call this weekend, and is currently transporting (via ambulance) a young tramper who has managed to fall off Mt Cook, and has chest pain (maybe fractured ribs??) and multiple lacerations - he needs a hospital methinks! Hence I am home alone, and making productive use of my time!

I hope you are all having a fabulous weekend,

we have a teeny tiny house, and not near enough storage, it was fine as a holiday home, but not quite enough room or storage for everyday living.. so out come the plans.....

and a little bit of co-operation, discussion, and then get to work...

and we now have one of these..

this is our new pantry! Just needs filling now...


it was very sunny 2 minutes ago, and then the thunder clapped very loudly, and the heavens opened!

we put in a new garden area this afternoon, and put the sprinkler on to water being a very hot sunny dry day!!!


but no need, as the rain is just pouring down right now, it is getting a double dose of watering, as I am NOT going out there to turn off the hose.

and the electrical interference has interrupted the news!

guess I will just have to find something to do from this basket then....

Oaty Layered Coffee Wedges

I have had so many e-mail requests for the cake on yesterday's blog post, so here you are:


Oaty Layered Coffee Wedges

185g butter
1/2 can condensed milk
1 tbsp golden syrup
11/2 c wholemeal self raising flour
11/2 (135g) c rolled oats
1c brown sugar firmly packed
1/2 c coconut
1 egg lightly beaten
1tbsp instant coffee (use a really good quality one)
1tbsp hot water
icing sugar

heat 60g butter, condensed milk and syrup until mixture bubbling and light golden brown, remove form heat and allow to cool

melt remaining butter, sift flour into bowl, add butter, oats, egg and combined coffee &water - mix well

press 2/3 of mixture in lined or prepared baking pan, spread over caramel mixture, and sprinkle with remaining oat mixture.

Bake in mod over for about 30mins, or until well browned and crisp.

Cool in baking pan to room temp before cutting (looks best in wedges so I often use a round cake tin), serve warm with fresh fruit, yoghurt or cream ...


and MOST of all - ENJOY!!!!

Simone's charity quilt

I received these fabrics from Simone at the weekend, they are for a charity quilt that she is organising for Dromenquilts - you can read about the quilt challenge here, and more about it here.


Stephanie has made hers and sent them back already! and just like Stephanie, I had some trouble interpreting the flying geese instructions, they were quite complicated, and it has been some time now since I have made flying geese blocks so I needed some practice....

I found Sarah's tutorial really helpful! Thank you so much Sarah...

I have had the munchies all day, and have been snacking on these, just about had the whole jolly packet all by myself! GREEDY!!!

but then I decided that if I was going to eat choc goodies, then I might bake this and take it to the BBQ we are off to with friends tonite... it is a very yummy Oaty Coffee Wedge...

I have also been a bit of a domestic char today, the washing done and back in, (we go through so many beach towels with the hot tub, I am pretty much washing them every day, sometime several times a day!!)

Rowing man's shirts all ironed and hanging in his wardrobe,

and making him some of his favourite - marmalade!!

I hope that you get your blocks soon Simone, I gave them to Rowing Man to drop at the Post Office on his way back to work from lunch, and in the rush to get them in the post, never got a photo of the finished blocks. Hopefully they will be there in a week or thereabouts, I have tucked in a little goodie for you also! You are such a sweetie organising this challenge. I am sure that it is no easy feat, especially when blocks are being sent and received from all around the world.

Have a fun week everyone...

back in the land of the sun!

Is this not the most stunning view to wake up to or what??

last Tuesday, Perth Girl and I headed over the Lindis Pass to visit my sister who has a holiday home in Cromwell,

For those of you that don't know Cromwell, it is located in the valley of the Upper Clutha, deep in the heart of the dry interior of Central Otago in the South Island of NZ . . . it is a landscape of bare brown hills, of tussock & briar, purple thyme and tors of schist, broad basins & fertile valleys, of Lake Dunstan's pristine waters and of gorges carved by two great rivers . . . it is a landscape first trodden by the Maori hunter and trader, opened to European settlement by the sheep farmers, exploited and transformed by the gold seekers and later by the dam builders . . . and now home to the merino and deer farmer, to orchards and vineyards, to artists and artisans. It is a very popular place for holidaymakers for summer water sports and winter skiing.

My nephew just loves getting out on the lake and kayaking, and the area where their holiday home is, makes it so safe and easy...

However, On Wednesday we headed to Dunedin and were greeted with this....

can you see the hailstones? it is a good thing that Dad's toms and strawberries are protected in the glasshouse huh!

it just absolutely poured with rain non-stop, no floods but constant rain... a good time to catch up on reading and heaps of stitching and the odd movie.. lunch in town with Mum and other sister, some shopping - not too much mind....

Janet left for Perth on Thursday and after spending the weekend in Dunedin catching up with friends and other chores, we returned home to this .... much better don't you think!

Now, I have joined Heidi with her Friday night sew-in - pop on over and have a look for yourself, but I thought it sounded like a pretty good idea.

Joining the Friday Night Sew-in is a way of setting some time aside to work on those projects on your to do list, and boy do I have many of those! ... And - it doesn't have to be a sewing project.. maybe a knitting project.. or some stitching or scrapbooking.. it could be absolutely anything. But I sure think it is a good chance to make sure that you get something done... now to order up a nice balmy sunny Twizel summer night, sit outside on the deck with my stitching and a vino.. or two maybe....

enjoy your week every one!

quiet day today then....

This is my December Daily album....

I did one of these last year, and I really enjoyed documenting the days leading up to Christmas Day, last years journal sits on my coffee table with other Christmas decorations over the festive season, and friends & visitors thumb thru it often... I really like flicking through it too and reminding myself where we were at last year!

it doesn't have a cover yet, as I have not really decided what I will do - procrastination at it's best? No not really, I am just waiting 'til we go to town as I need a few bits'n'pieces...

OOPS - flash breaking thru a bit here..

this is day 4, despite looking like it may be day 21 - on Dec 4th we got a letter box, our street # is 21..

there is a still quite a bit of work to do on some of the pages...

and some may just be...

Ali Edwards, Janelle Wind, Molly Irwin, and many others bloggers are the inspiration for this Christmas journal, have a look at what they have created! Also have a look here,
and here.... and here... and here... and there are so many many more creative folks out there.

my pages look quite plain really, but I am happy with them!!

now scrapbooking is really not my thing, (have I not enough to do already!), but I did enjoy putting this journal together, and will very likely do it again next year too!

and I am waiting to go to town to print some photos (Stationery Warehouse prints for 19c a print - and this is my year for being frugal - thanks Fiona!)