cooking shenanigans... and jelly building

I thought I'd best post on Christmas before re-jumping into the new year.

I had visions of our holiday being so relaxing, like we could just stop running around like mad things and breathe a bit. I forgot that after running around like said mad things for so long, it's often likely that you get sick when you stop. Which Tom did. Not fun for him. And teething ramped up a notch for Xi. Not fun for him.

But we were still on holiday, and much hilarity ensured.

I decided I had the time to be in the kitchen properly, and took advantage of the babysitting of nana and poppy to bake. Unfortunately I wasted my cooking zeal on a new type of cake recipe (make a sugar syrup and whip egg whites... never done it that way before) which promised moist, but I found a bit dry or bland or something that doesn't live up to the process of the making, spiral biscuits, you know the ones, chocolate dough, cinnamon dough, layer them on top of one another, roll and cut...... terrible recipe again, waaaaaay too short, thought they were going to melt in the steamy humidity while I was attempting to roll them up, and then melt into black buttery splatter in the oven. Surprisingly they didn't (melt and smoke that is) but after a time in the freezer, they weren't round anymore, instead we got crazy spirals which looked cool, but tasted quite bland, and to add insult to injury, after they were initially eaten, the bottle got forgotten in the cupboard, and the rest of the biscuits went to the scrub turkeys as a holiday treat.

All this disappointing baking happened in one day after weeks of thinking about cooking and what I'd do if I had the time. All I can say is, make a favourite recipe first, or else you'll just despair.

Thank goodness for jelly.

I love making layered jelly, not that excited about eating it, but stripe making is fun. So I volunteered to do the Christmas trifle - individual build your own - style.

Here's a pic of my mum 'supervising' my cousins in the plonking of chocolate cake (beautifully cut out by Kayt with cookie cutters) on top of the jelly.

And here is the 5 star jelly in a plastic cup. Four layers of jelly, one with fruit in it, and a top of chocolate mousse (that was my favourite bit) A bit of cake, and then add your own cream, custard and ice cream. It started out for the kids only, then we figured everyone would like a jelly cup, and I heard that one uncle had the remaining four left over for breakfast the next morning.....

As much as jelly layering is fun, thank goodness for garden produce.

I try and try to grow basil down here to no avail, but at my parents, mum's got bushes of it, and yet there was no pesto in sight.......
We might have got them addicted to it after this harvest got pesto-sised! I started out just picking some for a small bit of pesto, then decided I mose well get rid of all the flowers and then ended up with a pile this big! That's a lot of pesto for someone who is proud of being able to pick five leaves at a time!

Happy New Year!

I think I'll do this a bit backwards, but got to start the new year with new year things (then I'll get back to christmas).

I'm at my parents house at the moment, having a holiday, which is great, but away from all my projects (well, I brought a couple up, but they were more work ones and thus not as exciting as play ones (because I have to do some drawings and they are not my favourite things to do...)).

But I do have a new diary and it's getting full of lists!

I love them.

I also love New Years Resolutions. I find them so exciting, but have always had a bit of trouble with them, probably because they don't contain the usual, eat less, exercise more, but rather I just keep adding to them, until it would take ten years, full time to finish them. So this year I am proposing to put them up here, and see how I go, also not get too carried away with all the things I ever want to do in my life!

As this is a finishing/making blog, and not an emo one, I'll leave off on the personal resolutions and stick with things I want to make/start/finish this year.

MAKING

* Five Fabulous Frocks - does not necessarily have to be a dress (just like the alliteration) but has to be something that has taken time, experimentation and is more than just whipping something up because I have nothing to wear. I have not made anything that falls into this category for myself for the last couple of years, and it makes me sad.

* Origami - I really love unit origami and the kind of obsessiveness it takes to make a structure containing 60 parts, each made up of three separate bits of paper. Aim big and conquer!!! (but I also have trouble following and understanding the instructions at times, so I'll start small)

*Zines - finish the one that I've almost finished, I've just got to do the faffing around for the printing and assemblage, but since it's been so long, I probably need to go back and do a re-write. AND continue (and finish) the one I've just started, about the bit of a life change I've had called Xi.

DOING

*Tidy - finish going through the last couple of boxes in my studio and figure out what to do with all my stuff. Hopefully I'll use a bit of fabric in my fff challenge.

* Photos - go through our entire digital library and print out a selection.

* Frames - finish my framing that I started last year and put them up on the wall!

MISCELLANEOUS

* Start (again) The Divine Comedy and actually finish it.

* Paint my toenails, because it's fun.

et voila!

You always need something easy, fast and cheap to do to help you start your list crossing off!

But they can't all be like that, they need to be challenges above and beyond the normal things you do, and special (or so I think) and to quote LKH,

If it was easy I wouldn’t need to be resolved to accomplish it.

Sample experiments evolve...

After nearly a year of trying, I've finally got a knitting machine that does what I want it to do - fair isle!

Oh how I love it so much.

It didn't really take me that long to figure it out, but it did take that long to get a teacher, realise that the machine I was given wasn't capable of it, find another one, service it, work, go away for work and have a baby....

This is where I thought I'd be in March, starting experiments, making fabrics. I did feel a bit thwarted at every turn for a while, but now all is good.

These were fair isle samples that I turned into stuffed fishie creatures for the babies in my bump club. They've got a magnet in them so they can stick to things (my sewing table for example) or later on, they can go fishing for them with a magnet on a string (I loved those magnetic fish games..)

They are suggestive of fish, I think the last one looks like a speedy dog fish, and the second one looks like a fat slow whale fish. It's the only one with a stuffed tail, and I'm not sure about it. They're prototypes and are whatever shape I made the rectangular piece, but they're for babies, so I'm sure they won't mind that they are a bit wonky.

I used cotton from cones that I'd had stored somewhere, and I thought I'd give them a quick wash before wrapping, and since today was a stinking 39 C, I thought they'd dry quick as a flash, but unbeknownst to me, outside it was becoming muggy, and now it's kinda raining. Hence the fish on the fan.

The textured tails felt quite nice wet, and I was thinking they could be a bath sponge toy maybe. (if I did the whole thing in a tuck stitch). not sure...

What Happened To November?

I guess this did.....

Setting up the show in Sydney, traveling with the bub for the first time (three flights, no crying, fingers crossed for the next ones) meeting 20 relatives (the Sydney and Canberra mob).

Hanging out at the gallery, trying to occupy himself.

Here's a view of the show, Moore Is More, from the mezzanine. It's the same set up as the JamFactory show in February, with some different pieces, and less ponds and more roads.

I don't know what we were thinking when we believed that we could install that kind of exhibition with a 13 week old baby. We did it, but we didn't emerge that triumphant, more like shell shocked. Babysitters will definitely be invited next time!

Finally fixed

My parents got an Arabia dinner set as a wedding present some 38 years ago. Three years ago, I got this teapot as my wedding present. It'd survived because it hadn't been used on account of the dodgy repair job on the handle, and I have only used it twice because of said handle.

I wanted to make a handle myself, and finally decided on buttons. I got some packs of buttons at an op shop and fixed it with cable and two crimps. I didn't know how to end it flush, so I added on little dingle dangle accents. The handle's pretty floppy, so I don't know quite how it will work, will try it out tomorrow with a friend and some pikelets.

Ta da!

Getting into the garden

Since Xi likes to be outside, I've been spending time in the garden, which has been wonderful. I don't think I've ever spent this much time consecutively in it. It's always been a big flurry of gardening, and then work has interfered and I haven't been able to get back to it for ages.

So although I don't spend as long out there in one go, added up I spend more time out there per week, and it shows.

My friend SQ came over for morning tea, about two weeks ago, bought a fine spread of food over and then proceeded to do some weeding and pruning while I had a nap. Can't really get a nicer visit then that - although I didn't want to nap, but well...... I still get pretty knackered easily (and she refused to do anything while I was there). I'm much better now, but two weeks ago, not as good (though I still need plenty of snoozes!)

One thing she did was prune the lavender and then use the cuttings to strike more plants. I don't come from lavender country, so have always been a bit unsure when to prune and how much, consequently it looked like a big sprawling messy thing. It doesn't now, and I'll remember when to prune it again for next year.

I have a cunning plan for the lavender bushes, oh yes.

I shall make a hedge underneath the clothesline. I've got a space between the brick path and the fence, and I've tried quite a few things, iris's and mints, although at the moment, they're fighting for light with the nasturtiums that have taken up residence. But iris's don't really thicken up the space so that a lot of weeds get through, and in summer the heat from the fence burns the mint, and the nasturtiums sprawl everywhere so it's been a pretty unsuccessful patch.

That's where the lavender comes into play. I'm not really into the whole lavender products scene, but I do like the look of the plants, and I like the bees that they attract. And I'll be able to have a dense patch of hedge (that maybe will be shaped in a funny pattern eventually!).

Today I went to the nursery and bought myself a few treats (for being so brave at the surgeon check up appointment) including a pink lavender! Maybe it's the year for pink and purple :) I'd been eyeing off a lovely pink one on the way to the shops, and had taken to carrying a stanley knife in the pram to take some cuttings, but I don't think I did a good job of striking the bit I swiped, so thought I'd get a head start and buy one.

I've also got plans to make another path, like the rock one hitting the brick one above, linking the brick path under the clothesline back to the central cement path.

It might look something like this. Or maybe I just wanted to draw on a photo cause Christine does. On the left is the dying remains of the lovely sugar snap peas we grew. They're so tasty and delicious!

Frames

Another thing on the big list of things to finish was take down all the blue-tacked up photos etc and replace it with art that I finally framed up.

I'm getting there.

I've decided the easiest way to do things is to wait until I have a lot framed, and then figure out where they'll live, otherwise they'll go up willy nilly and just look probably as bad as the bluetacked hodgepodge. Is framing a sign of growing up? Or just being sick of photos falling off the walls in summer?

So I'm pretty happy about these two, since I swapped them for my prints in 2000. Finally I'll get to enjoy them everyday! Above is an etching called 'Knitted Planet' by a classmate (who is still printing strong, unlike distractable me!) and below is a wood engraving by a fabulous old Irishman, who while wasn't an official lecturer, was a great mentor.

This is a drawing that my dad started for me.....a long time ago, not as long ago as my embroidery started, but near there, we reckon around 1998. And he never finished it. Got a block, and we decided it was done. The paving stones and the left side are sketched out, and I think it's a nice contrast to the detailed work of the rest of it. It's a picture of my favourite comic character in her various guises, and I bet he rues the day that he ever asked me what I wanted a drawing of! My dad decides every couple of years to tackle a new medium and throws himself into the deep end - currently it's oil painting and a picture for mum.

I can't think of anything worse than taking up oil painting, but then I got a credit and a 'good effort' comment for my requisite painting subject at art college.

So I reckon I'm nearly there with the art, but I've got a few photos to frame, so............soon I might lay them all out to have a look at and figure out which nails go where!