It's been a while....

I've been busy, so busy. Holidays, work, kids, reading, crochet have kept me out of trouble but no time to blog. Winter is here in full swing, and with that comes a little bit of a loss of enthusiasm unfortunately.

I've been busy making loads of hats and jewellery, tons of orders have kept me busy!! But there has been a bit of time for a lovely Rainbow Scarf for each of my girls, a few natural remedies (hence the Calendula below) and of course baking.

It's been a busy morning, racing the kids around to school, swimming, creche and now I'm having a peaceful cup of tea before I need to hang out yet another load of washing - it's the first non-rainy day in quite a few days. I love Mondays! It's my "day off". No kids, no work (well, not in the office anyway) and I can turn up the radio and enjoy the relative peace.

Have a lovely day everyone xxxx Kylie

Family Fun

 Fun family day on Saturday just gone, we took off down to a little region about an hour south of home and did the touristy thing. Matakana Markets were fab (including the crochet and cushion stall below - had to sneak a wee photo), so many yummy things to eat, lots of things to look at, including ducks which were the main attraction for the girls (see above) and a really lively atmosphere.

I got myself a wee treat while at the market, a cutesy vintage sewing box. It needs a bit of restoration work, including a wooden handle again, a few holes to be plugged, take off the gnarly lock and I'll put some knobs back on. A good sand and re-stain and it should look fab. I've always wanted one!

 

There is only so much shopping the other half can cope with though, so we spent a few hours at the beach. Goat Island was the first stop - big girl and Dad went snorkeling while little one and I sat on beach in the rain. We moved onto Mathesons Bay and it was magic. Pontoon to swim out to, mostly deserted beach. Kids had a ball!!

So after a day of slacking (relaxing really) I got busy making some Tomato Relish on Sunday. It is the best relish I've EVER made. More to be made next weekend!

No crochet progress, should hopefully have a wee ta-dah moment soon though. The hook is busy in the meantime.

Have a good remainder of the week xx Kylie

Just peachy!

 

I love late summer flowers. Dahlias and Gladiolis are popping up all over the garden, I'm so pleased as I have a new found love for them. They remind me of my Nan who loved Dahlias. I, for some strange reason, did pull up a whole heap of bulbs and tossed them away when we first moved in here. I have no idea why but I'm so pleased most of them still thrive out there.

Rat damage

There has been an invader in the orchard. Pesky rats have been chewing their way through the start of our summer crop of peaches. I'm not putting up with that at all - we have hardly any fruit this summer (codling moth has got just about our whole apple crop) so I got out there on the ladder, a big deal for height-a-phobic me, and put plastic bags (with lots of holes cut for air and moisture to escape) around each and every ripening peach. I'm happy to say that we are now enjoying beautiful big juicy peaches, and the rats are no longer beating us to them!

 

I'm loving the water lillies that have graced our pond as well, it must be a fairly healthy environment at the moment as we have some baby goldfish to go with our other six guppies in there at the moment. Obviously when a school friend of my big girl dropped off a couple more goldfish for us one must have been a boy! The girls are loving seeing these baby fish and really enjoy feeding them.

You can even see one of the baby fish (little brown thing) if you look closely enough.

The husband has always liked to drink Lemon & Barley water as a thirst quencher, but at $5 a bottle when we go through it quickly it seems a bit pricey. So he googled a recipe the other day and made some. About 50c worth of barley, a bit of sugar, water, lemon and there you go. Plus the chooks loved the left over barley once it was strained off. Homemade Lemon & Barley - much better for us too as sugar isn't the main ingredient anymore.

Recipe here

It's been a weekend of getting ready for school again. After 7 weeks finally school is going back tomorrow.  I've loved most of the holidays but being a working parent means that the last two weeks have been a bit of a juggle. Bags are almost all packed and baking has been done.

Have a lovely week xxx Kylie

Wonderful weekend

A weekend full of wonderful treats - I was so spoilt by my darling friend, Leah. Gosh I am so lucky. Lots of laughter, shopping, crochet, jewellery making, cafes (Martha's Pantry was a real highlight) and of course, lots of talking!

I found some fabulous goodies on our op shop trips - including the perfect dress, and I was lucky to get a wonderful kitch tray for the caravan - made from a 70's puzzle - at a craft show (The Knack).

I also had a real treat with driving Leah's classic car - I can't believe she let me. It is the cutest bright yellow Fiat Bambina, and I must have looked a right sight grinding the gears and giggling until tears streamed down my face!

We had fun comparing our ripple blankets...

And we made some great new rings and necklaces. I've got some further supplies and have been busy making a few more goodies for Birthday and Christmas pressies. 

It's a busy time of year still, I'm not getting much time in front of the computer for fun, it's all work work work unfortunately. So I am here, but not posting much.

Roll on Christmas!!

Have a great week

Kylie xxxx

Hits and Misses

It’s been an interesting week or so. A few good things, a few more not so great things. I won’t dwell on the bad stuff (except for a heavy cold I currently have – splutter, sniff, sniff seems to be my day at the moment), but I have been enjoying this early spring weather and have made the most of it out in the garden the last few days. Spring has just blown a gentle wave over the garden and there is so much new life – really quite magical. I can sit out there for hours and enjoy the sweet smells and the prettiness (well, as long as the children let me sit!).

The Vege garden in looking in great shape, Fennel, Kale, crazy cabbages that never "cabbaged" but just grew huge, and the biggest abundance of Broccoli EVER. We are eating it with every meal (no lie). Any Broccoli recipes gladly welcomed.

 

The spring bulbs are just stunning. One I am loving in my little Peony Tulip (the Peony is my favourite flower but unfortunately I can’t grow them in this warmer part of NZ – I used to have success further South in NZ) so this is a little pretend Peony.

 

I have loads and loads of seedlings growing as well, my sweet peas and coriander are ready to harden off out, and I'm bound to have a heap more ready shortly. Better make some spaces in the garden for all of these delights!                                              

 

Baking has been definitely full of hits and misses this week. I've made some fabulous biscuits.....

And some I’d rather never try again. I didn't photograph those ones though..... Even the girls won’t eat them (chooks didn’t mind though).

I have a great recipe book from the library “The Aunt Daisy Baking Book”  which has some great old fashioned recipes. Aunt Daisy was a NZ radio host back in the 1930s, well known for her handy home hints (Aunt Daisy's home hints) and Baking secrets.  Her recipes are interesting though. Most of her techniques assumed that baking was second nature to all with instructions such as “Bake in the usual way”, and never stated oven temperatures. This book has been adapted to fit more a more modern style of baking.  The Afghan Biscuits were the best I have ever made (although the recipe only made a very small batch – obviously they were more rationed back in the 30’s than we are with baked goods now.

 Afghans
170g butter
85g Sugar
170g Flour
Pinch of salt
1 Tablespoon Cocoa
60g Cornflakes
Cream butter and sugar. Add dry ingredients. Roll into small balls (heaped teaspoon sized amounts) and cook on a cold oven tray in a moderate over (180C) for about 15 minutes.

I also have a new lush early evening weekend treat drink. “Tangelo Gin & Tonic” that I found here. Divine!!

And the blanket – it’s been decided by daughter number one that daughter number two will have it (as she wants more “blues” in her colours – is coming along nicely. And I’m sewing in the ends as I go now. Much better!

 

Have a wonderful week xxx Kylie

P.S if you are quick you can enter a fabulous giveaway on my my very dear friends blog whydidntanyonetellme

An addition

We have a new member of our household.... a beautiful Tortie female cat. She's 2 years old called "Tootu" (pronounced Tut-tu - it's a Maori term for touching with everything or into everything). She is very aptly named so far as she is very mischievous. I think the correct spelling should be Tutu but we adopted her from the SPCA and they'd named her there. 

We lost our beautiful Burmese boy Jack back in December due to a massive infection that he couldn't recover from and we were hesitant to get another cat as we didn't want to "replace" him. BUT we live in the country and really need a cat to keep the mice at bay, and they are lovely company on these winter nights. We went into the SPCA and told them that we wanted a slightly older cat and it must be robust. A dear friend once told me that "You don't pick a cat, it picks you" and this is so true as Tootu jumped up and put her paws out to us. We knew we had to take her home right then and there.

My youngest girl is loving her already - the oldest is away at a sleepover so she hasn't seen her yet (except for in the car when I got her out of her class for a few minutes to take a sneak peak on our way home).

For anyone who has room in their homes (and hearts) for a new cat or dog the SPCA (we are in Whangarei, but all other branches as well) are desperate, as ever for homes for their temporary residents. They are full to the brim, and desperately need cat and dog food as well if you can spare any. The staff (mainly volunteers) do such an amazing job in sometimes very difficult situations.

Tootu is fast asleep at the moment, so I'll take this chance to get the crochet hook out as I can't get much done around her - she thinks its a great chasing game.

I took this shoot between rainshowers today - a stunning Koru (fern). Love them, NZ nature at it's best.

I just had to add a couple of photos of my girls - the little one on a daycare farm trip and the big one as an alien at school for "Space Day" yesterday. We had to provide a plate of space themed food for a shared lunch so I did green caramel popcorn in individual bags - "Alien Power Food". The kids seemed to love them!

When plans have to change

We had a sick child over the weekend, nothing major but enough to make us miss our weekend away. A real shame but at least we made the most of it and tried to be fairly productive.

My favourite slice currently - Caramel Oat Slice (based on a Jo Segar recipe). It's supposed to be made as a cake but it's just so rich that i prefer to make it as a slice and cut into smallish pieces. I also usually use white chocolate drizzled over the top but I'm all out of that until shopping day so dark chocolate was even better I think. Mmmmmm divine!

The girls were going it stir crazy stuck at home so I made them some playdough, but this time with a twist. Strawberry flavoured pink playdough and Peppermint flavoured green playdough. I use the cooked version of playdough and it always turns out perfectly.


Playdough recipe

1 1/2 cups flour
1/2 cup salt
1 1/2 cups of water
1 Tablespoon Vegetable Oil
1/2 Tablespoon Cream of Tarter
Food colouring (and essence if desired)

Mix all together in a saucepan, heat over a low/med heat stir occasionally. When ingredients start sticking together (about 5-8 mins) then remove from pan and lay out on floured board or wax paper. Knead until smooth. Have fun with it :)

Pizza

I've also been busy with some nice natural remedies. A cute little airfresher (baking soda and essential oil) in a stylised jar (found on pinterest - gosh I love that site!!!) and more liquid handwash - this time in Rosewater fragrance.

Have a great week  x  Kylie

Groovy Baby

I posted a few days ago about the outfit for the 70's party we are going to shortly, well I decided a nice little Teal crochet headband will be just the ticket to compliment it.

Only one problem -  I had my hair cut shorter today and it now doesn't look quite right....... Oh well I'm sure I will wear it sometime.



The Chief finished making his Cider on Monday - it's now bottled and brewing nicely in the hot water cupboard. All 30 bottles of it. I can't wait to try it in a few months.

Right I have a few jobs to do then I think I'll get out the hook for a few hours, I'm making good progress on my Granny Squares now so hopefully not too long until I have almost enough for a blanket. I'm quite liking the colours - cute huh?

 Night all  - K xx