Brrrrrrr

Nuff said.

Nanna

RIP Our Beloved Nanna. We loved you and we will miss you.

 

May 18, 1919 – May, 21 2012

More Sports Sunday

Not content with my first ice hockey game, I took youngest to meet up with hubby at hubby’s car club. It is their 10th anniversary so they had a gala type day to celebrate.

I went back to pick him up and drop off oldest at the same time. Oldest has taken up cycling and he does about a 50km ride when I take him to the lakes. There is a safe bike track there.

In the end I stayed for about 2 hours as my friend showed up with her gorgeous twin daughters.

Hubby didn’t do so well while I watched him. The first few laps were ok but then he crashed and his car had to be taken on the walk of shame back to the pits.

Here is hubby in the middle on the top of the race stand. His car is in the foreground.

Here is his smashed car. The right hand rear wheel is missing.

Ice Hockey

This morning I got up even earlier than I do on a weekday to go watch my nephews play ice hockey. Ice hockey is a comparatively rare sport here in Oz. most kids play soccer, cricket or football. My nephews’ father is from Canada so they play ice hockey. I think that’s great.
I have never watched an ice hockey game before and this was a under 12s team with mixed ages, sizes and abilities. It was still pretty exciting. The action was nonstop and the game was very close with the visiting team winning 7-6.
I will definitely go and watch the kids play again. I was bundled up pretty well to keep warm but next time I will definitely take a quilt to sit on too.

Cooking Day

We (well hubby) fired up the oven yesterday and we had my sisters and their families over for pizza night. It was so much fun!

We all shared the bringing and preparation of ingredients and we made almost 20 pizzas including a 10cm sized one for the baby (who is 16 months old).

Hubby experimented with an apple, cinnamon, sugar, marshmallow and custard dessert pizza and it was deemed a success.

I also had some extra dough and toppings so I rolled out the leftover dough and spread everything out on top. I rolled it up and popped it into a loaf tin then covered it and chucked it into the fridge overnight.

This morning I took the loaf out and let it sit for a couple of hours to warm up and rise. The pizza oven was still at about 200 degrees C. I baked the loaf in the pizza oven and it was eaten up very quickly for lunch.

To not waste all of that heat, I also baked a whole chicken, a focaccia, a loaf of bread and a loaf of gluten free bread. For dinner, I also baked potatoes, sweet potatoes and some marinated chicken pieces for dinner. Yum!

Not content with that I also have a large leg of lamb slow cooking in my cast iron casserole dish at the moment. I pop the lamb leg in with a huge bunch of Rosemary (which we have growing out the front), garlic cloves, a few tins of crushed Roma tomatoes and some red wine. Leave for 3-4 hours and it turns into a pot of yummy goodness.

Inside the house I also made a batch of curried chicken, a batch of vegetable soup and chicken stock from the chook carcass that I had baked earlier in the day.

Whew I am worn out from all that cooking. Do you think that the food inhalers (aka the kids) will volunteer to do the washing up for me???

And what is a post without a picture? Here is Lola with her teddy.

Hot Cross Buns

Fresh out of the oven…. two dozen fist sized hot cross buns.

One dozen are the traditional fruit type and the other were supposed to be white choc chip but the choc chips kept melting into the dough.

Note to self – don’t use choc chips in dough made with warm milk.

They smell yum but not so good for gluten free me. The family had better appreciate them…

Still, I made 2 dozen for the price of 6 ready made ones from the supermarket.

Not Fun, Really

Just had some ‘fun’ this afternoon. The clothes dryer motor blew and it was smoking lots and lots. I thought it was going to catch on fire for sure. I quickly unplugged it but I couldn’t get it off the wall to take it outside. No matter how how hard I pulled and twisted it. I even stood in the tub and tried to unscrew the bracket. I ended up calling the fire brigade who came to the rescue. It was very frightening. I seriously thought is was about to catch alight.
Yes I do always clean the lint out. Please never put your dryer on and go out. I am so very glad I was home when this happened. The house could have burned down if I was out.

Stuff I’ve Been Up To

Not one, but two trips into the city. That’s about my annual quota right there. I don’t make the trip in very often.

 

The first trip was to the Powerhouse Museum to see the Harry Potter exhibition. Here we are approaching the ANZAC Bridge. Photos taken on my iPhone.

Oh yeah, that’s 60 kilometres per hour, not miles, for those who were wondering…

This bridge isn’t the famous Sydney Harbour Bridge, but I quite like it. You can see Sydney Tower in the bottom left hand quadrant of the above picture.

We had to book a specific time to see the exhibit, so we hung out for a bit in one of the open spaces at the museum.

The exhibit was borderline OK. The kids liked it, but I think is wasn’t worth the $$$ or the trip. Some people flew to Sydney to see this. I am glad I didn’t do that. Not being a super huge HP fan, it wasn’t my thing. What was interesting was looking at the costumes and seeing how they were made and what materials they used. It was also kinda fun to see how little Harry and Hermione were when the first film was made and how much they grew for the last.

 

This shot is of Darling Harbour, looking towards the city.

I had a new logo designed for Pinetree Cottage Quilting and made over my website. I had new business cards printed and they arrived today. I love them!!!

 

 

We have been making pizzas. GF vegetarian pizza for me. I have never liked any meat apart from chicken on a pizza. Yum.

 

 

On Thursday night, hubby and I went to the State Theatre (in the city) to see Tim Minchin. I love his humour and outlook on life. I know he isn’t everyone’s cup of tea. I don’t care, I really enjoyed the show.

The State Theatre is very ornate inside. There is a strict no photo policy inside, darn it. Lots of design inspiration in there. We were in the front row of the mezzanine floor. Excellent seats! The tickets were my xmas present to myself.

I am also back at work quilting. This is my first all over of the year. The custom quilt I am working on is going into a magazine, so no pictures allowed. It is very modern and fun to quilt

Out On My Own

I went to the movies today to see the Girl with the Dragon Tattoo. I loved the books and have been looking forward to the movie. I always envisaged Daniel Craig as Mikael Blomqvist even before I knew he was in the movie. He was perfectly cast. Rooney Mara was also a very convincing Lisbeth Salander.

Of course adapting such an intense novel would be difficult but I though the movie was fantastic. I don’t go to the movies very often and at $18.50 a ticket (that’s about $19.50 US Dollars for my USA friends) I am much too cheap to go unless I really really want to see the movie. This one was worth it.

A Finished Quilt!!!

I have finished and bound my Gira Rosa quilt. It was designed by Michelle Marvig and published in Australian Patchwork and Quilting. I was lucky to grab a kit from Michelle so a)I didn’t have to think too hard to match my fabrics and b) mine looked like hers  - which I loved.

Anyhow, here are the pictures.

On the grass – this shows the whole quilt – it is 60×60 inches.

Gratuitous shot over the chook pen. Please understand this is MY quilt and I would NEVER do this with a client quilt.

Do you like my mystery vine next to the chooks? I think is is a pumpkin. It came up a few weeks ago and I decided to leave it there and see what happened. They must be messy eaters and throw their food out because there are several tomatoes and another maybe pumpkin vine on the other side growing too.

Ditto.

Flung over the clothesline for a better detail shot.

More detail. My quilting is indeed freehanded. Those feathers come out of my head, through my hands guiding the quilting machine and on to the quilt.

And showing the border. Look – the binding is on too. I machine bound this one – it is mine, mine, mine and to be used for snuggling under in winter.

I love my new quilt and as quick as the quilting seems to be, I started making this in, I think, 2009. Maybe even 2008.