Wednesday 20 June 2012

A stretchy scarf

It was Mother's Day a while ago (QUITE a while ago!) and my mum had been saying how chilly it was getting down in Canberra I thought I'd make a little scarf for her.

But I'm a bit of a fan of trying new patterns so I used this Morris and Sons pattern, called the Alexandria Cowl,  with some 8ply red wool and a smaller 2 ply black and grey wool. It reminds me of a concertina and I love how slinky and stretchy it turned out.


 I gave it to mum a few weeks ago but she didn't have a chance to take a photo of herself wearing it until the other day. Cute!




 Nice one ma!

Wednesday 13 June 2012

The big wet

Last weekend was a lovely loooong weekend, with three whole days to lie around and relax. Ben and I had planned to go camping down near Jervis Bay with friends and despite the rain through the week Ben swore it wouldn't rain during the weekend.

Boy oh boy was he wrong. It poured!

We had a nice fine Saturday where we set up our tent and lounged around, then drove from beach to beach where Ben and Murray would stand and stare at the waves to see if they were good enough to surf.

The Sunday morning was quite fine too but come Sunday afternoon it started to bucket down. Not to let that get in the way of a good camping trip though, we had a giant tarp which we could huddle under and play cards (Blackjack is confusing when no-one remembers the rules).

While we were away looking for surf breaks, a giant, chubby wallaby came and ate our bread. Cheeky little thing. We was pretty tubby, I think he just went from campsite to campsite eating bread.

On the way home on Monday we decided to take a short cut past some of the traffic. Lesson learned- never trust google maps when it says a road is a road -it may be just a fire trail. With all the rain, the fire trail was pretty slippery and there were a few 'jump out and push moments'. The best part comes when we dropped into Ben's folks place and I was telling his dad how we almost got bogged. Ben came in and said 'I've bogged the car in the backyard.' His folks live with a block of land that gets pretty soggy when it's wet. So then we had to do another rescue mission!

From top left: Bogged car, Ben and Murray checking out the surf, Ben and Murray looking at a surf break, a dead fish, Benj cooking, more surf watching, a tubby wallaby.

Monday 4 June 2012

Ironcef Champion!

I'd like to introduce you to the 2012 Ironcef champion.....me!

Each year my work holds an Ironcef  cooking competition where each team is allocated an ingredient and has to cook from it. Last year we got lemons and I made a lemon slice that came second so this year I felt needed to up my game.

Our ingredient this year was....*drum roll*.... chocolate! Now personally, I think chocolate is a tricky one to win a cooking competition on, so I knew I needed to do something that would really stand out. After lots of umming and arghing I decided on these delicious chocolate coverage orange peel from Smitten Kitchen.

These were in the fridge overnight as I was too busy eating and forgot to take photos on the day!

 There was some amazing competition (veal schnitzel anyone?) but I was so chuffed to be named winner.On the recipe itself, it was actually REALLY simple. Like put the orange peels in a sugar syrup, watch an episode of Game of Thrones, cool them down, dip in chocolate and then eat straight away place in container.

The Ironcef trophy!

Seriously. Make these.

Friday 1 June 2012

To sleeve or not to sleeve

That is the question. Whether to wear ones sleeves too tight, or let the arms hang free. 

So I got overexcited and made a Banksia top without making a muslin. Of course, this would cause problems with the end result. For some reason the sleeves were just SO tight, they dug right into my armpits. There's nothing I find more uncomfortable than tight sleeves. How about you? 

So I decided if I actually wanted this top to get some wear I had to take drastic action. Operation Sleeve removal. I did this the really untechnical way, I'm sure there is a technical way out there but for all of you lazy people who have tight sleeves and want a quick fix here's what I did.

Step one: Try on top.

Step two: Mark with a pen where about you'd like the sleeves, or sleeveless-ness to sit.

Step three: measure one side to make sure both sides are even. For me, I needed about 1 inch just from the bottom of the sleeve, the top part was perfectly fine. So I just marked 1 inch out from the bottom side seam on each sleeve and then cut the sleeve out with scissors, being careful not to cut away too much seam allowance at the bottom.

Step four: Make some bias tape! Making bias tape is pretty easy and makes your top look all neat and professional. I had lent my bias tape maker to Megan just earlier that week so just ironed the tape in half and then ironed the other pieces into the centre. Volia bias tape! If you're not sure, here's an easy tutorial from Colette Patterns.

Step five: Sew bias tape onto top.

Step six: Bask in the glory of your new, comfortable, armpit relaxing top.