simply home

The weather is starting to turn more towards winter. I think it's still a mild winter, but July will soon tell if we are having much of a winter at all. The mornings are foggy and chilly but the days warm up nicely.

We had an uncle and aunt visit, mum's brother and sister in law. It was nice to see mum using some of the 'good china' she has in boxes for the table. I don't think anyone noticed we were using a Christmas tablecloth for the table. Shhh, don't tell.

Before everyone came mum was showing me some old photos. The gentlemen and the lady at the top are Mrs B and Boad, mums mother and father who have passed on. I've seen two of the photos before but the black and white one interested me the most. The lady in the middle (Grandma Warner) of those two young boys was my Great Grandmother, mum's grandmother; who has also passed on. The boy next to the house picture now lives in the house. I find it always interesting to see family time lines like that. 

I've also been tackling that UFO basket of sewing things. A bit of stitching on this. And a bit of stitching on that. Who knows I might finish some of the projects this century. I did some stitching on my crazy quilt and there's progress finally. Spider webs are for luck. I'll need luck to finish this.

I've also been working up a book. A Herbal for my pressed herbs and such. I've made a bound book and I've been tea staining papers to include in the book. I'm not sure how I want to decorate the pages yet, but I do know I want handwriting and drawings with pressed herbals and flowers. I'll be sure to show the finished result or at least a WIP of the herbal book later.

I've also been working on ideas for new paintings. So even though I've been a home body I'm still very busy with puttering around doing my own hobbies and helping around the home. Who says you need to go out to find entertainment?

I hope everyone is having a good day or evening where ever you are.

heartfelt time

The weather looks like it is about to bring in some rain, I hope to get a walk in this afternoon before it does. Meanwhile I've been checking the flowers in my homemade flower press and noted some of them I recently pressed are nicely pressed ready to be used for some projects. I brought a couple of items from the thrift store thinking they would work well with pressed flowers added to them. This small timber clock I brought for about two dollars and I unscrewed the back to prepare it for the flowers. I made a 'dry' run of the floral arrangement before I glued the pressed flowers down. When happy with the arrangement I glued the flower arrangement down and I added a thin coat of artist varnish and put the clock back together. All the clock needs is a new battery. This will make a nice frugal Christmas gift for someone.

For more information on pressed flowers visit my link to: The art of pressing flowers 

I've also been looking at Youtube video's about Quilt Bed Turning. Such a fascinating thing to watch as each quilt is turned back and the history of each quilt is explained. Eleanor Burns is a well known quilter and this is her Quilt Bed Turning. Grab yourself a cuppa tea or coffee and sit back to watch this very informative bed turning. I enjoyed myself with some giggles and ooohs and ahhs with each turn of the quilts.

I hope everyone is having a good day or evening where ever you are.

gathering fragments

The first day of winter arrived here on Sunday although you'd be hard pressed to find anything winterish about it. The day was chilly but overall very nice and not at all like winter. I think the garden is confused with the weather as we still have roses blooming lovely in the yard. We've also had a glut of beans, peas and cherry tomatoes. The peas hardly make it off the vine and into the kitchen with every one just wandering down to the back yard for a nibble.

Things have been busy of late. There's been a few doctor's appointments with the elders and myself, mostly checkups. Apparently I need to change my non-existent exercise habit, to be fair, I walk, just not enough.To improve feeling tired and mostly run down I need to get moving. I also think this tiredness is part of the hysterectomy and menopause but I'll get moving more to see if that improves things. To sum up: I'm 47 years old and I feel at least 110. So walking is on the agenda. Other things on the agenda was removing my art blog I don't feel the need to have two blogs. So my paintings stays here.

I've been slowly progressing on two small quilts. With everything going on, they are taking more time than I like. I hope to be finished with them soon. Do you recognize some of the fabric? I sure did get a lot of mileage out of that length of reused fabric. 

I like this from Lydia Child. Written in 1831, it still seems suitable for today's living and I know a lot of people including myself who make use of everything where possible. I have a little book where I write nice things down in. My hand writing isn't the greatest but I prefer to write things out than copy paste and print. 

I hope everyone is having a good day or evening where ever you are.

Small Sayings

O sing to the Lord a new song.

-Psalms 96.1

I hope everyone is having a good day or evening where ever you are.

Home Life

The weather has been quite nice of late. A few chilly mornings with some frost but the days have been rather glorious. Not at all like winter but we still have another month or two to go before winter really ends and spring arrives in September. 

Dad's garden has been giving us some winter harvests. Peas. The last of the cherry tomatoes. Radishes. There's also Zucchini to come too. 

The geranium I brought home from the last Simple Living swap has been planted and is blooming lovely. 

The other day I went over to the patchwork shop just around the corner from me, to buy some hexie shapes for a project someone wants me to do. More on that later. The paper shapes weren't too badly priced and I justify spending money on what really is cardboard I could cut up by myself is the fact these can be re-used.

As I was going into the shop I saw Nanna Chel driving around towards her place...at least I can say I never did buy the whole shop.

The hand piecing for the Kansas Dugout is also going along nicely. This is another project to go with the above hexie piece.

I've also been thrifting again. Not much in the ways of picking but I did come home with a nice fluted pie dish and this book which is about Australian pioneer women. 

Inside it's all about how Australian women of the past made their homes and what they did in it. 

 I brought the Gentle Arts one online by the same author and it too is about crafts of the Australian women of the past.

Both books are very imformative and I like learning about my heritage. The things written in the books I've heard before from my mum and dad. From their parents. Mum convinced my great grandmother to trade in her old copper laundry kettle for a new (at the time) wringer twin tub. Dad's family they lived in tents out in the bush as ringbarkers and also mining sapphires and the like. 

Below is some of Dad's relatives from the past. Don't they look stylish for tent living.

I hope everyone is having a nice day or evening where ever you are

P.S: I also forgot to mention in the Salmon Rissoles recipe you can also add cooked peas to them to give a nice taste too.

Peaceful home

The temperature dropped today as forecast and if you happened to be up early enough you'd have seen frost on the ground. I saw the frost after it had started to thaw leaving behind glittering jewel drops. While the day was cold it was still nice enough. 

For supper tonight we are having Salmon Rissoles...the recipe is below.

SALMON RISSOLES

INGREDIENTS

Potatoes

Butter

Breadcrumbs

Pink or red salmon drained and flaked

4 green onions chopped

Zest and juice of 1 lemon

1 egg

Flour for rolling

Vegetable oil

METHOD

Cook potatoes in saucepan until tender. Drain. Mash with butter until smooth and season to taste.

Add breadcrumbs, salmon, green onions, lemon zest and juice, and egg. Mix well. Allow to cool slightly. Shape into patties. Roll in flour shaking off excess.

Heat oil in frying pan on high. Cook patties in 2 batches for 5-6 minutes, turning once, until golden and heated through. Drain on paper towel.

We served up supper with steamed beans and this variation of a Cauliflower Bake, it's the same method but we added broccoli in it as well as the cauliflower. This is a very frugal old fashioned dinner and goes down well with hot custard and sweet pie after.

I hope everyone is having a good day or evening where ever you are.