Winter signs

We had some really lovely weather, and the change of the season into winter had to come with heavy rains. It's a very over cast, grey day at the moment all the signs that autumn is ending to bring in winter. Looks like we are going to have a wet and windy winter.

With the rain and cold coming in it's good time to start pursuing some new skills. I attended the Toowoomba simple living workshop on Tunisian Crochet, or Afghan Crochet. It makes a very simple stitch and works up quickly. Our worship co-ordinator, Margy's husband made the hooks for us to buy. 

 

I've also been out and about, driving. My first trip was out to Bunnings for the garden. I won't talk about how I got lost....but at least I managed to park the car fairly straight in the carpark.

At home, I've been doing a few crafts. I brought some very cheap face washers to add some crochet edging to. Cheap face washers usually don't feel nice at first but they wash up okay. I'm thinking of adding a crochet one to make them a little more fancier gift. I'm also still working on the baby quilt, more to come about that soon. 

Meanwhile I'm on another learning curve with a new computer given to me by my sister. It's an Apple Mac and very different to Windows.  The hard part is figuring out the new way to edit photos and making movies as everything is so different. I'll figure it out eventually. I'm sure my posted photos will look a bit weird until I get the hang of things.

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

Autumn Orange

It was a cooler morning this morning and still slightly over cast. I've been painting of late but the truth is I'm not feeling it. I'm in a bit of a artist block and it doesn't help I can't seem to find a subject and style I like. I'll paint through the block and hopefully something will come of it. I did an art journal page cutting up a piece of art I did at art class and rearranged the image then added in a scripture quote I thought fitted. 

As you can see I was inspired by my pot marigolds. This is mixed media on paper. The scripture is Isaiah 40:8 - The grass withers, the flower fades, but the word of our God will stand forever. 

At home, I've also been cutting up and using some pumpkins Dad grew in his garden. I'm saving the seeds to start my own. If you have this Queensland blue pumpkin type growing at home and using it for mash Mum told me to add some sugar into it before you mash to sweeten the taste of it. 

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

Marigolds, Mint, and Petunias

My favorite season has arrived...Autumn. The mornings have been starting off very foggy but the fog soon lifts for a nice crisp, clear day. The nights have been a bit chilly yet still warm. At home, I've been pottering around fixing up my small garden. 

Dad gave me some herb cuttings from his garden and my aunt who lives across the road gave me a lot of pots to work with. I now have a beginnings of my own garden. Hopefully I can keep every thing alive, I don't have the best talent with gardening. As always you will know I'll keep my garden frugal too and will share ideas.

My favorite place now is garden places and Bunnings garden section. My aunt and I went for a drive out to Bunnings after Mother's Day and they did have some plants on sale. I came home with Marigolds and Petunias. 

I also started off some late flowering seeds of a cottage mix variety. I'll see how they will go, I may have planted them out too late. The back of the pack did say Autumn and they are growing so with a bit of luck I might have a few pretty flowers to show later. 

Another thing I have been doing is I reopened my Youtube channel: My Channel 

at some point I will rename it to match my blog. There will be a few different kinds of videos to match the content of my blog: Art, Sewing, Craft, Gardening, Snail Mail, Simple living, and so on. I'll post video's here too from the channel to save going in to look at the channel.. I'll be doing a mix of voice and music videos. I don't have the best quality voice for speaking, add painfully shy into the mix and hearing me is just hard for everyone including me, but I'm going to give it a try. 

Hopefully my voice is not too painful to listen too.

On this Youtube video I'm talking about the baby quilt I'm making. 

The technique is using Crayon Tinting. And the Images come from Q is for Quilter I used the links from her children's book category. The book is favourite paint book - Little girls

More about Crayon Tinting. 

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

Home Life

The weather has turned and you can tell Autumn is in the air. Although we have been having some warm days and it's nice to sit in the sun. I've been painting too, I attend an art society and it's a nice social gathering to go to and talk about art.

At home I've been pottering around. Shepherds pie was made and roast dinners too. I'll give a recipe for the Shepherds pie soon enough. I've also been working on another baby quilt to give There will be some instructions for that as well. I was sitting outside enjoying the sun while embroidering the squares for the quilt. As you know, I like frugal so these quilt squares are done on an old sheet and the sweet children images are printed off the web. The embroidery thread is about 60c each and this goes far when you are using one strand of thread. It'll cost me nothing much to make, just a little time to do. These type of things are slow as you know.

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

Baked Rice Pudding

Baked Rice Pudding

Ingredients 

2 cups milk

300 ml cream

½ cup of grain rice

1 cinnamon stick

1 vanilla bean split, seeds scraped

Pinch of ground nutmeg to sprinkle on top

2 egg yolks.

Method

Preheat oven to 160 degrees C. Combine milk, cream, rice, sugar, cinnamon, vanilla bean and seeds, nutmeg in medium saucepan. Cook over medium heat, stirring occasionally for 5 minutes or until it reaches a simmer. Remove from heat and set aside for 15 minutes to infuse.

Remove and discard the cinnamon stick and vanilla bean. Add egg yolks and stir to combine.

                           

Pre-cook rice mixture by boiling until the rice is done. Drain well.

Pour rice mixture into 4 cup capacity ovenproof dish. Sprinkle with extra nutmeg. Bake in preheated oven for 40 minutes until brown on top and the ‘custard’ is well set. Remove from oven and set aside for 10 minutes before serving warm.

We serve ours up with hot custard and cooked prunes.

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