Another Zipper Mouth

They're breeding, but they're so cute no one's complaining!


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Patchwork Class, Week 3

I love week three of my patchwork and quilting class! The penny seems to drop and we are no longer discussing seam allowances and the best tools for a job. The Dresden Plate block is an excellent teaching block. It combines the use of templates, chain piecing and applique. Quite a simple block but very effective. Depending on the fabric choices it can be modern or a very retro 30s feel.

Never ending hand quilting...

Callouses are good. They protect the soft finger tips from the repetitive stabbing of the quilting needle. Having made the decision to quilt this by hand means we get to keep the lovely zig zag edges. Machine quilting would have obliterated the quirky ends so hand quilting it is. One stitch at a time... not that there's any pressure. Drop off date is 1 month away, aghhh!

Happy Mother's Day to me!

We celebrated Mother's Day with a delicious lunch at Indo Rasa in Kingsford. It was superb, possibly the best Indonesian food I've had in Sydney. All the sauces and dressings tasted very authentic and fresh. The biggest surprise was the bill, we ordered plenty of food and often these big family meals can run up to $350. Here it was $15/ head. Amazing, it's like being on holidays!



Today, I received my little squishy parcel from Etsy containing a layer cake of the new Denyse Schmidt fabrics, Picnic and Fairground. I've seen plenty of photos of this range but I wasn't sure if I'd love it in real life. Now that I've put a few of them together in pairs and auditioned them with some other fabrics I can attest to the buzz out there in the quilting world. They are gorgeous and very good quality. Much better than fabric I've previously purchased from JoAnn's. In today's Spotlight flyer they had some pretty cute "feedsacks" and "retro vintage cottons". May have to pop in and take a look...

Bye Bye Miss Wendy :~(

Today tastes bittersweet. The kids have been practicing hard for their piano exams for the past month or so. There were times I wasn't sure they would pass...
Miss Wendy pulled out all stops to get them across the line. The only downside is that she is now moving overseas next week. Sniff .
After 4 years with one piano teacher it's a pretty big occasion. A little break and then we'll think about a replacement.


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blogging, take 2

It's become painfully obvious that I need to streamline my online presence. The Facebook Recipe page is going well (just over 200 followers) but using the Notes as a recipe book isn't really working well. It has been great for connecting with my students and for sharing other recipes elsewhere on the net. I am a complete novice on Flickr, I can see the attraction of photo sharing but I find the experience confusing and not very intuitive. Yet there are some wonderful communities sharing via Flickr and I hate to miss out on such a rich source of visual inspiration.

Which brings me back to Blogging. Such a steep learning curve; setting the tone, a purpose and then fine tuning a design. This all takes so long, which I feel bites into my precious sewing and crafting hours. Suppose that's why I've stuck with Facebook so far, there are no design decisions to make, just post your thoughts and in my case photos, the recipes and be done with it... And everything is there in one site: news feeds, friends and family, photos etc.
Well, I am determined to find a solution. Maybe post to Facebook, the blog and flickr all at once. Now there's a thought!

Things I've learnt thanks to Flickr: there are great file sharing sites that don't require you to fill in a million forms and sign up for endless spam. Scribd is fantastic for sharing a whole range of documents like PDF, Word, Excel.
Denyse Schmidt has released a new fabric range, reminiscent of her successful Flea Market Fancy line.
Reasons why I could never give up on Facebook: The wonderful friends and family; the environmental and social activism; music and video sharing. My vegetarian recipe page...

Bara Brith

So I've had this recipe in a vegetarian cook book for years wondering what it would be like...

Turns out its Welsh tea cake.

Now if you're reading this its cause you probably know me and you may even know that I'm from Argentina. What you probably don't know is that my maternal Grandmother (who passed away at 102 last year) was Irish and my family has strong Irish traditions. Argentina like Australia is very multicultural, just that it all happened at the turn of the 19th Century and post World Wars. These days not many people can readily admit they don't have an ancestor from Spain, Italy, Ireland, Wales, Armenia etc.

But back to the family traditions.... One of these has been a yearly Welsh Afternoon Tea fundraiser at the local library that my Grandmother and mother founded back in the 60's. I have no idea why it's a Welsh tea and not Irish but I will be there this year and being a chef I've been seconded into cooking Torta Galesa (Welsh Cake) for about 100 people.

I had a go at this recipe and it's delicious, better than your average fruit cake due to the fruit being soaked in strong tea (and ahem... a good dash of whiskey)! This recipe is from the North Wales Tourism website, the whiskey was my addition!

Let you know how the Afternoon Tea goes....

Bara Brith

This is literally translated as ‘speckled bread’. Once a week, the stove was lit for baking day, as the heat began to fade in the stove, so a handful of currants was added to the last of the bread dough and this speckled bread became a treat. The flavour, however, of this spiced, honey-glazed fruit bread is delicious when spread with salted Welsh butter, and it is no wonder that Bara Brith is still produced all over Wales.

450g (1lb) mixed dried fruit

300ml (1/2 pint) tea
40ml whiskey (optional)

2 tbsp marmalade

1 egg, beaten

6 tbsp soft brown sugar

1 tsp mixed spice

450g (1lb) self-raising flour

honey to glaze

1. Soak the fruit overnight in the tea (and whiskey).
2. Next day, mix the marmalade, egg, sugar, spice and flour. Spoon into a greased 900g (1lb) loaf tin and bake in a warm oven (gas 3, 325ºF, 170ºC) for one and three quarter hours or until the centre is cooked through. Check from time to time that the top doesn’t brown too much, and cover with a sheet of foil or move down a shelf in the oven if necessary.
3. Once cooked, leave the Bara Brith to stand for 5 minutes, then tip out of the tin on to a cooling tray. Using a pastry brush, glaze the top with honey.
4. Serve sliced with salted butter and some tasty farmhouse Cheddar. Store in an airtight tin.