Pancake day

It just had to be done today- pancakes for Pancake Day.

The best way to have them is simply with lemon juice and sugar substitute (sweetener). Delicious!

Until next time
Gillian

Eden inspiration

As well as looking amazing, the sights of Eden are inspiring. I really want to do a mini quilt of the biomes one day, but it is the diversity of plants and foliage in particular that catch my eye.


Today I'm just reviewing done of the photos from Wednesday.


These are my favourites...








I hope they convey the feeling of the place...






It's soothing and beautiful....




Graceful and elegant...




Natural...

Special...

Until next time
Gillian

Busy baking!

Today I just wanted to bake...

So I got out my recipes and baking trays and got busy...

But first I made some yogurt and put on the bread maker. Then I made 24 blueberry muffins- some for the weekend then the rest to be frozen in bags of three for our packed lunches this week.

Then I found a recipe for raisin and oat Whoopie pies which I hadn't made before and just sounded sort of healthy-ish! Well they did have oats and raisins in them! When I tasted them I thought they were so good I decided to leave them as cookies- they are really superbly good!

I think I used just about every mixing bowl and baking tray and utensil we own. Fortunately the smell of yummy baking drew my lovely husband to the kitchen and he was wonderful helping with ( aka doing most of...) the washing up.

Until next time
Gillian

Eden 2012

We paid another visit to Eden on Wednesday, the first of 2012. It's half term here so they put on special events, this week the theme was chocolate.










So as well as visiting the biomes, we attended a talk on chocolate and Sean made a chocolate lolly.










Our favourite activity was helping Sean follow a trading game which taught him about the history of chocolate. It was a great activity. 




It started with him being given cocoa beans which he traded for gold... 






Which he then traded for a ticket to Europe... 


Which he traded for a gold coin... 


Which he used to buy some fair trade chocolate (while listening to why we should support fair trade produce and how fair trade money is spent). Each trading station was in the extremely hot Tropical Biome so it really was great.


He is still talking about the activity so it really shows he enjoyed it.


We really enjoyed our day  (though they do absolutely awful coffees- luke warm!!! - and we really must take our own picnic food next time- their bakery is expensive and horribly crowded).

So until next time
Gillian

Great Day for Getting Things Done

I've had the most wonderful day today. My darling husband, of course, has spoilt me with chocolates and cooking a gorgeous meal tonight, something I haven't had for ages, mousaka followed by home made waffles---- yummy!!!

Perhaps it sounds weird but the biggest treat was letting me have the kitchen to myself to sew all morning- once the ironing was done of course!

So with 3 hours of sewing time I decided I would finally make the cute little owl I found in the Buttons and Blooms book by Whimsicals  (the book was expensive but is absolutely stunning). I was so thrilled to actually finish it before lunch! There were a few moments when seams appeared to be impossible on my sewing machine because I could not get them over the sleeve arm of my machine, but somehow I managed in the end. So here is dear little Olivia Owl- isn't she fabulous!

I think some owl brothers and sisters will be needed soon...


This afternoon has been perfect too, watching a DVD of Lord of the Rings: The Two Towers- one of my favourite films- with my youngest son. As some of you may know I never just sit and watch TV though, so I managed to finish off my Harvest Awe quilt whilst watching it.


It really is outrageously bold for one of my quilts- I am usually much more restrained and avoid such bold colour and pattern variation in a single quilt.


Unfortunately the lighting was awful this evening (overcast skies and taking photos indoors just doesn't really work well). The square that looks purple in the photo was dark purple brown with a beige middle but the rest are pretty colour accurate- so why is one square the wrong colour... and why only one square??? Oh well I'm sure it's the flash causing it but to be honest I don't really care today- I just wanted to show the finished quilt.


One thing I particularly like is the back of the quilt... I used all the leftover  jelly roll strips to make some stripes that make the back match the front (again the purple where it should be dark brown---arrrrrh!).


So two projects finished in one day and all those chocolates to look forward too...


Until next time 
Gillian

Update on my harvest quilt

I've now got the wadding I needed for my harvest quilt so today I put together my quilt layers, stitched them together and started my quilt design. I'm using one of the fancy stitches on my Janome sewing machine so this is quite a slow process. I think so far I have done about one-eighth of the quilting.  I find it repetitive and strangely soothing- a bit like ironing which I can do for hours so long as I can watch a film or DVD while I'm doing it.


No pictures today- I really want to show the final effect when its finished.


Until next time
Gillian

Good news...bad news

So to the good news...

I've finished the front of my Harvest Awe quilt...

and I've finished the back of my Harvest Awe quilt.

The bad news... 

I have some batting for the middle in my stash...only it is four inches too narrow!!!

So quilting it will have to wait a week until I can go to our nearest fabric shop which is 25 miles away.

Oh well, that's the way it goes sometimes.

Until next time

Gillian

Back to my machine

I've had a yucky couple of weeks feeling pretty unwell with sinusitus, earache and tonsillitus. I even had to spend five days flat out on the settee just watching dvd's with no energy for anything more. Even this last week I've still felt pretty rough- not helped at all by the cold and the horrid lack of reasonable heating at work-I've been going to bed at 8pm (three times) and even 6.30pm (twice) because I'm just exhausted and ache so much. So today I'm so glad I finally have had enough energy to feel like getting my sewing machine back out... and oh, how I've missed it!

That simple joy of losing yourself in the task of sewing together even the simplest of quilt blocks... it makes me feel so much better. I don't have a clue how I will use the blocks yet but I'm sure the bright colours will make a cheerful quilt.

Possibly the new blocks will go with some black ones I made a few weeks ago. After I press them I think I'll have to try laying them out on the floor to see if I can make it work. I really don't know if they will go together but will play around with them both to see what to do next.



Anyway I need some sleep so until next time
Gillian