Tuesday, June 07, 2011

Knit Camp

Read Julia's post on Knit Camp which we organised last weekend. It was fabulous!

Monday, May 09, 2011

Quinces

I made quince paste today using this Women's Weekly recipe. I made a bit of a mistake in that I drained most of the liquid from the quinces after the first stage of cooking before it occurred to me that I was probably supposed to keep that water. The recipe said "weigh the fruit pulp" which I took to mean the fruit without the water but as I was doing it I realised I'd need it! I had to add more water to make it runny enough to puree, I suppose it would've been more fruity tasting if I hadn't done that. I also had to cook it for about 2.5 hours to get it thick enough.

Looks good though doesn't it!

Friday, March 04, 2011

Silly puppy

This was last week.


And again this afternoon, he was happily sleeping in his bed like this!


Friday, February 04, 2011

Homemade Soap


Julia, Jackie and I made goat's milk, cinnamon and clove soap!

The goats belong to my parent's neighbour, I'm going to visit them this weekend and thank them (the goats and the neighbour).



Monday, January 31, 2011

Somebody stop me!

I am on fire today!

I just found this awsome pressing iron! I googled the brand name Hecla and found that there's one of these in the Melbourne Museum! This would've been made in Melbourne in the late 1930's. It needs some tlc but it's in pretty good shape considering it's 80 years old.
I also found this site while I was googling vintage irons, http://vintageelectricirons.blogspot.com/, wow they are seriously beautiful!

Close-up of the temperature selector dial.

I love the hand-shaped grip!

I also found a quite sturdy wooden step ladder. I'm not sure what I'll do with this but it was too good to leave behind.

And I didn't take a photo coz I'm starting to get embarrassed but I also found a folding lawn chair and a Lawrencia 10 speed racer (it's got their name on it so I assume they used to manufacture bikes?). The bike's a bit dirty, the tyres are flat and the seat is ripped but it looks like a good one. Perhaps I'll make myself a fixie :)

Hard-rubbish love

Thanks neighbours for the Ronson Electric Knife with wall-mounted holder!

And Breville bread machine (this model is $200 new)!!! I plugged it in and it seems to work, I'll try baking some bread in it this week!
I'm going for a walk now to see what's in the other streets near my house!
See what EmilyKate scored!

Saturday, January 08, 2011

Welcome to 2011

Happy new year everyone!
I love this time of year, out with the old in with the new, resolutions still fresh and everyone excited about making the next year great.
I've made just a few resolutions which are:
  • make more homemade food staples, eg jam, preserved fruit, yoghurt, pasta
  • make more of my own clothes
  • exercise regularly
  • start work on writing a computer program that I've been thinking about for a while
So far I'm off to a good start:
My friends Julia, Jackie and I made Cherry jam yesterday (in 35 degree heat, uck). From 5kg of fresh cherries we got about 16 jars (3.6 litres) of jam and the total cost was about $34. It turned out beautifully. Now I'm trying to figure out what I'm going to do with my 8 jars, it'd take us years to eat that much on toast :)