Just a quick blog post today.

I know I have been complaining that it is a cool damp summer here in Timaru, but the green houses and gardens are not complaining. This is todays haul.

3.5kg of tomatoes. And some of them are huge.

This was todays biggest. We've had larger!

I also pulled in a lone zucchini, I thought the plants were slowing down a little but I see a bunch more flowers about to appear. Another bowl of beans was picked today and the silver beets are finally coming to the party and I will have to start picking that soon too.

I'll be making a batch of something tomato related sometime very soon.

So aside from harvesting in my garden, what else have I been doing on my days off?

The mornings have been busy with chores but I did find time to cut some eye spy blocks this morning, I've added them to a growing pile, hopefully I'll have plenty to make a couple of quilts at some point this year. I had a wee tidy up and put the #10 box away for now. I have made a little progress on the project and will revisit it later in the year. At the moment I'm really not feeling the love for it. I've been busy with my crochet in the afternoons and evenings. Not exclusively, I've also done some preparation work for my Baradine swap and a couple of other secret squirrel items. While hunting for eye spy fabrics this morning I had a good tidy up in two of my drawers and put a bunch of smaller pieces into a bag for a lady who uses tiny scraps at club and I also had a look about for ideas about what to take along this month. I think probably my EPP, it needs some love and the ladies will possibly go into shock if I take anything else, they have gotten used to me sitting in the corner wearing two pairs of specs. LOL But that is for Saturday, back to work for three days first.

First week of February.

 And I'm back to work.

It's been a busy week, I've walked after work each day when it wasn't raining then sat with my crochet in the evenings. A friend tagged me on Tuesday pointing out a facebook post giving away fabrics. I was lucky and scored a huge bag full of quilting fabrics. It was advertised as scraps, but there were/are some very large pieces in the bundle.

This is what I decided I would keep, the rest I will take along to club next weekend and share with the ladies. The very generous lady had much, much more to sort out and give away. She said that she might reach out to me once she is finished, especially as I said that our club makes lots of quilts for charities.

Wednesday was an extra shift at work but also a bumper day for the garden, I brought in a huge haul including 3 more zucchini, so a new recipe was tried.

Roasted Zucchini, Tomato and Feta.

2 Zucchini cut to 1 inch dice

10 cherry tomatoes

3 cloves garlic peeled and finely sliced

2 red onions peeled and cut in to quarters

10 black olives

225g feta cheese

2 table spoons olive oil.

1 teaspoon balsamic vinegar

2 tablespoons fresh thyme

1 tablespoon lemon juice

1 teaspoon salt

1 teaspoon black pepper.

Cut the feta cheese in to 1/2 inch cubes and lay in a shallow dish.

In a small bowl mix together 1 tablespoon full of olive oil, the balsamic, the lemon juice and half of the thyme. Pour it over the cheese and allow to sit for an hour.

Preheat the oven to 230C/450F

place the zucchini, garlic and onions into a greased roasting dish and drizzle over the remaining olive oil. Season with the salt and pepper and roast for 30 mins. Stir/turn occasionally.

Add the marinated feta cheese, cherry tomatoes and olives along with the rest of the thyme. Roast for another 10 - 15 mins until the veges are tender.

Spoon over the remaining marinade before serving.

This was very tasty.

I didn't have red onions so used whatever was in the pantry. And as there are only two of us I used only one zucchini and one onion and reduced the olives and tomatoes a little too.

I made it again the next day but I forgot to marinate the cheese. and I used  dried Italian herbs.

In our opinion it was much nicer without the vinegar and lemon juice, so we will stick to that way in future.

Thursday was Waitangi day here in NZ, a public holiday, so Tony was home. I had hoped we would get a day out as there was a free concert on down at the bay, but the weather did not turn on the sunshine. In fact it turned on the rain. The concert went ahead, without us. LOL I spent some of the day pottering in my room. I pulled out my Chookshed #10 and had a play.

This is an adopted project, I found it at an Altrusa sale last year. All of the fabrics had been precut and were all bagged up into bundles, light, medium and dark. And there was one block that had been started. I fiddled with that and persuaded it behave.

Look at how uneven those edges are...More about that soon.

Then I played about and made up a block of my own.

I have to say the fabrics are not very nice, oh they are pretty I do like the look of them, but they feel very thin and even the darker ones are see through. Hmmm, I wonder if that is why this project became someones UFO?

Then I discovered this.

A closer look at the seam allowances revealed that my predecessor had used a very generous seam allowance. That might explain why I had to use so much persuasion to complete the block....and those uneven edges.

I really wasn't feeling the love for this project and this discovery did not help it's cause.

I put it aside and decided to play with some French General fabrics instead.

Hmm, blogger wants this picture to be upside down!!

You don't get to see what I made, it's a secret. 

I'm off to buy a zipper later today so that I can progress along to part two of this project.

I spent some time with my crochet in the evening.

Friday saw Tony home for another day, he figured that as he was off on Thursday he may as well take Friday too and have a long weekend. We went for a nice walk, and did a little garden work though it was still damp from the rain, then I spent the remainder of the day with my cross stitch. I made some good progress, I'd share but there really isn't much to see as the area I was working is mostly the light around the lantern just a greenish yellow blob at this stage. 

Saturday and Sunday I was back at work.

And here we are at Monday. Another grey day in what has been a very poor Summer for us Southern Kiwis. We seem to get one or two beautiful days then a whole bunch of grey, wet days. Not like Summer at all. I have chores to do here today and also need to make a trip to town for some groceries and a very important zipper.

I will also need to decide what I'm to do with the #10 project, do I continue or swap it out for something else? If I swap it out do I stash it away for a possible revisit or pass it along to someone else?

I'm off to find my shopping list....

My Final Day Off and my Chookshed #10.

Just like that a whole week has passed and tomorrow I return to work. I've had a great week, cheered on by you, my readers. I've made starts, made progress and even had a fantastic finish. I've spent time in the garden and the kitchen and walked everyday.

So how has my last day gone? We had a very late night on Saturday with our visitors so allowed ourselves another lie in, I didn't get up until 7.30 and Tony had another two hours. I sewed for a while this morning until Charmaine and Torstein arrived with their Mum and Dad. Look at these lovely books Lee brought for me.

She found them in an Op shop along with a few that she has kept for herself.

I'm looking forward to having a proper look at them, maybe later this evening.

The children came outside with me to help pick beans, we got a whole bowl full and steamed them for lunch.

They were very nice with our roast chicken.

The children had brought their Nerf guns so there was Nerf war again. It's so good to hear their happy little giggles as they shoot Grandad. So much fun was had. Torstein also pulled out his Dinosaur jigsaw puzzle and I helped him to put it together. 

Once the children left, Tony and I went out for a walk. When we returned I went into my room again and sewed until I had a completed top.

Very happy with that. Some of the fabrics are sewing themed, so I think I need to find a sewing themed pantograph. 

While I was messaging with Janice yesterday she said that the number 10 had been selected by Deanna for the Chookshed challenge. 

My #10 is an adopted project. I found it at the Altrusa sale last year. Most of the fabrics are precut. I'm not sure if they are left overs from a larger project or if they just got stuck...

There was a pattern in the package and a template sheet.

There is also a bundle of uncut fabrics.

One block is partially made.

I'll need to have a good look at what is there and make a decision on how to progress.

*

My goals for February remain the same as the January goals. They are listed in the sidebar over on the right of my blog. 

I'm off to look at my new books. 

Day six of my leave.

 The first thing I did this morning when I woke was to say Happy Birthday to my Mum.

Sadly both of these lovely ladies are gone now. Today February 1st is Mums birthday and her mum, my Gran was born on 29th February.  

I have lovely memories of both of these special ladies.

I miss them so much.

We had a slower start this morning, no alarm clock at 5.45 but I was awake and up by 7am and Tony appeared a short time later.

After a leisurely breakfast of bacon, eggs, and as it's Saturday, some mushrooms. I made a start. Spider eviction from the back porch has been on the 'Hunney do' list for quite some time, I was tired of waiting so I went out and made a start, Tony soon felt guilty enough to join in. After I had cleaned everything out he got busy with some spray that will discourage their return for a while. 

Next I vacuumed the whole house and threw the duster about too!

We will have guests here for supper, so I thought I should make an effort.

That is who yesterdays Lemon Cream Pie is for. it has to be chilled for a minimum of 12 hours. I think we can safely say it has had that. LOL  This morning I also mixed the ingredients for vanilla ice cream to go with the pie. They need to chill for several hours before going into the ice cream churn. 

Then as I waited impatiently for Deanna to release this months Chookshed number I wandered into my room looking for 'something' to do.

And this is what I found.

First a bunch of grey and white fabric samples. 

They went together very quickly in a hit and miss style pattern. I think maybe I'll add some applique to brighten it up.

OK NEXT!

And out came a charm square pack. Four of each design.

Argh!

Those blacks gave me issues.

I messaged my pal Janice.

She sorted me out. And I was on  my way again. Before I knew it I was auditioning sashing fabrics and corner stones. 

I should have another top in no time. 

Everything ground to a halt while I over thought my sashing squares and border fabrics.

I could have messaged Janice again but decided to go for a walk instead. Another great walk. Tony joined me and we covered 7 km in the scenic reserve. A good walk.

We got home in time to shower and prepare for our guests.

A lovely evening.

We all ate too  much.

And probably drank too much alcohol too.

I hope your Saturday was a good as mine.

Tomorrow we will will have Torstein and Charmaine here foe Sunday lunch.

Exciting!

Love hanging out with those people.

January Round Up.

 January has seen me sharing a lot of recipes amid my sewing and crafting. I even created a new page at the top of the blog to collect them all together. These are not all new to me recipes some are old favourites that I wanted to share.  Let me know if you try any of them.

On the sewing front, I have completed my Chookshed challenge which was to make a couple of Christmas ornaments. And as that was listed as a separate goal I made some more. Six in total.

Next I was to sew or crochet for 15 minutes every day. I did miss out on a couple of days but on the whole I'm happy with my effort.

I said that I wanted to work on my Pretty Little Pots project. That didn't happen, something else got in the way. Hopefully I can get to it in February.

Walk for weight loss every day. In the whole month I missed two days.  I'm very happy with that and plan to continue. I might have to increase my daily step goal.

The end of the month saw me take a week off work for a much needed rest, I still have two more days before I return to work. I have blogged every day telling you about what I have been up to and a few of you say you are tired just reading of my efforts. I like to keep busy and in all honesty I feel rested and better for having a few days of doing my own thing in my own time. 

All those words and still no pictures. What have I achieved?

My big achievements are to finish the preparation work for Down In The Garden... This is what got in the way of Pretty Little Pots. 

I also quilted and bound my Windswept quilt top.

I pulled out a crochet project that wasn't going as planned and took off on plan B that is working out much better. I made a bunch of zippy pouches and baggies. Hmm, no picture.... And had a big tidy up in the corner by my arm chair and also in my happy room.

January has been a good month.

I wonder what February will bring?