Petunia Pots

The first Spring planting I did this year was potting up petunia seedlings. After a very dry Winter, which parched plants and made the grass all brown and crunchy, I wanted some brilliant colour for the start of Spring. The lovely Stephenie, over at The Awakened Soul, wrote about the pretty pansies she has planted in her window boxes and how they bring cheerfulness to her little pink cottage. Petunias, with their vibrant, multi-coloured blooms can bring that kind of happiness too ... 

My all-pink petunia pot.

Random, multi-coloured happiness!

Such amazing variety ...

... and gorgeous colours!

White pentunia and blue lobelia. 

Sunlight on a pure white petunia.

 A pot of colour outside my kitchen window.

Petunias are pretty, easy-to-grow flowers. I potted up some small seedlings from the nursery in a good quality potting mix, watered them in with a seaweed solution and now only water them if I feel the potting mix is getting a bit dry. I remove their spent flower heads as they finish to encourage even more flowers. 

While I do not have window boxes, I have put a couple of my petunia pots on the verandah outside my kitchen windows. I love looking out upon these pretty flowers while I'm doing the washing up!  I smile every time I see them. 😃

What are you growing right now that brings you a smile?

Meg

Sweet Strawberry Cloth

Folded gently and hanging over a polished wooden rack, in the far back corner of my favourite little antiques and other old-things shop, I found this most lovely afternoon tea cloth.  I imagine many a cream tea with fresh scones, fruity jam and dollop-y cream would have been laid out upon this beautiful cloth. 

Strawberries for afternoon tea!

Old, soft linen embroidered with dozens of twining strawberries. So many ruby red and pink fruits created with such tiny stitches. With its circle of berries, leaves and blossoms, it reminds me of botanical art that pays such close attention to the intricate detail of plants. 

So many tiny stitches.

I am looking forward to spreading out my strawberry cloth, over a table in the shade of our verandah, and having my very own little cream tea. I'll make sure to have strawberry jam for my scones as somehow I don't think apricot jam would be quite right. 🍓

Meg

Days With No Set Plans

My favourite days are those that unfold with no set plans. Nowhere we have to be. Nothing we have to do. Just a whole precious day where its hours are all our own. Weekend days can be like this and so can school holiday days. We are now on school holidays. That means strings of days to do with as we please.  What a wonderful, happy luxury to have two whole weeks where there is no need to rouse a school child from his slumber, no long school drive, no lunchboxes to pack up at the kitchen bench, no homework to do, no long drive home again. With all this freedom from our school routines, I know I will weave some of the things I love into these days that I love:

Reading ... for I borrowed many library books.

Sewing ... for there is a skirt to finish.

Knitting ... for there are gifts to make in time for Xmas.

Baking ... for we all like to lick the bowl!

Planting ... for it is Spring and the soil is warm.

Stitching ... for I want to make things with the old linens I've found.

Walking ... for there is always something of interest along a path.

I'm sure as the days pass that we will do more some days and less on others. There will be other favourite things among these favourite things. But what I like the most is the freedom of waking up and seeing where a day takes me. Don't you?

Meg

Making It Count

How often do you eat out or get take away food? It's a pretty rare thing around here but, when I do decide to indulge, I make it count!

My "Once-in-a-Blue-Moon" Breakfast. Yum!

This last week of school term has been a big week!  School concert night is no small thing so there has been op-shop browsing for costume clobber, evening sewing to add final little touches to said costume (It is not always easy to attach cute little piglet ears to a hat!), an after-school dress rehearsal and then a long and very late drive home after the wonderful performance itself. 

The sparkle of a much-anticipated event!

This late night was way too quickly followed up by the 'turn-around' drive back up to school the next morning. I was pretty sure when I woke up yesterday that I had only just, in fact, gone to sleep!! So, after dropping off my beautiful boy, together with the homemade cake for shared last-day-of-term morning tea, I decided I was in need of a long sit still and some sustenance before heading back to school for the special end-of-term assembly. So, I found myself a quiet table in a bustling little cafe and ordered a late breakfast I would never make for myself. And then I breathed out. Whew!

Something warm &  frothy to drink!

The joy in a once-in-a-blue-moon treat like this, for me, is that it is not a regular thing. It is a hardly ever thing.  That means I truly appreciated it for the rarity it was. I made it count by patronising a little local business and not a multinational purveyor of 24 hour drive-through "food?" I chose a nourishing meal, with lots of healthy veg. (There is actually a delicious vegetable rosti under the bacon, avocado and peas ... and I couldn't not have haloumi. I 💗haloumi!) I ate. it. slowly. and thoroughly enjoyed it while watching the world go by through the windows of the cafe that frame the street outside. I ate all of it, no waste of food or money left on my plate.  And I did not need lunch!  

I left the little cafe quite content after my once-in-a-blue-moon brekkie. How about you? What rare treats do you indulge in and how do you make them count?

Meg

The Freshness of Spring

After a very dry Winter, Spring has brought with it such welcome rain. Rain that has sparked the new growth of this new season.  The grass is growing green again. After their deciduous Winter, the first leaves are unfurling on the plane tree. Creamy, fragrant blossoms cover our mandarin tree. The bees and the butterflies are busy, attracted by the emergence of more and more flowers. While I am excited too, by the blue of the cornflowers and the deep orange buds on the hibiscus, I am more enchanted this year by the freshness of Spring's green.

 New leaves emerging on the Plane Trees.


A honeybee foraging in a mandarin blossom.

A little cucumber seedling.

Feathery new growth on  Yarrow.

My own enthusiasm for the garden, which had waned with the lack of rain, has returned anew. Little seedlings, cucumber and snow peas mostly, have been tucked into warm, replenished soil. Pots of multicoloured petunias have been planted up and will no doubt flower soon. Clumps of day lilies have been divided and replanted in the little garden by the front gates and a dwarf mulberry tree settled into a pot where it will hopefully thrive. It seems that rush of fresh Spring green, that followed that most welcome rain, has lifted my inner-gardener's hopes!

I have deeply felt the change from Winter to Spring this year, more strongly than I can remember in years gone by.  How about you? How have you responded to the turning of nature's seasons in your part of the world?

Meg

p.s. I am keenly aware of how lucky we have been to receive rain here. There are many in Australia; farming families and communities, their stock and our wild creatures; struggling with terrible drought.  I hope that the heavens will open over their parched lands soon. Xx

A Tiny Felt Brooch

Little blanket stitches frame a sweet snippet of embroidered flowers, attaching an ever-so-small piece of long-ago stitching to a scrap of soft, woollen felt. Pinned on to a dress or a blouse, with a small pin, and it becomes a tiny brooch.

A tiny handmade brooch.

Tiny brooches like these, made by the talented Jude Van Heel,  featured in a recent issue of Grass Roots magazine (No. 248 Aug/Sept 2018). I set my copy aside, the instructions flagged for when a little window of time opened up for making one. Just such a time presented itself on Saturday evening and I so enjoyed the quiet time I spent stitching the little circle of flowers to the felt backing. Even with very careful stitches, so as not to fray the edge of the old linen, this project took less than an hour.  

A little safety pin for the back.

I didn't have a brooch pin for the back but a little safety pin works just fine. It's only tiny and very light so it doesn't pull on the fabric that it's pinned to. 

Perfect for a dress or a blouse.

I love that a project like this makes use of old embroidered linens, perhaps those stained or forever unfinished or floundering in op-shop piles. I always think the stitching too beautiful not to find a use for and this is one tiny, sweet way to make something from such linens.  I'm sure I'll make a few more soon. 

Meg

A Lovely Lemon Meringue Pie

I couldn't remember the last time I'd had lemon meringue pie. A not-too-sweet pastry shell filled with a tangy lemon 'curd' and topped with glossy white meringue. Swoon! We used to have it on very special occasions when I was growing up but I would only have had it a handful of times since then. So, when Laura over at Grow Gather Enjoy mentioned the pie she made for her Dad recently, I decided that it had been way too long between slices! I made a lemon meringue pie that very day and it became dessert for our shared Fathers' Day dinner. My husband did notice the break in tradition from the usual cheesecake I always make him for his special days but the loveliness of tangy lemon with fluffy sweet meringue soon silenced any protest! 

A piece of oh-so-delicious pie!

My Mum made the filling for her lemon meringue pie with condensed milk, lemon juice and eggs. Lemony fillings thickened with cornflour just don't carry the same memories for me! A quick search and I discovered this simple recipe, contributed by Ruth Salecich-Brown, over at Love in a Little Black Diary, that her grandmother, Evelyn Proposch, used to make. It seems Ruth has fond memories of lemon meringue pies too!

So, I gathered all the basic ingredients and set about the baking of this lovely pie. It is quite easy to make and the recipe includes instructions for the easiest pastry I've ever made. No rubbing butter into flour! Here's how it came together in my kitchen:

Lemon Meringue Pie

For the Pastry:  Warm 60g butter, 2 Tablespoons sugar and 1/4 cup milk until butter just melted. Remove from heat and whisk in 1 beaten egg. Add 1 1/2 cups of self raising flour until a soft dough forms. Roll out dough on a floured surface or sheet of baking paper and then line your pie plate with it. Neaten the edge of your pie by trimming off any excess pastry. Prick carefully with a fork and then bake in a slow oven for 10-15mins until lightly browned. Cool before adding the filling.

 A quick & easy homemade pastry...

...forms a lovely little pie crust.

For the filling:  Beat 1 tin of condensed milk, 1/2cup of freshly squeezed lemon juice and 2 eggs yolk together until blended. Add to the baked pie shell.

Egg yolks, condensed milk & lemon juice ...

... make a luscious, tangy filling. 

For the meringue:  Beat two eggs whites until stiff peaks form. Very gradually add 4 Tablespoons of caster sugar and whisk until meringue is white and glossy. Spread meringue over the top of the pie's lemony filling. Bake in a slow oven (150C) until meringue is just beginning to brown. (My pie was ready after just 15mins in my oven.) 

Egg whites whipped with a little sugar for the glossy meringue ... 

 ... that tops off this sweet & citrus-y pie.

Ready to be sliced and shared.

With that lovely lemony filling waiting underneath that fluffy meringue, a layer of creamy yellow and glossy white, this is a pie that combines tangy with sweet in a mouth-watering way. I couldn't wait to try it! One bite and I remembered how wonderful a homemade lemon meringue pie tastes! Unfortunately though, there were no second helpings (probably just as well;) so I think I will have to make another again soon. Xx

Do you bake homemade pies?  What's your favourite?

Meg

My New-from-Old Skirt

On a weekend workshop, held at a local community centre, I learnt how to make a sewing pattern from an existing garment.  I chose to create a new skirt from one of my old favourites and I am really happy with how it turned out.

My 'New from Old' Skirt.

The skirt is really just a basic A-line. The original skirt had four panels sewn together at the front, back and sides. I changed this so that there are only two panels, a front and a back, so just two seams at the sides. The skirt also has a very lovely and long waistband tie. Sewing this really gave me some grief; firstly I found it difficult to pin on because it is so thin and secondly because the fabric of the skirt kept fraying and so it kept pulling away from the waistband. After a few "choice words" and a lot of unpicking, I decided the best solution was to make the waistband wider to make it easier to pin on and to ensure I secured the fabric of the main skirt when attaching it.

 Waistband & Invisible Zip.

Zipped up!

An invisible zip is sewn into one side of the skirt. I've never sewn in such a zip but, with the help of this You-tube tutorial, I learnt how to do it and sewed it in so that it is indeed invisible when zipped up. 

Fabric remnants for a skirt.

Look at all those toothy smiles!

I chose remnants of fabric, from the community centre's little haberdashery, to test out my pattern and sew up my skirt. I found a heavier curtaining fabric, with big firework flowers on twisting stems, and a very light fabric, printed with toothy smiles, for the long waistband trim and ties. When cut and folded into a thin strip, you can't see all those teeth!  Altogether, this cost me less than $15. I think they look nice together. 😊

A pattern I will be able to use again and again!

The best part of this course, besides a usable pattern and a very wearable "test run" skirt, was learning from a really patient teacher and spending time with  a small group of really lovely women who all like sewing too. Everyone made different garments and there were lots of encouraging words from everyone as we paraded and twirled our creations for one another. 

I hope to do some more craft workshops at the little community centre soon. It's a lovely space, in an old wooden house with a productive garden and chickens in the back yard too. It's nice that there are places like this in our city where people can meet one another and learn and make things together.

Do you have a community centre near where you live? 

Meg