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Monthly Archives: January 2011

Healthy summer salad – free recipe

31 Monday Jan 2011

Posted by sewjournal in Sew journal

≈ 2 Comments

Tags

Gourmet Garden, Perfection fresh, Praise, quilting blog, recipe, sewing blog, sewjournal blog

Look at this gorgeous summer salad – doesn’t make you feel hungry?

Here’s the recipe. It has lots of protein so it can be a main dish salad or you can use it as an accompaniment to a fish or meat barbecue.

Ingredients

150 – 200g fat-reduced Fetta cheese

Tablespoon of Macadamia nut oil

squirt of Gourmet Garden mild chilli paste

Handful of fresh, chopped coriander

Tablespoon of chopped shallots (spring onions for UK visitors)

4 hard-boiled eggs

Half a small oak leaf lettuce

Large handful of rocket (Aragula to my US visitors)

Handful of salted cashews and macadamia nuts

6 baby Roma tomatoes quartered lengthwise

1/2 a lebanese cucumber sliced

1/2 avocado sliced

2 tablespoons of Praise Fat Free French Dressing

Method

First we need hard boil the eggs and leave them in iced water to cool down quickly. That way they won’t form those grey rings around the yolks.

Then we can move on to making the marinade for the Fetta cheese. Mix the Macadamia Oil with a squirt of mild chilli, the chopped shallots and the chopped coriander. Chop the Fetta into cubes and coat with the marinade and then leave to marinate for an hour or so. (If you don’t have time then just leave for as long as possible it will still be tasty.)

Wash the lettuce and rocket, pat, or spin dry if you have a salad spinner, and make a bed of these lovely greens on your platter. Peel your eggs and quarter them lengthwise.

Now we just layer everything on top of the layer of greens. First the eggs, then the tomatoes and cucumbers.

Then layer the avocado slices and then the marinated Fetta.

Sprinkle the cashews and macadamias on top and then drizzle the whole thing with a few tablespoons of the salad dressing.

Serve with a lovely, fresh-baked, home-made loaf and enjoy!

(The links are provided for information only. I have no affiliation with any of these companies, these are just  the products I happened to use.)

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Snap Happy in Sydney on a Saturday arvo…

30 Sunday Jan 2011

Posted by sewjournal in Sew journal

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Tags

Kirribilli House, Panasonic Lumix, photos, quilting blog, sewjournal blog, Sydney Harbour Bridge, Sydney Opera House

On Saturday we went into Sydney city in the afternoon and had a stroll around the Rocks area where the Sydney Harbour Bridge and the Opera House are.

I took my trusty little Panasonic Lumix with me and had a play. Come and ride with us as we drove with sun roof open around Sydney on a glorious January day. These are all thumbnails but if you click on them you’ll get larger photos.

Through the sunroof

Downtown Sydney

Old buildings

The Rocks area

More of the rocks

Under the Bridge

Wedding photos under the Bridge

Wedding photos under the Bridge

Red Chevvy following the open top tourist bus

The Sydney Opera House

Sydney Harbour Bridge climbers

Sydney Harbour Bridge climbers close-up

A tall ship on Sydney Harbour at dusk

Kirribilli House - the PM's Sydney residence

Sydney Harbour Ferry - Golden Grove

Old sandstone Post Office building 1

Old sandstone Post Office building 2

The Queen Victoria Building and monorail

Tiled walkway in Glebe part 1

Tiled walkway in Glebe part 1

Tiled walkway in Glebe part 2

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What’s in a scrap bag?

29 Saturday Jan 2011

Posted by sewjournal in Sew journal

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Tags

Denyse Schmidt, fabric, fabrics, Hope Valley, quilting blog, Scrap bags, sewing blog, sewjournal blog

Recently I saw some scrap bags for sale at Hawthorne Threads. At the time they only had two sorts – a warm and a cool. Now they have added “fresh” to the range. For only $11 you get 2yds of fabric. Here’s what I got in my warm scrap bag.

And here’s the cool one.

Given that the postage to Australia is $13.95 for a flat rate envelope I decided to buy some other fabrics. These four were on sale.

And this was a Denyse Schmidt Hope Valley Fat Quarter Bundle in New Day. I have to say I was suprised at the colours when they arrived. They looked decidedly greener on the website picture – don’t you think?  I guess it must have been taken from a print brochure. Anyway they are lovely fabrics all the same and the service was great. I ordered them on the 19th January and received them on the 27th. (No affiliations by the way, just a happy customer.).

A total of 8 yards of fabric for less than $70 including postage. (The envelope did burst but good old Australia Post wrapped it in a plastic envelope and sealed it.) Now I have my eye on the “fresh scrap bag” but what shall I fill the envelope with? Well, I do like the Laura Gunn  Magnolia Lane fabrics.

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Can You Tell Me Anything About This Little Fellow?

28 Friday Jan 2011

Posted by sewjournal in Sew journal

≈ 7 Comments

Tags

antique needle case, Pierrot, quilting blog, sewing blog, sewjournal blog

A friend who recently returned from New York gave me this little fellow as a present for looking after her cat.

He appears to be antique and I’m curious to find out more about him.

I wondered if anyone of you knows anything about these sort of needle and thread cases. I’m sure there must be many collectors out there.

At first I thought he was a Pierrot. This seemed likely since he has MONTREAL written across his chest and that is in Quebec – the French speaking province in Canada.

However on closer inspection he appears to be carrying a large knife and looks quite menacing so I’m wondering if any of you has ever seen one like it and knows the story behind it?

The bottom unscrews and contains some miniature spools of thread and the bottom of that container comes off to reveal needle storage.

He’s obviously been used and well-loved as the paint has worn away from the lower part of him. I’d love to know more about his story. I’ve tried Googling but to no avail so if you know anything please leave me a comment.

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Sneak Peek at a New Swap…

27 Thursday Jan 2011

Posted by sewjournal in Sew journal

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Tags

Block Swap Adventure, freezer paper templates, hand-piecing, handwork, patchwork, quilting blog, sewing, sewjournal blog, thread

Yesterday I was assigned my February swap partner for the Block Swap Adventure. So, it being a public holiday, I decided to set to and get ready. My partner wanted any pattern for a 12.5″ square block in reds, whites and blues.

I’m making this block with freezer paper templates. Yes, dear swap partner you are my guinea pig.

I hope it works out. I printed and cut out all the templates. Cut out all the pieces – all 80 of them! – and now I’m ready to go – hand-piecing.

I’m hoping to take it with me to sit and sew and get started today.

I don’t want to give too much away just yet but here’s a sneak peek of the preparations.

By the way, I’m pretty sure that you can still join the Block Swap adventure if you’d like to. Just send an email to blockswapadventure2@gmail.com for more details. So far we have 54 members.

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Catherine’s Place to the rescue…

26 Wednesday Jan 2011

Posted by sewjournal in Sew journal

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Tags

Catherine's Place, fabric, fabrics, quilting blog, Saffron Craig, sewing blog, sewjournal blog

The other day I ran out of the orange thread I was using to machine quilt my Liberated Baby Quilt. I asked around as to who had the thread available but from most places the postage made it financially non-viable.

Then Catherine from Catherine’s Place came to the rescue. She was about to send me some fabric I had ordered and she had the thread in stock! She said she’d send it with that. We spoke on Thursday evening – she’s in WA and I’m in NSW – and on Monday morning there it was! What great service. Thanks Catherine!

Want to see the fabric?

Here it is. Doesn’t it look lovely? Those Saffron Craigs together with the Kona solids look very striking.

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Auction Results…

25 Tuesday Jan 2011

Posted by sewjournal in Sew journal

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Tags

Queensland Flood Appeal Auction, quilting blog, sewing blog, sewjournal blog

Well the auction is over and the winning bidders are Lizzy (Bag 1) and Catherine (Bag 2). Congratulations ladies and thanks for taking part. Together we raised $140 for the Appeal.

For those of you who bid but weren’t successful there are many raffles that are still in progress until Wednesday. So if you’d still like to contribute you can find the master list here.

Thank you all for taking part. When we find out the total that all the auctions and raffles raised I’ll let you know.

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Playing with diamonds…

24 Monday Jan 2011

Posted by sewjournal in Sew journal

≈ 2 Comments

Tags

English paper piecing, hand-piecing, patchwork, quilting blog, sewing, sewjournal blog

Yesterday I covered 50 paper diamonds and last night I had a little play.

I’m still not happy with the way this is looking. As you’ll realise theses are NOT my colours. I’m making a prayer mat for a friend and he likes browns, taupes, tans and reds.

Anyway I might make a few more reds and creams and see if that softens it a bit.

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A Plethora of Paper-Pieced Pincushions

23 Sunday Jan 2011

Posted by sewjournal in Sew journal

≈ 3 Comments

Tags

hand-piecing, handwork, patchwork, pincushion, quilting blog, sewing, sewjournal blog

You may remember these:

More ugly hexiesI was using paper-pieced diamonds to make hexagons which I was going to make into a tumbling blocks quilt. However the colours just didn’t do it for me so I abandoned it. Then one day I had a bright idea and made a couple of pincushions from the hexagons. One I use and the other I had as a give-away prize on the blog.

Well, the other day I wanted to use paper-pieced diamonds to make a prayer quilt but when I counted them out I only had 26. The other 24 were in  the unused hexagons. So in the interest of recycling combined with cutting down the UFO list (although mine is really teeny 🙂 more WIPs than UFOs really ) I decided to make pincushions from the rest of them and liberate the paper diamonds at the same time. So here they are:

I’m putting them up for sale and and you can see full pictures and details of them here. They’re completely hand-stitched.

By popular request… Mr Tiggy!

I’ve been asked a few times how Mr Tiggy is and if I could show some more pictures of him. Here is, last night, relaxing as only he knows how. See how curly he is underneath?

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My swap block arrived!

22 Saturday Jan 2011

Posted by sewjournal in Sew journal

≈ 1 Comment

Tags

block swap, Kaffe Fassett fabrics, patchwork, quilting blog, sewing blog, sewjournal blog, swap

The other day the postie brought a nice squishy parcel all the way from Kent in the UK. This is what was in it…

I had asked for the Dutchman’s Puzzle block in brights, Kaffes or moderns. My partner Caroline did a little research and found out my favourite colours are purples and teals and so she made me this lovely block. You can’t see the pale colour well in this photo but it’s a lovely duck egg colour.

That’s not all! Not being a Kaffe girl herself she sent me the rest of the fabric she used. Isn’t that generous? Thanks Caroline. I’m really thrilled with it.

Photobucket

Looking for the Queensland Flood Appeal auction?

You can find the auctions here and here. The tally for all the auctions as of Tuesday was a massive $45000! Keep up the good work and thank you for your generosity.

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