Brass WOW

Very cold weather is said to be brass monkey weather, I don't have brass monkeys but I do have a brass wombat. It is designed to fit over a garden tap handle as a decorative feature. Kevin found it for me a few years ago, his job at the time entailed going into hardware shops which often have good garden departments with all sorts of interesting things for sale. Including brass wombats.

Have just finished reading "Entombed" by Linda Fairstein, a writer who has written other books I have enjoyed reading. I like police/detective novels, the unravelling of a mystery can be fascinating. One of the cases in this book had connections to the life and work of Edgar Poe, did you know the name Allan in the middle wasn't part of his actual name? Looking at her website, her new book is "Lethal Legacy" set in the New York Public Library...sounds like an interesting read! Must keep an eye out for it at my local library.

The pecan brownies were/are very yummy. I cut them into small pieces rather than large slices so we can have a piece with a coffee or tea and not feel too guilty. In case you should feel inspired to don an apron and pick up a wooden spoon, here is the recipe:

Pecan Brownies

155g butter, melted
1 1/2 cups caster sugar
3 eggs
1 teaspoon vanilla essence
1/2 cup cocoa powder
1/2 cup plain flour
1/4 teaspoon salt - optional
1 1/2 cups chopped pecan nuts

It is important to melt the butter. If not, the mixture requires too much beating which over-aerates it. The mixture needs to be dense to hold nuts evenly throughout. Also, mixture will sink slightly after taking from oven.

Mix together melted butter and sugar with a wooden spoon. Add eggs one at a time, beat lightly. Stir in vanilla essence and beat until creamy. Fold in sifted cocoa powder, flour (and salt if used) and mix until combined. Stir in pecan nuts. Pour into a greased and base lined 20cm square cake pan, bake in moderate oven for 55 minutes or until cooked when tested. Cool completely in pan. Turn out, cut into squares. Top has crusty sheen and deliciously moist centre. Serve with your choice of tea or coffee and enjoy! I'm sure it could also be yummy in large squares with cream or ice cream. Or even both, if you wish - why not?

I have read some very nice recipes in blogs recently, so thought I would contribute one too. It's an Aussie recipe so the quantities are metric, however there are conversion sites online if you wish to use other measurements. Plain flour is flour that has no leavening agent - baking powder, bi-carb, whatever - added, it may go by a different name in other countries. And the cocoa powder has to be pure cocoa, not drinking chocolate which has had sugar added. There's enough sugar in the recipe for a sugar hit, without needing any extra! If anyone makes it I would be interested to know.

Have a lovely week.

Jennifer

Daybreak is done!

No, that's not an error of grammar! I have finished, sewn the binding and hanging sleeve on, and labelled my "Daybreak" hanging. I took a couple of pics today but when I uploaded them on the computer they looked a bit fuzzy, so I will try for sharper ones.

There's a lovely smell wafting through the house as we speak....pecan brownies are cooking in the oven......we are invited to older son's place for dinner tonight so I am making some nice munchies. His girl is a wonderful cook and always makes nice yummies, so it's my turn tonight.

Today I am feeling more cheerful, I have been feeling down for the past week because I am a year older. Every birthday now makes me wonder how much longer I will be alive. I am not being morbid, just curious; my mother died at 75, my father at 70. I am on the shady side of 60 and rapidly stepping further into the shade. However all my grandparents were in their 80s when they passed away, in fact I think my father's mother may have been over 90 when she went. So there is hope for me yet. So much to do, so little time.......I was put on this earth to accomplish a certain amount and right now I am so far behind, I can never die!

And of course if I didn't spend time on the computer I could do wonderful things.

Jennifer

I am becoming a hermit

Today is my quilt guild meeting. Instead of going I am having a lovely peaceful time here at home, making a label for my hanging. Kevin is bowling in a competition, we discussed juggling the car so we could both go to our chosen venues.....and it all became too hard for me, so I opted to stay home.

Does this mean I am becoming a hermit?

Even as a child I have always treasured my 'alone' time and it is much less now, so it has become more precious to me.

Next Wednesday I am heading off to the spa to spend my birthday gift voucher. But it doesn't matter how long I spend in there, I will still come out the same person. I won't be any younger or more glamorous. And I have warned son's girl that no one, but no one, is going near my fingernails. Very short nails on my left hand, longer and shaped on my right.....that's for a purpose......I play guitar. Lovely girl that she is, she agreed. I was given a gift manicure a few years ago and the young chickybabe doing my nails was mollified when I let her paint them with clear polish, although she was obviously aching to cut them all the same length. But they're my nails, and I wear them how I like.

Today is blowing a howling gale, the wind is making us feel several degrees colder than the temperature says it is. Although my sewing room has lost a lot of light since the edifice was built next door it's still bright, and being out of the wind is very nice. The cats have curled up in their favourite spots and are very content out of the weather.

Now my coffee cup is empty, so I shall continue making my label. Enjoy the rest of the weekend.

Jennifer

Rainy day WOW

These are very little pewter wombats, the one on the left is a bit over an inch long. I like the one on the right rolling on his back - that's what young wombats do.
Another pic of the pretty purple bush I posted the other day. When these are in flower the neighbourhood is very cheerful as they are a popular plant hereabouts, although someone (who didn't live near here) once told me she didn't like them, as she considered them too gaudy. Our neighbourhood needs all the colour it can get, it's a bit dull and boring otherwise.

Had a very nice dinner out on my birthday, but it was nearly spoilt for us, and for others too, by a large group of uncontrolled small children. There seemed to be two young families with about seven children in total; it was a bit hard to count them as they seemed to be everywhere all the time. They were rowdy, and stood on their chairs (we should be thankful, I suppose, they didn't stand on the tables too) and continually bumped and banged the chairs of other diners as they kept pushing past yelling and screaming. Perhaps their parents were not given a copy of the puppy training manual when they first gave birth......the one that teaches how to make a puppy sit, stay and heel. We asked to be moved, and we weren't the only ones who did so. There was another family group with three young children who were beautifully behaved, which made the large group look worse by comparison. The food was very good but we will think twice about returning.

At my birthday dinner Kevin gave me a voucher for a spa treatment of my choice, older son's girl manages a spa and has assured me I will get the royal treatment when I go there. Does this mean he thinks I need improving? That's a bit of a backhander on one's birthday. I know it's all downhill after 25, but let's not rub it in. And older son gave me a gorgeous Aussie native plant for Mother's Day.

Yesterday I unpicked the terrible quilting on my hanging and did it again using cotton thread, bugger the monofilament stuff. I even managed to j-u-s-t about quilt over the same lines so the holes in the batik fabric aren't too obvious. The quilting is not great but it's done, the hanging sleeve is sewn in place (nearly forgot about that) and I am part way machining the binding on.

Enjoy your week.

Jennifer

Aaarghhh......

.....I hate monofil thread. After having it break a few times while free-motion quilting I am unpicking it and I will never ever use monofil again. And of course the fabric is batik, so unpicking is leaving holes in it. I suck at free-motion quilting anyway. Perhaps I should just throw the hanging out and be done with it.

This pretty shrub flowers in autumn and spring, I think it's called Tibouchina and comes from somewhere like Mexico. It's one of the few remaining from when we first moved here nearly 22 years ago, what with my brown thumbs and The Great Hailstorm of 1990 that shredded all the gardens in the district. But this keeps flowering, so we have let it stay. The lovely wire fence is between us and the building site next door, it's been over 18 months now since the building started. On one hand it's peaceful having no neighbours on one side of us, on the other hand living next door to a building site for so long has its drawbacks. At least when the workmen go home at the end of the day it's very peaceful. There's a house near here that has been a building site for at least ten years, probably closer to 15 or 20 - I really can't remember it ever not being partly built. I feel for their neighbours.

I am being taken out tonight for dinner but really wouldn't care if I didn't go, the prospect of getting out of my comfy slippers and tracky daks (sweat pants for those not in Oz) is taking on huge proportions. I would far rather stay home and sew, and be comfortable and warm. But I suppose I have to be grateful. Still, a birthday flower or card would have been nicer than being left on my own for much of the day.

Best wishes for Mother's Day for all the mums tomorrow.

Jennifer

First WOW for May

A rather unusual wombat carved from wood, apparently this piece was made of timber from the old cattle yards at Nowendoc Station in Northern NSW and was made by Plums' Potterings, who make objects from salvaged old hardwoods; some of the timber used is a century old or more. It was bought at a street market in Tamworth a few years ago. Despite its chunky appearance it's quite light to pick up, and the timber is very weathered along the older cut edges. It's even been branded but I don't what the brand refers to, it's just a squiggle I think.

Went to another quilt show on Sunday and saw some lovely quilts. But I didn't take photos as there wasn't enough room to take good pics, and anyway I wouldn't post them here without their owners' permission. The raffle quilt was a very pretty floral hexagon quilt which I didn't win. And I didn't win the green one on Saturday either. Have to make my own, I suppose. Mumble grumble........

Tomorrow would be my grandfather's birthday, he would be 124 years old if he were still alive to blow out the candles on his cake. He was quite a dashing young bloke....here he is. He and my grandmother were married when they were well into their 30s, it was his first marriage and my grandmother's second. She was divorced, which must have been a fairly radical thing in the early 1920s, and already had two teenage daughters. They met when he was a patient in the hospital where she worked as a cook, and went on to have two children of their own, my mother and her younger brother. They have all gone now, and I am the older generation, which is a sobering thought when I remember to think it.

Growing older is compulsory, growing up is optional!

Jennifer

Coffee break

And it is needed too.....I have been quilting the hanging that had worked its way to the top of the UFO pile, there was a reason it had been languishing......my free-motion skills. Never mind, finished is better than perfect and it will pass the 10-foot rule (if you can stand 10 feet away and it doesn't look too bad, it has passed the test). 'Daybreak' is so evocative of the scenery we saw along the south east Alaskan coast - dark trees coming to the water's edge with occasionally a little cabin in a clearing. But we didn't see the bloke fishing from his jetty. I bought it at the Silver Thimble in Ketchikan, and I bought one of their big tote bags because I liked their logo of a little mouse wearing his thimble for a hat.

Went to a lovely quilt show yesterday and now am eagerly awaiting the phone call to tell me I have won their beautiful raffle quilt, the one with green star blocks.....not the blue one with Japanese fans although that was beautiful too.... but the green one, oh my. It is calling me from afar.

Enjoy what is left of the weekend.

Jennifer