retreat

I spent the weekend at the St Francis Retreat Centre here in Auckland. I joined other members of Creative Fibre for a weekend of learning and creating (and eating!). The St Francis Retreat Centre is a beautiful old building, each of us had our own room. I took part in only one class, weaving. Learning the basics of warping up a loom (I've just been gifted one, so I was keen to learn all I could). The rest of the time I spent spinning, crocheting and talking. The retreat centre also does silent retreats, I don't think many of us from this weekend would be able to go on one of those!

 It was a lovely relaxing time, but now I'm in the thick of two weeks of school holidays. Traditionally these Winter holidays are my least favourite, often the weather means that we don't get out too much and cabin fever sets in. This time round, I've got a few activities up my sleeve if the weather decides not to go our way. But of course now that I'm all prepared the weather has been fantastic!

for love

The weather yesterday was amazing for this time of year, shorts and T-Shirt type weather in the middle of Winter! The kids and I made the most of it, spending many hours in the garden, the poor neglected garden. 

We discovered some potatoes to add to our dinner, there was a flurry of little hands finding "eggs" as one of them decided. I think possibly dinosaur eggs by the overheard conversation.

I received many compliments for my ginger crunch the other weekend. Many requests for the recipe followed so I thought I'd share it here (it's not really MY recipe either). I had to make a batch especially to photograph to accompany this post, so for the love of you dear readers, my family and I will suffer through eating this batch. I hope you appreciate all I do for you!

The recipe I use is a Jo Seagar one. You can find the recipe for wholemeal ginger crunch here. I use a tad less sugar in the base, I also use Ceres organic crystallized ginger for the base. It has the most amazing ZING compared to other crystallized ginger, I think it makes all the difference. The recipe is from  "A Treasury of New Zealand Baking". It's an amazing baking book, each and every recipe I've tried is a winner. Enjoy!

weekending luck

 I'm quite a homebody, especially over the cooler months. We'll often spend the entire weekend at home and  in the depths of Winter probably the whole weekend indoors! It's quite lucky that most of my favourite pastimes can be done snuggled up inside, and made all the more enjoyable in the cooler weather. This weekend was a rainy, stay inside kind of weekend and I did just that.

I like to keep a stock of handmade booties and other wee things for gifting to new babies, my stocks have been running low lately. It's a good excuse to use some nice hand spun yarn and try out a new pattern. I've got several pairs finished now just awaiting the right buttons.

We did actually briefly brave the rainy weather to drop off a bunch of stuff to the local thrift shops, while there I picked up some amazing linens. Each is a large square tablecloth, two are in pristine "I can't bear to cut them up" condition. The bottom one with Autumn like leaves however has a number of holes and stains so that one will be made into some notebooks. Each tablecloth (1 metre by 1 metre) was just $1! Crazy I don't know how they slipped through the pricing cracks as teeny tiny pieces of linen were priced at $8 each! The young girl at the counter didn't bat an eye as she announced the "grand total" - I high tailed it out of there before I was found out. I felt like I was stealing them at that price. Lucky for my linen collection that we braved the rainy weather.

Do you like rainy weekends?

weekending + last chance to enter giveaway

Finding the first Guavas on my little tree was the highlight of the weekend! It will take a few years till it produces enough for some Guava Jelly, but I can't wait! The last of the "wild flowers" are flowering, not many left now but just enough to have a pop of colour in the vege patch where the kids and I scattered some seeds in Spring - they survived the drought. I'm working on a special something for a special someone and  amongst all the goings and comings this weekend I managed some time to make a little something with this silk/merino that I spun, the first time trying to add beads when I piled it up! It's deliciously soft.

Last chance to enter the Penny Scallan giveaway! I'll draw it sometime tomorrow morning.

weekending

 We started our weekend with a Pippins family night, to celebrate World thinking day. It was a fun adventure for the little ones, a trip up a big hill (trying hard not to get scratched to bits with all the blackberry!- maybe my Saltwater sandals weren't the best choice of footwear?), lots of fun internationally themed activities and unfortunately because of a fire ban, no camp fire. All the kids were given a little passport and cool torches that were like glow sticks and the kids had SO much fun with them once the sun had set. Mr A especially loved the torch and happily twirled it all night long. The rest of the weekend was pretty quiet, which was just what we needed after a busy week.

I have been busy craft-wise and hopefully I'll get a chance to share some of those projects this week. Hope you've had a great weekend my friends!

weekending

On the weekend I did some spinning at a local A&P show. It was lovely sitting outside spinning the day away, I'm always totally amazed by all the people telling me that they have a spinning wheel at home. So many wheels sitting unused in some cupboard or garage somewhere. I didn't get much of a chance to look around, but I did spy the GIANT pumpkins! There was a lady selling spindles there and one did come home with me. It's a supported spindle and I spun up a little bit of Alpaca with it. It's a perfectly portable way of spinning!

Hope your weekend was a good one!

nesting

There was a flurry of activity here on the weekend. Spurred on by a generous donation of some little bits of yarn. The mother in law of a lady at my creative fibre group had passed away recently and some of her stash was on offer. There was a large bag of scrappy bits all tangled together, I gladly took them with this project in mind for them. It's inspired by this pin. A bird's nest helper! Miss E and I set about making one, one turned into three as she kept coming up with more ideas and people who really "needed and really must have" one.  Luckily in my stash was lots of wire to make the frames with. In another crafty life I crocheted a lot with wire and certainly miss E thought it was luck once she found some wire flowers and other unfinished projects for embellishments. Our one is hanging in our fig tree, I'm not sure if it's such a good idea though. In a few months I'll be doing my best to keep the birds away from my figs!

Pop back tomorrow for a easy tutorial! I've finally got some sunny weather to take the pics.

history

On the weekend we took a trip to the Howick Historic Village, it's somewhere I'd always wanted to visit. A few weeks ago I spotted half price tickets on a "1 day" type site and snapped them up. I really wanted to visit on an "open day" that they have once a month. It's where lots of volunteers dress up in period costume and go about typical activities around the village.

We all had an amazing time, it was much bigger than I expected and it took us quite awhile to get around all the houses, cottages and little huts. Most of the cottages are restored but there are a few showing the many layers of wallpaper that the owners over the years had chosen, surprisingly to me some of the wallpapers were very brightly coloured. I'm sure that one of the highlights (for the kids anyway) was the village sweet shop where we bought some old fashioned lollies, then they had a sausage cooked over coals at the village pub!

See those cool purple pants that miss E is wearing up there? They have hardly been off her body since they arrived! They are made by Rhiannon of Toast clothing and I can't say enough about how cool they are! You can find some similar in her Felt shop Croutons. Do go and have a look, she also makes awesome brooches and bags too!

weekending

A few pictures from the last week, some yarn I spun!, rainbows and raspberries.

weekending

The figs are starting to ripen and I braved a thunder and lightening storm to pick this one over the weekend. I spied it from my kitchen window and was amazed by the size and had to get to it before the birds. I can tell you it was delicious and I shared it with a little one.

On Sunday we made our way to a free local concert, it was hot, crowded and fun. The kids shared some candy floss, it was definitely big enough to share. Like everything these days, the candy floss was "super sized". It was great to see so many families out and about enjoying a nice pocket of Summer weather, it seems a bit thin on the ground this year. That's not all bad though, it means that I've hardly had to water the garden! Fingers crossed for a small water bill then.

We've got a big week here with trips and mother help and the like and a very special birthday so this space might have to wait till next week.

weekending

A few snaps from our weekend, a very decadent cake! some perfume making by miss E and I found some quiet time to finish off a scarf. I really enjoyed this weekend, so much so, I'm already looking forward to the next one!

zero

Zero food miles here. Fresh figs warm from the sun, yum. Best part I seem to be the only one who loves them. I had them on a pizza last night and my family thought I was from another planet. What are you eating with zero food miles?

weekend

-Signs of Spring already, who else has noticed all the blooms that seem to be opening out everywhere?

-Finding the perfect spot to hang a thrift store find, beautiful watercolour painting done by a school art teacher in 1955. Isn't it beautiful? I love it especially as I have a love for magnolia trees and don't have the room on our section for one so this is the next best thing.

-Trying to decide what to make with this fabric that was also a thrift store find, maybe a small picnic blanket or a dress for miss E.

Hope you had a great weekend.

weekend

Sun shining through the neighbour's fig tree giving hanging out the washing a great view, a progress shot of the strawberry ball, happy face pikelets, yum for all ages