The '3 Year Quilt' Coming Together

I am a sucker for a pretty craft project. Even more so when there are gorgeous colour combinations like pink, green and blue.

So when my boss (at the time) incited me to start a 'block of the month' quilt project at a craft fair 3 years ago I was keen. I even kept up with the block-per-month thing for the first two months.

The almost finished quilt on the line today (yes! blue skies!)

It was the embroidery that broke my progress. Each month had at least two blocks to embroider, some quite detailed. All that embroidery is what drew this project out from a 9 month project to a 3 year one.

The quilt design - Polka Dot Girls - by Bronwyn Hays of Red Brolly
I must admit I edited some of the embroidery blocks to suit my tastes.

However, at last there is an end in sight! Earlier this week I completed stitching the last embroidery panel and today sewed all the panels together. The sewing isn't wonderful - it's my first real attempt at patchwork and I learned a lot of things along the way - but it is complete and the colours and embroidery draw attention away from the mis-aligned seams.

Fuu inspects my work. The angle of her ears signals approval.

Next I have to put on the borders, buy batting and backing fabric then I (fool that I am) will be doing the quilting by hand with embroidery thread. If it has already taken me three years I might as well drag it out to three and a half and make it look exactly the way I want to!

Purple King Beans

Purple King Climbing Beans



Seeds: Feathergill's seeds

Date planted: 29 Oct 2010
Planting conditions: direct in position, in cheap store-bought compost.

Germination: 05 Nov 2010 (7 days)

Growth: Were roughly 20cm tall at 15 Nov 2010. Trailed tendrils up an old clothes line 04/12/2010.

Old washing line put to use as a bean trellis.

Flowers: 10 Dec 2010

Strange but pretty purple flowers...

First sign of fruit: 14 Dec 2010

Beans grow from behind the flower. You can see one here,
the bright green stalk pushing the remains of a flower outwards.

Harvested to date: roughly 15 - 20 beans. (Note: beans are ready to pick when a beautiful dark purple color. They go bright green when cooked/steamed.)

Dark purple beans (with watermelon flower)

Advice: Once beans start to show, continue picking them because if you stop, then the plant stops producing new beans.

This bean has a few more days to ripen.
The purple colour starts at the sides and tips.
* You can also see signs of the Halo Spot disease on the leaf here.

Also, all of my purple king plants have now contracted Halo Spot - a fungal disease which shows brown dots on the leaves, each dot surrounded by a yellow 'halo'. Leaves yellow, die and fall off. I should have removed the diseased leaves/plant immediately but when I didn't it spread quickly to the others.

The disease can come dormant in the seed or can be caught by other means. It will spread quickly if the plant is watered over the foliage (the water splashes from diseased leaves/plants to clean ones). It is best to water beans (infact, many plants) close to the stems and away from the leaves for this reason.

So far, the beans have continued to grow despite the poor condition of the plants. But at the rate I am losing leaves I don't think it will keep it up for long.

No Laundry Today

It has been overcast and rainy for almost a month now. There were two days of sunshine a few weeks ago - luckily they were on my days off so I could get some washing done.

But since then the skies have rained, sulked, blown a gale, sulked and rained some more.

We've also had a string of Summer storms, typical to Queensland weather (pre-drought years).

A Summer storm with a green-hail sky over Brisbane

Our dams which were dangerously low a few years ago are now filled to 80% - to a point where they are having to release water to ensure that there is capacity for flood mitigation.

Heavy clouds sulking in the sky.

My lawn is a swamp in some areas at saturation point everywhere else.

Swampy front lawn.

My plants are hankering for some sunshine and time to dry out. I am hankering for either some sunshine or a big water tank to capture some of the rainfall.

Handmade Christmas

My home is rather bare when it comes to Christmas decorations this year.

With such limited space in a little house we have no room for a Christmas Tree. A small tree would quickly be toppled and nomed by two wee kittens. We have very few table-top surfaces to place things on. Also, my collection of Christmas decorations is small. Too small.

But the few things I do have are handmade with love and with more olde world charm than tinsel glitz.

For example, my front door sports a wreath, tarted up with pine cones, macadamia nuts and pretty feathers.


And my wrapping paper is tissue paper, hand stamped with a set of stamps I carved myself...


And across the top of a window in the living room there's a 'Merry Christmas' made of painted wooden letters attached to tartan ribbon...


So. Very sparse indeed...

But the other half of my handmade Christmas is that so many of the wonderful gifts I've received from generous friends have been handmade.

First I received a box of handmade goodies from Metanoia, including a gorgeous little cherry blossom shaped pouch, a patchwork purse and handmade chocolates in the shape of crowns all made by her clever self. You can see some of her patchworking adventures on her blog, The Quilted Hen.

Cute purse/pouch handmade for me by metanoia.
It was filled with handmade chocolates. How good is that?!

Then poisoned_kitty gave me a gift that included home-made cookies and a very sweet handmade card proving that she is a stamping-embossing genius.

On Sunday night Foogyah girl gave me a very unexpected gift of Sweet Dal packaged in a cute cookie jar. It was squishy deliciousness and I'm guilty of already eating half of the lot! She's written an entry about it on her blog, including a recipe.

Then night_child80 gave me a little gift pack that had some handmade soap and mineral eyeshadow (bought off etsy - supporting handmade Christmas gifts!)

Li gave me a box of Lush goodies - one of the few companies that still makes it's products by hand and supports environmentally friendly products and packaging.

The extra effort involved in making gifts or sourcing and supporting handmade ones is so very appreciated.

MYO - Home Yogurt

Okay... so this blog has focused heavily on my garden recently. As a first time gardener everything about seeds, vegetables and flowers growing is fascinating me so I hope you'll forgive me for the one-track-mind. However, gardening isn't all I do around this place to steer myself onto a more sustainable and simple lifestyle.

Every Sunday I make yogurt to take in for lunches during the week using a 'cheater's device called an 'Easiyo'.

Sweetened Greek yogurt on top of smooshed mulberries.

Easiyo is a NZ company which has made home yogurt making easier. They sell a thermos-like device, canisters to fit it and little sachets of yogurt powder mix, containing the live culture, flavours and milk powder.

I've attempted making yogurt from scratch before but both times were failures... You see the trick with yogurt making is to keep your brew at the right temperature for the live cultures to do their work in turning the lactose into yogurt. If it's too cold, the culture will die. Likewise, if it's too hot.

The Easiyo device is half filled with boiling water and a custom sized canister, filled with the yogurt powder mixed thoroughly with water, is inserted. The boiling water gets the mix to just the right temperature and the thermos keeps it at that temperature while the bacteria do their thing.

Yummy, firm Greek yogurt after 8 hours in the thermos.

I do all this in the evening, it takes less than 5 minutes. Then in the morning I open the thermos, pull out the canister and find perfect Greek Yogurt every time!

You can buy all kinds of flavoured Easiyo sachets but I always use the unsweetened Greek yogurt. The fact that it is plain means I can use it for cooking, further process it to make soft cheese (haven't done this yet) or sweeten it with jams, sauces and honey.

Lunch - Greek yogurt with a generous dollop of Manuka honey.

Why bother with making your own?

1) Freshly made yogurt means the healthy, good-for-you live cultures are in the billions instead of the millions you find in yogurts that have been sitting on shelving.

2) It is cheaper. One yogurt sachet makes 1L and costs less than buying a 1L tub of cold yogurt from the supermarket.

3) If making from scratch, you know that your yogurt is entirely free of preservatives and other chemicals.

4) If making from scratch, you eliminate one more bit of plastic packaging from your household waste.

I live in hope that one day soon I will make yogurt from scratch, using lemon juice and milk to get a culture started. Given that my first two failed attempts were due to temperature fluctuations I hope the thermos idea will help moderate the heat so I will have success.

(Please note- I am not sponsored or supported by Easiyo in any way. I just absolutely love their yogurt maker! This entry is an honest review of their products from my perspective.)

Patience Paid-Off

One thing I have gleaned about gardening is that it requires a bit of patience, especially if you grow things from seed as I have been doing.

There is no instant gratification for the work and care you've given and often the 'slings and arrows of fortune' take away the prize leaving you miserably staring at a dead plant.

"Sometimes you break absolutely everything - your back, your heart, your nails. The whole experience hurts. This is not the Summer I signed up for."
Alys Fowler (on a storm which demolishes her garden)- The Edible Garden.

The hope of every gardener is that the fruits of their labor (literally and figuratively!) and the patience of waiting for germination, growth and then flowering/fruiting will pay off.

This week in losing one zucchini to the constant soggy weather in the last week (bad mould spores on both sides of the leaves) I have felt more keenly the satisfaction in and blessing of those things that have gone right.

Like my cornflowers (aka bachelor's buttons).

I planted the seeds back in late April, in seedling trays which sat on my kitchen bench. Each morning I watered and observed and marvelled as they sprouted out of the ground.

I then moved them to an area I thought they would be safe from kittens - ontop of the washing machine. But I found one morning that Fuu had yanked a number of them up, not to eat but rather just for fun.

So I moved the remaining fellows into my sewing room only to have Willow knock the tray onto the ground when I was lax at closing the door. With less than half of my seedlings left, I moved the tray outside, only to lose another half of that lot to sudden changes of temperature and sun.

There were 6 seedlings left. I planted three with the oregano in the back yard and the other three in the front garden.

Then I watered.

And waited.

And watched.

And waited.

And eventually I was rewarded with the gorgeous, delicate blossoms in the vivacious blue known as cornflower blue.

First one....



Then a few and now a great number at once. They are so beautiful I cannot resist photographing them over and over.


For the last three months I have had cornflowers gracing my garden and I am thankful.