Around here - Holiday Movie

If you are looking for a lovely nature documentary I can highly recommend you sit down and watch "My Octopus Teacher" on Netflix.  It stars Craig Foster who also produced the film.  He was a burnt out film maker and suffered from depression and one day when he was freediving he came across an octopus and then every day for over 300 days he went back to the same place to visit the octopus.  He then describes the effect of his experience with the octopus on his relationship with his son, and his son's development as a diver and a student of marine life.

When I suggested to my kids we watch a documentary they weren't too keen however they did think the movie was great and learnt a lot of things about octopus.  The images and cinematography is absolutely stunning.  At times when he was talking about his relationship with the octopus it was a little bit over the top however aside from that, it's a brilliant educational and emotional story with beautiful photography which was filmed in South Africa and a must watch film.

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It's been a long time since I've been to Roma Street Parklands and as it's Spring I knew they would have some pretty flowers out so I thought it would be nice to go for a visit.  Other images of Roma Street Parklands.

Australian Water Dragons are everywhere in the park.

Oh yes this snake freaked us out as we were walking up and it was on the left hand concrete block and we waited for a while and then it slid down onto the ground and headed towards the water dragon and gave one attempt at scaring it and the water dragon stepped back and then the snake slid off...there are heaps and heaps of water dragons everywhere and they are very friendly and don't move when you walk past them however the snake...um..that's another story.

Around here - Raspberry Coconut Slice [aka Raspberry Bar Slice]

Do you ever have those recipes that remind you of a certain time?  My Mum used to make us what I called "Raspberry Bar Slice" for afternoon tea after school.  This was a regular in our household and I don't think I have ever made it myself so yesterday afternoon I made it for the first time.  This recipe came from the Women's Weekly Beautiful Biscuits cookbook and it was really quick and easy and brought back lots of lovely memories for me.  It took less than 10 minutes to have this in the tray and in the oven so really quick. 

RASPBERRY COCONUT SLICE

BASE

3/4 cup of Plain Flour

1/4 cup of Self Raising Flour

2 Tablespoons of Sugar

90gms Butter

1 Egg

1/2 cup Raspberry Jam [or jam of your liking]

TOPPING

1 Egg

2 Tablespoons of Sugar

1 and a 1/4 cups of desiccated coconut

METHOD

[Turn oven on to 180 degrees]

Thermomix -  I put my dry ingredients [flours and sugar] and the butter into the Thermomix and process it on speed 6 for 10 seconds then add the egg and process it on speed 6 for about 3 seconds. OR

Food Processor - Combine sifted dry ingredients [flours and sugar] into a food processor and add roughly chopped cold butter and process until butter is evenly distributed through the dry ingredients then add the egg and process until the ingredients cling together.

Press dough evenly over the base of a well greased 28cm x 18cm [11 inches x 7 inches] lamington tin.

Spread evenly with Jam.

To make the topping, beat the egg and sugar together in a bowl and mix together using a fork then mix in the desiccated coconut.

Spread the topping over the top of the jam.

Bake in 180 degrees oven for 25-30 minutes or until golden brown.  Check at the 25 minute mark.

This is the slice before it's cooked ready to go into the oven.

Around here - Birthday Traditions

Today is my Birthday and to celebrate I take a photo of myself with my kids every year with four cupcakes and as I am the birthday girl, I get to eat two of them...yeh me!!  This is the 15th photo in this series starting with 2006.

It's been a really rough month for our family with personal things going on that I don't even feel like celebrating to be honest.  I took these photos on Sunday as the kids aren't with me this week which is also making me sad.  Six years of week about and I still hate the fact that they aren't with me 365 days of the year.  That's life and everyone including my close friends have lots of stuff going on in 2020.  I still love that the kids know this photo is my "must have" birthday tradition.  I can't even imagine what we will all look like in another 10 or 20 years time.

Here's the other photos starting from 2006.

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Happy Saturday morning to everyone.  I thought I would do a quick round up of some links that might interest you.

Remember all those photos we take on our iPhones and cameras, here are some tips to getting them into your family photo books.

A story about an Australian Crochet King from Victoria.

Remember in January we went to a screening of The Biggest Little Farm so if you get a chance to watch it I can highly recommend it and would love to watch it again.

I haven't made this Raspberry Lemon recipe for a while so I might do it this weekend.

Our go to Fluffy Bread Roll recipe.

This Swedish Meat ball recipe is delicious and worth the effort.  I remember years ago when the kids were little we would buy the frozen Swedish Meatballs from Ikea whenever we made a trip down there, which takes me back.....  Personally I think meatballs are over rated as they take lots of time to roll them and then I end up cutting them in half to eat them anyway.  What's your thoughts on meatballs.

With lots of events and festivals cancelled or pivoted this year the Brisbane Festival has an art installation of big birds around the city which are Finches and called #messengersofbrisbane.  In 2013 there were the big Pink Bunnies around Brisbane and look how little the kids were back then.

My nieces wedding which was going to take place in April had to be cancelled 3 weeks before the event and we were all heading over to Perth for it.  It has been rescheduled for November and I gave it a slim chance that we would be attending based on border closures, little to no flights and being nervous about being on a plane in a confined space for nearly 6 hours.  It looks like WA won't be opening their borders at all so we will not be attending the wedding which is what we suspected however it has now been confirmed. My niece will still be getting married however we won't be there.  I would however like to get my $550 back from Webjet who were being very uncooperative about a refund.  I haven't booked a plane flight in 7 years and for some reason I booked with Webjet instead of Qantas where I would have had more luck directly as they cancelled the flight. I would never book through Webjet again. It's money better in my bank account than there's.  I know many people have lost so much more money than me however it's my money and I would like it in my account.   

I hope everyone has a lovely weekend.

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Today is the first day of Spring which means it's only two weeks until my birthday and that means my  "birthday photo".  This year will be 15 years of this special tradition and you can read about it here.  The only thing I need on my birthday is hand made cards from my kids and my birthday photo and I'm one happy person.

I haven't taken many photos lately as we have been busy with some family things which has been taking up my time.  Three weeks ago I also ended up in an ambulance from my GP to the Emergency Department as a precaution and some tests.  I went to the GP for a 6.10 pm appointment and left the teenagers to make the pasta for dinner and had to ring them to tell them to eat dinner without me and wasn't sure if I would be coming home and for them to walk to school in the morning.  I also had to ring my sister to come and collect my car which was at the GP's.  I got the all clear and got home at 2.00 am and was very tired the next day however everything is okay.  Health is wealth I say! Here's a few photos I have taken over the past month.

Roast chicken dinner and home made gravy.

Breakfast, sourdough, avocado and feta.

Flowers at Mt Cootha Botanical Gardens.

Entrance to The Japanese Gardens at Mt Cootha Botanical Gardens.

Japanese Gardens.

Cherry Blossom in the Japanese Gardens.

The veggie garden at Mt Cootha Botanical Gardens which is next to a covered outdoor kitchen area that the council run cooking classes to show you how to use the produce in your cooking. 

Afternoon shadows.

My grey and pink shoes matched the ground and the flowers.

My vision board I did in 2018 which I just added our current photo to the bottom.

Around here - Big Patch Quilt Update

A little while back I mentioned that I had purchased the "Big Patch Quilt" pattern from Susan of Hopewood Home fame.  Her ability to piece the fabrics together is amazing and she uses new fabric, linen tea towels and other linen fabrics to make her quilts and they are stunning.  Her Instagram account is here.

After I bought the pattern I bought some fabric from Spotlight when they had 50% off quilting fabric.  Due to Covid their supplies of quilting fabric and notions is limited and things are out of stock more than usual as these things come from China.  Anyway I set about to start on this big patch quilt and cut out the fabric and pieced it together.

I remember reading somewhere someone said about making a quilt.  You buy a whole heap of fabric, cut it up and sew it back together again which sounds kind of crazy when you think about it given the hours all of this takes however that's exactly what it is.

My first ever quilt I made which seems like 100 years ago was a "Lone Star" quilt which I hand quilted...oh the pricks of that needle into my fingers I can still remember it.  Hand quilting a double bed quilt took a long time however my sister and I had a craft group of friends and we would meet every second Thursday night for crafting and then have coffee and cake for supper in fine bone china tea cups and we did that for years and years until I moved interstate.  They are my sisters friends so they still catch up with each other however there's no crafting now just catching up for coffee.  If you have never made a quilt before Susan's "Big Patch Quilt" Pattern is the ideal starter pattern and is easy because it's joining big pieces together rather than small squares, triangles and more complicated patterns.  

I use a quilting mat, ruler and cutter which I was taught how to use years ago.  As soon as you use your rotary cutter you click the lock on and put it down again.  Never ever think I'll use that in a second because those blades are razor sharp.  Pick it up unlock it with your finger, cut the fabric, lock it with your finger and put it down at the top of your cutting mat.  A good habit that I was taught in the beginning.

You can get some other quilt ideas from Elise on how to make a triangle quilt.  Elise also has in her archives other quilts she has made and how to pick and pair fabric.  Worth a read as she is a powerhouse when it comes to completing projects.

I had my sewing machine serviced last month [first time ever] and I can't believe how good it is to sew with it and what a difference it makes.  It was totally worth the 40 minute drive to drop it off and then 40 minutes back out to pick it up again.  Here's a few photos of how my "Big Patch Quilt" is going.  You can also search the hastag #bigpatchquilt on IG as well for other colours and people who have just purchased Susan's pattern and made this quilt.

One thing with quilting projects it's not an overnight process.  Cutting the fabric is one step. Sandwiching the quilt is another and quilting the quilt is the final step and then adding your border to the finished quilt.  All of these steps takes time and hours and time flies by because it's enjoyable.   Here's a few photos of how it's all going. 

The dining table with the cutting board, sewing machine and fabric.

Some of the fabrics sewn together.

Me in my pj's and socks on the quilt top.

Here it is the top all done.  If I was being picky the black rectangle which has grey crosses on it probably doesn't go and I only used one piece I should have unpicked that and put another fabric however it's just for me and I'd sewn it altogether and I can live with it.  It looks totally black from above however it's not.

So lucky I have a big tiled floor to spread out on particularly as you have to sandwich it together.

Backing fabric taped to the floor.

Then the bamboo wadding and then the quilt top pinned [sandwiched] together.  The safety pins are quilting pins which I got from Spotlight - also out of stock when I went back to get more.  They are bent which allows you to rock them back and forth to get through the layers of fabric and then pin it.  I used a little wooden skewer [reject shop kitchen section] - we had them on hand.  It helps to lift the pin up and click it into place.  I used this tutorial "how to baste a quilt" so you get the idea of how to pin and she had a special tool the little bamboo skewer worked perfectly.  

Quilt sandwiched together with the quilting pins.

The start of quilting doing straight lines.  

I haven't finished all the vertical quilting lines let however I've done 3/4's of them and then I will turn it around and sew the other side so I will end up with squares of quilting lines 4".   All quilting references are in inches because it's American and even though when I was at school we learnt cm etc. quilting is all done in inches even here in Australia.  Quilting mats, rulers etc. all in inches.