Hello lovelies, how are you all?
Sorry the blog has been so quiet – I’ve been busy making, baking, mending and cooking, which means I’m not online very much these days. But if you have time for a cuppa, I’d love to catch you up on all our latest projects.
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First our big news…we’ve bought ourselves a barbecue smoker! I’ve wanted one for about five years (ever since I first watched BBQ Pittmasters) but Pete took a bit more convincing. In the end, he agreed to a pellet smoker, which enables us to smoke (the American term for cooking low and slow over wood or charcoal) without the need to chop wood or light charcoal.
Our Traeger 34 Pro has electric ignition and a thermostat controlled auger, which feeds the 100% hardwood pellets through as needed. She’s an absolute beauty and the simplest thing to use! It’s our 30th wedding anniversary gift (in advance) and we’ve named her Rosie after the robot maid in The Jetsons. Can you see the resemblance?
We’ve only had her a week, but Rosie has already turned out a delicious six hour blade roast…
…and amazing pork belly, which we finished off on a cast iron griddle…
Stay tuned for more bbq adventures…we’re working our way through this fabulous book by Steven Raichlen…
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The denim mania continues, and the pile of $2 Salvos jeans is slowly growing in my sewing room. On top of that, my friends are now delivering their old jeans directly to our place!
Lovely Diana brought me her husband Ian’s old Wranglers – they’d originally belonged to her son Giles, but Ian had inherited them to wear as farm pants. Unfortunately, huge holes had worn through on the knees, making them unsuitable for hard yakka (that’s downunder speak for “hard work”).
Other than the knees, the denim was in excellent condition and I was loathe to cut them up, so I mended them. I unpicked the side seams and sewed denim patches in place, then reinforced over the top with lines of straight stitching, then restitched the seams closed.
Ian was absolutely delighted! As was I when I received Di’s wonderful photos of him wearing them around their farm..
I thought it might be fun to add labels to my denim creations, so I dragged out my Print Gocco set, burnt a screen, and stamped some old twill tape I had stashed away (it occasionally pays to be a bower bird)…
I sewed together the waistbands leftover from apron making and added the labels to the reverse side – they make great placemats…
These decorative feathers were a doddle to make – they’re simply cut from the side seams and fringed…
On Lorraine’s advice, I sewed denim hand towels to use with Rosie the BBQ. I added a little sashiko embroidery just for fun…
Diana loved Ian’s jeans so much that she asked me if I’d mend a small hole in her pair. I was more than happy to, then turned an old t-shirt that she’d given me into a tote bag to send them home in…
There are instructions on how to make a no-sew t-shirt tote bag online, but if you have your sewing machine set up, it’s much easier to just run a seam across the bottom of the shirt. Big Boy has just given me a pile of his old t-shirts to play with!
My young neighbour gave me her Barbie jeans to upcycle…
You know I love a challenge! I turned them into pincushions…
Lastly (on the topic of denim), lovely Steve Sheridan, potter extraordinaire and creator of my favourite tea bowl, asked me to make him an apron. Pottery aprons have two overlapping pieces below the waist to protect the knees while straddling the wheel. I used a pair of old Hugo Boss jeans donated by my friend Anita and sewed the designer labels back on for fun. It was a perfect fit…
Steve and Trish insisted that I choose a new tea bowl in exchange – I was soooo thrilled to come home with this one. When I was trying to photograph it, Pete suggested I should hold it because “it was made by hand to be held in a hand, not to sit on a shelf.”
If anyone is interested in making a pottery apron, here’s a sketch of the final pattern (and no, I’m not taking orders)…
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I have a small collection of Royal Worcester Evesham Gold pieces, including this water jug that we use every day, a wedding gift from Pete’s Aunt Anna…
So I was thrilled to find these unused vintage egg coddlers at the Salvos Store for just $10 for the pair…
They cooked our backyard eggs to perfection…
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I’ve read and listened to two fabulous books (it’s usually a combination of both these days, thanks to the sync function between Kindle and Audible), the first being The Keeper of Lost Things by Ruth Hogan…
The second was Mythos by Stephen Fry. Both books were a joy to listen to, if you have access to the Audible versions…
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We spent last Thursday night with our old friends Cliff and Kathy at Handpicked Wines on Kensington Street, tasting the award winning pinot noir…
I’m pretty fussy about wine, but every single one I tried that night was grand. My tasting flight was called “I Need A Vacay”…and it really did feel like a mini-vacation to be out drinking on a Thursday night…
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Finally, I’ve been madly mending. My friend Granny Annie suggested I investigate “visible mending” and it’s become very addictive. I picked up this Kindle book and started practising…
First I repaired a kitchen scrubber…
Followed by toe socks…
And then an Aldi bag…
…and I was off! I bought a vintage darning mushroom and now my sons hide their clothes from me for fear of having the tiniest holes attacked with brightly coloured yarn. If you’re interested in darning, here’s an old instruction pamphlet – as you can see, the process is more about weaving new fabric than closing up a hole…
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Phew! I’m all talked out! We have a brisket in Rosie at the moment, and Pete’s just come in to tell me that it needs checking, so I’m going to sign off now. What have you all been up to? ♥
Fig Jam and Lime Cordial 