Baking

This post was from a couple of weeks' ago, but I just realised that it didn't upload properly that day. I haven't done this cooking today along with everything else!

Easy Italian style bread

Still too hot to cut.

And I used up some bananas on banana bread - using freshly ground wheat flour, coconut sugar, etc. Still to be tasted.

Sabbath

I have been trying to make Sundays more of a Sabbath.  I'm not getting legalistic about it, but I think that with our busy lives, a day when we intentionally do things a bit differently - slow things down a bit, focus on time together when possible, and try and not use the day to catch up on things we classify as work - is what we need.  And it is one of God's commandments, so I guess I shouldn't be surprised when it turns out to be something that I think is good for us.

One of the things we have been trying to do sometimes on a Sunday is making and sharing delicious (white) bread for lunch. We almost always have homemade bread, but on weekdays we mostly have wholemeal loaves and on the weekends we have white bread for a treat. About every second week I make a big tub of dough that we use for pizza, naan, gozlemes (well, our version anyway), etc.  The alternate weekends I make Turkish bread.  Sometimes we vary from this, such as if we're having burgers (bean and veg) during the week and I don't have time to make rolls, we have Turkish bread as it's quicker, or if I'm sick I might even buy a loaf (!!). 

Back to our Sunday bread ... I make the dough in the morning using the bread machine, and when it's ready for shaping I divide it up into roll sizes and each of the kids gets a ball of dough to shape as they please. I've shown them how to shape nice round rolls, but then they can make whatever shape they like.  We also make one bigger roll - about twice the normal size - for sharing. Usually I shape it into a sun or similar, but today I let the youngest do a star, so it looks like the shaping if that loaf might be shared around in future.

Shaped bread ready to bake 

I try to have some extras for Monday lunches.

Risen, baked and ready

At lunch time we generally put out salad fillings, etc, although we could just have jam or vegemite and add a green smoothie for our fruit and veg. We start by giving thanks that Jesus came to forgive our sins - one of the children does that - and we pass around the larger roll (in this case, the star) and tear off a piece each. It is hot and soft and delicious. 

How do people find time to blog every day?

I don't know how so many people seem to get so much done AND still they manage to blog about it regularly. I don't seem to have time to blog and sew in the same evening. I keep trying to do quick updates, and not write much, but by the time I crop the photos it's getting late.

Look at this blog - it's one I use to visit quite a lot. When I first started visiting it, there were SIX YEARS of posts, with almost one post a day!!! It's a food blog, so just about every day they took a picture of their dinner and wrote about it. How do you do that?!

Anyway, here is another round of pics. I may not write much then for a few days (we'll see).

Here's the tee I made for myself. Excuse the dreadful pic.



Here are a couple of little needle felted cups I made for our play kitchen. My 2 yr old has been playing with them since they were made. The first (with the heart) was a bit thin but I've added more wool since taking these pics. I was rushing a bit when I made them so I'm sure they could be a lot better - more wool and then felted more would be good. The star one is already a lot better then the first one.

This is a little needle felted bunny. It's in brown wool because that was the best that I had, but it means that the features don't photograph well. It was fun to do. Now I want to make a whole host of animals. The two pics look quite different colours but that's just how they happened to turn out - it is the same bunny photographed on the same table. Remember, I'm still just practicing with my felting - I've only made a very few things - in fact, 3 birds (well, 2 big birds and a nest of 3 babies) and the cups (and the balls, but they are a completely different technique) before these bunnies. I am not completely happy with the bunny - it isn't perfect, but I still really like it, and it was fun. And best of all, my daughter likes it.

Trying to decide if the pink had can go with the cherry dress. Hmmm ... might need to make a few more hats!

The felted bowls - you saw them prefelting - when just knitted, in a previous post. These have been through a hot wash and dry twice, and then dampened and shaped over containers, then left to dry for a couple of days. I have the next size up knitted ready to wash, and the next are on the needles but not with much knitted. Not sure if I'll do these again, only because I have too much other knitting to do. I do really like them, but they are just a lot of work. I will be really pleased when I have the whole set done though.

First two pics are the group of three - waiting for three more to make up a rainbow stacking set for the kids' play shelves.

This is just a set of two that will go in the play kitchen. My daughter has already been using the smaller one to serve me pretend soup (and lots of it!).

And a denim skirt for my 8 yr old. Ottobre, 1/03, #21. She asked for a denim skirt - I was thinking of something using lovely quilting fabric, but this is what she wanted. I think I'll still make her a fancy fabric one, but just after I get the summer basics all done for all the kids (and maybe even something for me and my fella).

Just thought I'd throw in a pic of our pizza. I don't think the picture does it justice. It was a simple one - mostly to just use leftovers. It used the dough that I've talked about before and shown pics of before - that you just keep in the frig ready to use. I love it - so quick. Sometimes I make a quick pizza before school for the kids to take for lunches, it's so easy. The school one is particularly easy because they only want cheese and tomato paste!

Birthday season around here, and lots of garden pics

I'll start trying to add in links to books that I use for patterns etc - I love it when I find a good book via someone else's blog, so I should make the effort too.

This is the first birthday crown that I've made - based on the one in the book The Creative Family: How to Encourage Imagination and Nurture Family Connections. It's for my oldest daughter. Wasn't sure if she'd be interested in starting a birthday crown tradition at this stage, but she loved it!
I wanted to add some more traditions to our lives, starting with their birthdays, as I always feel so rushed on their birthdays (particularly on their party days - getting ready for a party and/or visitors) and I felt that with a few nice traditions it would make the day more special and make us all slow down for at least part of the day!

On their birthdays they get to take cupcakes or similar to school to share with the class. Typical of my daughter, she didn't want cupcakes, but chose biscuits instead. Half choc chip biscuits, and half anzac slice. Both are vegan. The place where I use to buy my vegan choc chips closed down so I chopped up a block of choc instead. I'm fussy about choc so it is also organic (couldn't get fair trade, but tried) - I avoid buying chocolate that might come from cocoa that has been grown at a plantation that has child slaves.

My choc chip cookie recipe is from this book: Vive Le Vegan!: Simple, Delectable Recipes for the Everyday Vegan Family, by Dreena Burton. They are really good choc chip cookies. I make them all the time.

My daughter wore this outfit recently, although I sewed it up last summer. Wasn't sure if I'd put in pics already. Love how it looks on her. I only wish I had one similar! Both top and skirt are from Ottobre patterns.

This is her modelling an apron that I made for a friend of hers - for a birthday present. Simple style.

Made her a new tee - plain white, to go with her dalmation pants for a disco party for another of her friends. She badly needs more of the basics at the moment like tees - growing too fast. I'm only giving myself tonight off to do some blog catch up, then sewing full steam ahead to fill up the kids' summer wardrobes. They are currently seriously lacking things that fit them well.

And have I ever shown you the dalmation pants? I love these. A pattern from Ottobre of course, but any plain jeans pattern would do.

Not trying to show you anything homemade here (although I did make the top - hemp/org cotton, fibre reactive dyes; and the pants - from a thrift shop jumper), but I just love this pic. So fun to watch a bub with a balloon. I think this was the first hellium balloon she'd played with.

And now, onto some garden pics. There are heaps of them and I wont say much about them, but please make sure you get to the end, as there is a cute baby pic there!

By the way, this veg garden is our front yard. The back is full of fruit trees (still too young to be baring fruit). Haven't taken pics there yet.

Snow peas and sugar snap peas.

Love the look of the new peas "hatching" - with their cute little flower hats.

A few strawberry plants - will have to get a lot more of these in.

Some Giant Russian Garlic - love this variety. Not much here, but it just came up from cloves I accidentally left in from last year. There is a little of the smaller garlic too, but no pics of that.

A baby blueberry tree. There are three of them - with flowers on them already. Wonder if that means there will be a berry or two???

Some lettuce - there's heaps more of this, and actually, I took these pics a couple of weeks ago and it's grown a lot since then.

Spinach. I have masses of this and really need to get picking and make a few spinach pies. I made spinach frittata for dinner tonight and actually used frozen spinach - completely forgot about the lovely fresh, organic stuff growing in the garden. Hmmm ... might have to make it again in a couple of days!

Nasturtiums, parsley and weeds - growing under the lemon tree - just looking after themselves really. I try to encourage nasturtiums to pop up everywhere for a bit of protection for the veggies. And I end up with masses of parsley by the time summer hits - it self seeds and I can't bring myself to pull it out.

Potatoes - there are quite a few of these popping up from potatoes left in the ground from last year's planting. Which reminds me that I did buy some more seed potatoes and should get time in quickly. Adding that to me "to do" list now.

New Zealand Spinach. You might have seen this growing wild. I have it in because I don't have to do anything to look after it and it comes up. If food prices go too crazy, at least we'll be able to live on New Zealand spinach and parsley!

This is actually the most sparse part of this garden bed - not sure why I put in this pic and not another one, but you can see some silver beet and broccoli here. Also in the bed is cauli, cabbage, lots more silverbeet and all the spinach. I've tucked in a few other things too - just added one capsicum plant and a couple of rhubarb plants - that looked as though they were about to die in the pot, so not sure how they'll do. I put them in this bed because there is a section that seems to just flourish, and I wanted to give them the best chance.

This bed had potatoes last year, grown using Peter Cundall's method from his Organic Gardening DVD (which is excellent). Now, it is such a healthy garden.

The lemon tree is flowering madly.

A cabbage from the above-discussed bed.

Just some flowers. I thought they looked nice. I don't put much effort into decorative plants, but am trying to do a bit more to make things look nice.

Ahhh ... now back to birthday stuff - the crown I made for my youngest daughter's first birthday. Isn't she cute?

And her birthday cake - the first of a few (by the time we have the various gatherings with various people). This is just a plain sponge cake - not my favourite (although very nice), but her dad's favourite. I know the sprinkles and the strawberries don't really go that well, but the strawberries were completely necessary, and I had to add pink sprinkles when she was being such a pink girl that day. The sprinkles were very sparkly ones - called "Fairy Dust".

More of her birthday in the next post.

Finally tried some screen printing

This is the first print that I did. I drew the dolls that the print is based on. The fabric is a hemp/cotton muslin that I dyed using fibre reactive dyes.

I cut out the patterns pieces for the garments before printing so that I would print the right amount in the right places - decided it was better then just printing the full length of fabric that I dyed. This also meant I could curve it a bit for my skirt, which is cut with a bit of a curve. So this picture shows it all laid out on the table to dry.

I sewed up my skirt first. Will add pics of the other garments sewn up later. Those pictures are still on the camera.

This was the second screen print I did. The picture is a freehand drawing based on one in Lotta Prints, by Lotta Jansdotter. Fabric again is hemp/cotton muslin, dyed using fibre reactive dyes (Procion).

Out of it I made a dress for my bub. Here is the front ...

a close up of the print ...

and the buttons on the back. I got to adding the buttons really late at night, and realised I'd forgotten to buy matching buttons. Looked through my button collection and found these! I don't think I could have found a better match if I'd searched them all at the fabric store.

I also made pants for my toddler.

I sewed these up in time for them to wear to Easter gatherings, but didn't have time to sew up the matching tops that I'd imagined. Fortunately, my bub had a yellow top, so that worked well, but not the toddler. So again, late at night (most of my sewing happens late at night) I found a plain hemp t-shirt (undyed) already made that she had and printed it with the birds print in purple. I did it in a rush and using different inks to the other ones (a bit thinner), so the print isn't quite as clear as the print on the pants, but it was ready for wearing with the pants the next day.

Here's a pic of my two little girls wearing tops that I put pics up of in an earlier post. Just didn't have a modelled picture then.

And finally, to finish up, some food.

A delicious strawberry and rhubarb pie.

And more bread. This is the same sort as is in the last few bread pics. I've been making this as our main bread now for quite a few weeks. Just wanted to show off this loaf because look ... it looks quite normal from this side.

But out the other side ... a blow out!


Still tasted super-delicious, especially hot.