Travel

If you follow me on Instagram, you will know I was away……….again, in July and August. This post is so late, like six months late. I'm hopeless at keeping a diary, not much better at posting on this blog either as you can see, but at least I will have some reference and photos here. 2015 will be my year of getting back into blogging (she says). Let's just see if I can do it. 

I am very blessed to have some really good friends. One in particular, happens to own a house in south west France. This friend was going over there and asked if I would like to go with her. I didn't even have to think about it, I jumped at the chance.  So I spent the last week of July and the first half of August swanning around France.  2014 has well and truly turned into the year of travel for me.

If you are bored seeing photos of France turn away now.

The bridge at Avignon (Pont d'Avignon)

Puissalicon

The view from my room

Beautiful old architectural details

Massive range of wine in the supermarkets

Seafood at the market in Pezenas

Squid and chorizo, yumm

YUM, what more can I say!

Breakfast on the terrace

Beziers

Flower markets at Beziers

Meze

Pezenas

Gorgeous quilting and embroidery shop in Toulouse

Coffee shop in Toulouse

A house in Homps along the Canal du Midi

Canal du Midi

Where we spent quite a few evenings with a glass of wine, and watching the world go by.

Cocktail Wednesday- the first one for 2014

It’s my turn this week, and I would have loved to have chosen a Toblerone, they are so yummy, but I didn’t want to kill Shay.  You’re welcome Shay.
Instead I’ve chosen a Caipirinha, apparently the national drink of Brazil.

It’s pretty much just lime, sugar, crushed ice and a type of rum called Cachaça, pronounced Ka cha sa. If you google Caipirinha, there’s quite a few recipe variations, but I like the simple original one.  If you can’t find Cachaça, you could possibly just use a white rum like Bacardi instead, I think. (Not sure whether it would taste the same or similar, in fact I might just do a taste test this evening to check.) Edited to add, after two with the Cachaca, it's not going to happen, but you are welcome to try.  You can use raw sugar or caster sugar or anything in between. You MUST use a fresh lime, not lime juice, as you need to muddle the lime with the sugar to release the oils in the lime rind.
It’s a really great summer drink, which is perfect for today as it's damn hot  with roughly 10000000000% humidity. I kid you not.

Anyway, here's a photo of the ingredients without the ice as it would have melted by the time I'd taken the photo.

Note: The pineapple is not one of the ingredients!!!

The recipe

Ingredients:

• 1lime, quartered
• 2 tsp fine sugar
• 2 oz Cachaça
• crushed ice, not too finely crushed as it melts too fast.

Preparation:

1. Place the lime wedges and sugar into an old-fashioned glass
2. Muddle well.
3. Fill the glass with ice.
4. Pour in the cachaça.
5. Stir well.

Note: Keep the sugar mixed in the drink by stirring often. I used quite a large lime so only added half a lime not a whole one.

The first sip and possibly the second sip is a bit like drinking rocket fuel, but persevere and you will be pleasantly surprised at how mellow it is after the first couple of sips.  

Recipe from  here

Cyril the parrot eyeing my drink.

This is a 5 out of 5 for me, a perfect summer pre dinner (during dinner, after dinner, what the heck, anytime it's hot) drink.

Cocktail Wednesday

Another week rolls by and it's only one week to Christmas Day, arghhhhhh.

This week's cocktail was brought to us by Rachael at Blue Mountain Daisy.

It's a very summery and refreshingly sounding Cucumber Collins.

This is what mine looked like, very anaemic compared to Rachael's.

The verdict.  It was a tiny bit too sweet for my taste. I don't love sweet cocktails, overall this is refreshing but next time I would add only a little simple syrup or none at all. It's a lovely fresh and unusual taste in a cocktail, but who doesn't love cool crisp cucumbers in summer.  

After seeing Rachael's and thinking that mine was too sweet, I tried again. Although by now it was Thursday. My photos are not nearly as pretty as Rachael's. It didn't help that both days, I made the drink in the evening, with less than stellar lighting.

Take two.

I need to use smaller glasses. I only used half the amount of sugar, that was better, but it was still very anaemic looking, I think even paler than yesterday's, and with too much soda in it, the flavour was very subdued.  A great drink for those hot summer evenings. I will absolutely make this one again, but next time I'll use much smaller glasses.

Cocktail Wednesday

Wow the weeks are disappearing very quickly, yikes, only two weeks until Christmas.  That's a good reason to taste test a cocktail or two. I need to decide which drinks are going to make the cut and will be served on Christmas Day. That brings me to today's cocktail.

I'm not sure whether this one has a name, Shay picked it so we'll just have to ask her. I think it's called a cranberry cocktail, if not, I'm sure Shay can come up with a suitable and probably highly inappropriate name!!!! 

Anyhoo, the ingredient's for this one are in the pic below. As usual I forgot to include one of the ingredients. You'd think I was taste testing the cocktails before I took the photo, as this is the second week in a row I've stuffed it up.

A lime should be in this shot, oh and ice.

The recipe for this one: a handful of ice, a shot of vodka, I had cranberry vodka on hand, so I used that instead of regular vodka.  Topped up with cranberry juice and dry ginger ale and served with a lime wedge and a mint sprig. Oh and if I lived somewhere I could get my hands on fresh cranberries, I'd have chucked a couple into the glass too for some festive cheer.

This is it.

Not bad at all. 100000000000% better than last weeks cocktail (sorry Thea). I'd give it a 4.25. I couldn't decide between a 4 or a 4.5 so I split the difference. 

Streamlining

I was pretty bummed on hearing Google Reader was closing, but after a teeny tiny bit of research, I found Bloglovin. I'm liking it so far, in fact I will go so far as to say after only one day of using it I like it better than Google Reader. So Google Reader can disappear and I don't care!!!!! because I think Bloglovin is the bomb (at the moment).  The positives so far - I receive an email each day letting me know who has posted in the last 24 hours.  I find it a nicer layout than Google Reader. The blogs I've subscribed too are in alphabetical order. (They were all over the place in Google Reader.) It's easier to check back through posts I've already read.  It's just as easy to go to the actual blog website. It's easy to comment.  The only negative so far - I can't find how to delete a feed from Bloglovin, but I've asked the question and I'm hoping for an answer soon.

I've added a linky thingy on my side bar and you can also use the link below to add my blog to your Bloglovin feed, if you wish.

Follow my blog with Bloglovin     

Most of the rest of my spare time has been taken up with socialising, and possibly a lot more drinking than normal, which I must say, has been lots of fun.  Not sure whether my time management skills have improved at all though.



I'm making the most of my visitor who helped me rearrange my sewing room. Unfortunately I didn't think to take a before photo. I'm kind of glad in a way because it was bad, really bad. Really really bad.
Now however, I walk into my room and feel like bursting into song. It's not perfect, all the little things have to still find a permanent home, but the layout is much better than before, and it works. The fabric has just been jammed back into the shelves to get it out of the way. The next job will be to sort it and fold it nicely. The photos are not great, as they were taken very late afternoon as it was starting to get dark.







Today I've made the backing for McFlurry, hallelujah, that's only taken 20 months to get around to making the backing, after finishing the quilt top.

Not the best and most interesting backing I've ever made, but I wanted it to be quick and painless.

In other news. I quilted Scooter last week, I made the binding today and machine sewed it to the front.  I just have to hand sew it to the back. Lots of photos in my next post.


Now I need to cut out triangles for the next quilt, I can't wait to get back into my "brand new" sewing room.

A big thank you to Julie for helping me move everything around, and sorting through the huge pile of crap that was on the floor. I think we need to go out and celebrate..........again!

Squares, triangles and straight lines

Occasionally I have days like yesterday. Instead of faffing around procrastinating, I made an executive decision to just get in there and sew. No master plan, just an attitude of do it. Amazing what that attitude can do for me.

I started the day by searching for some batting for Scooter, the baby quilt. Eventually I found a bundle of batting all tied up. Once undone it was very very creased, not ideal for basting. I put that aside to unwrinkle and rather than the usual me, deciding that the quilting stars weren't in alignment, I instead, picked up some fabric I cut the other day, and made some four patch blocks.

That was easy so I thought while I was on a roll I'd cut some setting triangles for the four patches.

Wow, this is going well. So I sewed some triangles to the four patches. A.M.A.Z.I.N.G. It actually worked!

Then I cut out some of the spotty fabric that's in the starflower diamonds, I need to applique the starflower panel to it.  Ready for the next border.

I was still feeling the quilting love, I straightened out the batting and started basting Scooter. It went without a hitch. I spray basted it, and then sparsely pinned just in case.  I've now quilted almost half of it. Woo hoo.

I'm anticipating that today won't be quite as productive, but then again, you never know!

Favourite Things Friday

I used to live in a quite hilly area.  There weren't any bike or footpaths in my old neighbourhood and the speed limit on the busy road was 80kmph (50mph).


One of the many benefits of my new neighbourhood is it's much more pedestrian and bike friendly, there are footpaths and bike paths to ride on, roads with speed limits of 50kmph,  and no steep hills to climb. 

So I just had to buy myself something fun.

I love it.  I love the colour, it makes it go faster and makes me look cooler!  BP and I ride around the neighbourhood when she is here on the weekends.  It's so much fun and it's great exercise.

I had to have a bike with a basket. I haven't used it yet, but it looks cute, eventually I'll make a fabric lining for it.

I'm linking up with Shay for Favourite Things Friday.

Your Man Reminder. You're welcome!

Au revoir

Crying a few tears now as my best mate, buddy, pal, Shay, is finally on her way back home, despite that I may have tried to kidnap keep her here. Firstly, forgetting to look at the ingredient list on a curry paste that was added to a stir fry. We had both taken a mouthful before we looked at each other and let out a swear word or two and then ran to the refrigerator to check the ingredients.  A long stay in hospital so that I could visit her was averted, and so was any possibility of trying to kill her.  Secondly, the weather gods attempt at trying to keep her here almost worked.  We had THE MOST ATROCIOUS weather,  the last couple of days, horrendous winds and lots of rain. Fortunately we were spared the worst of it unlike a lot of people who have had to experience flooding again, only two years after the worst floods in many years. My sister and a friend are still without power after more than 24 hours, with the possibility of not having power back on until Wednesday morning.   Shay had to change her flight that flew out of Brisbane, as Brisbane airport was closed, and anyway, we hadn't been able to drive down to Brisbane from the Sunshine Coast as the weather was bad, roads were flooded and we were experiencing cyclonic winds. It meant that she had to stay an extra morning, woo hoo, but it still went too fast.

During the first part of the Tour de Shay, we took lots of photos, the second part, not so much.  Believe me, it's better if you don't have too much photographic evidence.

AND the best news,

I didn't get arrested.

WHile Shay was here we spent quite a bit of time sewing and chilling out. It's so nice to be able to sew with a buddy. I finished the binding on the Triangles quilt, and it;s now my second finish for 2013. It's still called the Triangles quilt because I can't come up with a better name right now. The plan was to hang this in the entrance but when I hung it there it looked horrible, the proportions were all wrong.  After a bit of a discussion with my go to quilt hanger upperer buddy, we decided to hang it in the dining room.

 It looks much better and happier hanging above the sideboard. I really love this quilt. It was quick to make and a great way to practice sewing triangles. I'ms definitely going to make another bigger quilt using triangles.

I used a charm pack of Lucy's Crab Shack for the triangles, the background is a grass green stripe by American Jane and the binding is a plaid from Lucy's Crab Shack line.

For the backing I used a Denise Schmidt dot print that I bought at Spotlight and some left over strips of the American Jane background. I quilted it in straight line quilting, 1 inch apart using a quilting guide that came with my Janome. The first line I quilted was marked out using a Hera marker, then I just used the quilting guide to follow 1 inch away from the previous line. I checked periodically to make sure I didn't stray too much. If I did, I adjusted the next line by either quilting closer or  further than an inch at the start of the line but tried to make sure the centre of the line was roughly an inch. It worked out really well, even I can't tell where I had to adjust the width of the quilting lines.

Starflowers has been growing too. I'v nearly finished phase one, all the whole flowers that I need and have 5 half flowers left to do. There has been a big change of plans and heart on this one, mainly because I value my questionable sanity too much.  All will be revealed, soon.......... eventually................when I know what I'm doing.

This photo was taken way back in November 2011, it's been a slow but quite satisfying project to work on.

In other news at Chez Sunshine, I had to have some palms removed as they were too close to the fence line, pushing against a wall and paving and were not planted correctly so that a lot of the root system was above ground. The photos aren't great because they were taken at 7.30am facing east into the rising sun.

The guys who removed the palms were amazing, so quick, and did a great job of cleaning up after themselves.  The palms were removed just in time, as they would most likely have blown over in the wild weather this weekend.