Cooking up a storm!

From this:



to this (and more, but I am not photographing it all):


A friend and her husband took me to the Canning Vale Saturday clearance markets this weekend. I don't drive so it's impossible for me to get to otherwise, and they have no kids and not huge amounts of storage space, so by taking me with them they could split boxes with me. I also supplied the stroller for carrying the boxes!

Apart from it being bloody freezing down there at 7.30am, it was pretty good. I got:

- box of oranges
- box of Pink Lady apples
- box of plums
- half a huge bag of baby spinach, $5
- half a huge bag of basil (I used 250g of leaves to make pesto and still have heaps left)
- half a box of tomatoes (5 kg)
- 2 eggplant
- 2 zucchini
- 2 butternut pumpkins
- 2 leeks

for the grand total of $42 (and I'm only learning - I could've got the apples for cheaper if I'd shopped around at the various stalls better). So far I've cooked up basil & spinach pesto, tomato & basil pasta sauce, roasted tomato passata, plum teacake, plum muffins, beef & barley soup, and pumpkin soup. The kids have eaten a good amount of the apples and I'm going to freeze some according to this method, for making pies/crumbles. I'm going to juice the oranges and freeze in ice cube trays for baking and sorbets. I blanched and froze the rest of the spinach and will use for spinach and ricotta triangles this week. The eggplants are going into eggplant curry tonight and then eggplant pasta sauce for the freezer. I stewed a big batch of the plums and they're in the fridge for snacks/desserts/breakfast (with yogurt for breakfast, custard for dessert). I might make some jam but I need jars first.

Basically this will mean that I have quick healthy lunches and dinners ready when I'm tired. It will reduce our food bill over the next month or so.

I should probably add here that the Thermomix is my best friend ;)

I would definitely recommend these markets if you're in Perth and are able to preserve the produce in some way, and/or buy with friends and use it quickly. Just take a hat and gloves!

Socks!!

I finished!!

Unfortunately, as you can see from the following photo, I obviously didn't know about checking dyelots way back when I purchased this yarn:

The gauge was also a little off, probably because of the long delay between one sock and most of the next. But, really, socks aren't that tough! I need to take the plunge and get into some of the yummy sock yarn I have.

These were knitted in Cleckheaton Country Silk 8ply (85% wool, 15% silk), to be nice soft warm house socks for winter. I'm wearing them now; they're definitely snuggly.

Today I went through a tub of unfinished projects and ripped out three that I just wasn't going to finish (and in fact I couldn't remember what pattern I was knitting from!), which now leaves me with NO unfinished knitting projects. Meaning I need to cast on for something new ... or get stuck into the sewing projects.

I whipped myself up a pair of pyjama pants tonight because, embarrassingly, I ripped the seat of my old ones, heh. They were getting a bit old :) I'd take a photo, but you don't want to see me in my pyjamas!

The sock is getting there - I hope to proudly announce its completion soon (my feet are getting cold).

I don't think I posted about this boring yet nifty little project I did. Evie's been wriggling out of the 5-pt harness in her carseat. I was going to buy a 'seatbelt wrap' thingy, but they're $15 or so with no guarantee that they'll work.

So I made my own.

It's simply two rectangles of polar fleece, sewn together and turned right way out. Fold in the sides so they meet with about a 1.5cm overlap, and mark where you need to fold it. Sew three rows of strong 1.5inch Touch Tape, hook in the middle and loop on the two sides. Attach four snaps to the overlapping part.

Hurray!



She hasn't managed to get out of it yet. (Oh, and that's her "cheese!" face, not a grimace of pain.)

UFO#1 finished!

Here's UFO #1, a shrug knitted from this pattern. (Warning: link goes straight to a PDF download.)



I even blocked it! I tried to take a photo of it on, but all the mirrors in the house are in shocking locations light-wise:



It was knitted in "Earth Sky" on blue-faced leicester, light aran weight, from The Yarn Cafe/evoke yarns. I knitted a size medium, and the only change I made was to knit a garter stitch border of five stitches on both sides to prevent the edges rolling. It used about 130g of yarn.

Next: the Thuja socks that I started knitting two years ago. I've now made it down to the heel flap on the second sock (wait! Since I saved the draft post I'm on to the foot. Yay!). These will be nice warm house socks for winter.



The problem I can see with having left the second sock so long is that my gauge seems to be a little different; I'm knitting tighter so the sock is a bit smaller. They're stretchy, though, so both will fit and they're only for around the house.

UFO sightings

(Not of the extra-terrestrial type.)

In some sort of autumn-cleaning madness I remembered I had three boxes/tubs of unfinished sewing and knitting projects that were packed up when I moved house. That's just disgraceful. Suffice to say, I've vowed to get rid of at least one tub ...

... first on the list is a shrug I started knitting in summer. I think I said at the time I'd aim to have it finished for winter, and laughed. Ha ha. It was maybe a third done when I took it out, and I'm 2 rows away from binding off the body. The sleeves are only 4 rounds of ribbing each, so I'm nearly there. I haven't knitted in months; it's a good recreation for those cold evenings. The laundry, where my sewing stuff is set up, is absolutely freezing in winter (think old house with nice thick brick walls except in the lean-to extension where the laundry is!!)

Photos to come when it's finished. Perhaps next I'll pick up the sock that was started two years ago, when I was pregnant with Evie. That's a bad case of second sock syndrome!

Pyjama pants and a cardigan refashion

The cold nights of autumn have come upon us suddenly and the kids needed some new pyjama pants. I've got loads of printed flannelette so off I went:



Pirates for Alastair



Duckies for Evie and a girly print for Emma



Puppies for Evie (I cut them upside down to fit into an oddly-shaped fabric remnant. Still, they'll be right way up to her, when she looks down at them!)

Alastair's and Evie's were made from a basic pyjama pants pattern I copied out of a friend's magazine a couple of years ago. Oddly enough, the two of them are about the same size except for leg length (Alastair is 4 and Evie is 20 months)! They both fit in a size two and I just lengthened the leg a lot for Alastair. Both of them still need room for a cloth night nappy, but these are a loose-fitting style.

Emma's I just made by tracing around a pair of her old ones and adding leg length, which is all she ever outgrows. I only JUST squeezed her pair out of a metre of flannelette; she is TALL.

They all wanted to wear them right away, which is always a good sign.

I also took two items off the alteration pile (trackpants for Alastair that used to be Emma's, just tightened the waist elastic, and took the legs up a couple of inches with a long stitch length; easy to let back down as he grows), and accomplished a refashion for myself.

I bought this cardigan (Millers, size L) in an opshop for $5. The chunky knit was what I'd been looking for, and I liked the huge collar thingy and the batwing-style sleeves, but it was too big and bulky. You can't really see all the extra fabric on the sides in the photo. If it had been wool, I'd have shrunk it a bit, but it's acrylic.



I took it in at the sides on an angle, so that instead of fastening all the way down it fastens at the top and then flares out. I've seen cardigans like that in the shops this season and I really like them (but not enough to pay $40 or $50 for one). I took off the extra buttons/press-studs so it looks like it's meant to be like that, and not like it's just too small for me ;)



It still doesn't sit quite right when it's on; I'm considering sewing the little pockets shut to see if that helps. But I'll wear it, and I wouldn't have before. This is the first winter in a while that I'll be really wearing cardigans/jackets, because I don't wear Evie everywhere anymore (winter '06 and '07 I wore Alastair everywhere, winter '08 I was hugely pregnant which kept me warm, and winter '09 I wore Evie everywhere), so my wardrobe is sorely lacking in them.