I can spell

See, look over there on the right, reorganised links. Makes a girl sleep soundly at night. Aint it grand when you tick things off your to do list? I just flicked open my note book and realised that despite feeling overwhelmed by my ever growing to do list that I had actually recently achieved a whole page! I've since cermoniously scratched em off, yay me.



I've been doing loads of cooking recently. Two Sunday's ago I made 2 soups, corned beef, homemade sausage rolls and lemon syrup cake. I realised while I was making all of this that I have managed to aquire myself a favourite spoon. I use it indiscriminately for everything, sweet savoury, measuring, mixing what ever. Grandma (the real Sadie) gave it to me, it's nothing special just a run of the mill old fashioned tablespoon but Grandma is an amazing cook and some of my greatest childhood memories involve Grandma (and her cooking). Using it makes the thing I am cooking feel that much more special some how, and of course every time I hold it I think of her.

I Love my Grandma, and her old spoon.

Here's a recipe that my spoon makes a starring role in...


Honeyed Jam Drops

125g butter
1 teaspoon vanilla essence
1/2 cup caster or raw sugar
1 tablespoon honey
1 1/4 cups self raising flour
Jam of your choice (although I don't recommend using my chilli jam)

Preheat the oven to 150 deg cel

Beat butter, essence, sugar and honey with an electric mixer (or a wooden spoon and very strong biceps) until light and fluffy. Now stir in the sifted flour (sift it lazy bones, no skipping steps).

Roll about 2 teaspoons of the dough into a ball and place on a baking tray lined with baking paper. Repeat till you use up all your mixture and have a tray full of biscuit dough balls.


Now get a wooden spoon with a round handle and use the end of the handle to press down into each biscuit and make a dent/hole (not all the way through though).


Spoon some jam into a bowl and mix it up so it's smooth and easier to use. Now, half (or less) fill each hole with some jam.


Whack those puppies in the oven and bake for about 30 minutes. Cool them on a rack.


You can leave out the jam if you want and instead press a fork onto the biscuits to flatten them a bit - and you get lines on them when they're baked too.

The Association of Attention Deficient Crafters

I am the President, well self appointed President, of the Association of Attention Deficient Crafters*.

I've decided it's time to out myself and show my worth as AADC president incumbent. I therefore hereby present my most embarrassing work in progress and strongest evidence of my attention deficient crafting:

My nephew's 10 page felt counting book, planned as a gift for his christening, first birthday, Christmas, ahhhm hopefully 2nd bday in November this year. It all started with a bang on a fun craft weekend away more than a year ago with pages one


two


and three


before I was intimidated by page four and used knitting as a distraction.


Then suffered a complete AADC related stalling (and a lot of purchasing of materials for new projects - the best kind of AADC related distraction!) before page five


And finally a recent flurry of excitement for pages six


and seven

I'm all stalled again for page 8 this time using quilting, knitting AND sewing (with some occassional baking) for AttentionDeficient distraction. Page was going to be 8 coloured pencils but I'm intimidated by those tiny fiddly pencil points, don't spose you have any ideas for page 8 you could lend me in the interest of progress?

Of course once pages 8, 9 and 10 are done there's still the binding, finishing and hand sewing of the message on the back cover page, at the moment I am in danger of it reading (in hand stitched letters of course)

"Dear Nephew,

I hope your own children enjoy many fun hours
using this book to learn to count, I am very sorry you never
learned to count from a hand sewn felt book.

Love and guilt Aunty Sadieandlance xxx"

I think it's a bit long.

*Um of course this whole AADC thing is no a legit ailment, you won't find it in any medical journal - although who knows maybe you will in 20 years time when we develop a better understanding of this debilitating infliction? Actually the whole thing is made up - well a loose joke amongst good friends.

Backtack Booty

I heart Moki.

Backtack booty:

Softie


The haul


Complete with handstamped fabric


And homemade cards


Bet you wish Moki was your backtack buddy.

The BackTack Naughty List

Dear Backtack,

Please take Ms Moki off the Naughty list. I received her package today (I was ever so excited, she is a talent that ladee). Here's some proof that it arrived safely:

Sadieandlance cat apologies for walking into the shot.

I will post pictures of the actual goods on the weekend when I have the assistance daylight hours but in the mean time you could go visit Moki and check out the photos she posted. I was very spoilt indeed - hand stamped fabric, some lollies/sweets/candy, cute buttons, a little notepad, stickers and the set of Moki's handmade postcards that I won for telling her I was stalking her blog (what a reward!). Spoilt spoilt spoilt I tell you.

And while I'm here I should mention that (in my opinion of course) I am not far off being taken off the naughty list myself. My poorly wrapped package (I am so so sorry Tutti Fruiti!) arrived.



Here's three of her five four buttons,


And her initial, disguised in the wings of a bee.


So Backtack while we probably don't deserve a gold star, please don't put us on the naughty list, we're good girls now.

sincerely,

SadieandLance

nasal accents

Despite being on the almost naughty Backtack III list, my backtack Pointy Kitty is off to it's new home and will arrive tomorrow.



I have been busy soaking up the joys of the world cup this weekend, staying way up past my bed time and knitting a scarf that I was persuaded to do as a surprise for the poor guy at work who drew the Ivory Coast in our World Cup sweep, I recommended for next time to just leave his 10 bucks on the train platform for a random person to win instead. I drew Argentina, so I am allowed to partake in such jibing.

Last night after enduring (via the tv of course) 20 000 drunken aussie fans belting out an out of tune national anthem (through their nasal passages) prior to the opening of our first world cup match in something like 32 years, we were well rewarded in the 82nd minute with not one, not two but three goals. I pity the fools who went to bed at the 72 minute mark like the guy who called into Triple R (local community radio station) this morning.

I did managed to squeeze in some short bursts of craftivity in during the weekend...including way too much shopping, which resulted in a massive pile of fabric to be ironed.


It's still a large work in progress, but the reward is sweet.

Fruit Tingles Progress II

Not that impressive as far as progress goes (nor puckered edges), but given this is the third time I have cast this piece on I am feeling that at least there is some progress. I had a big dilemma about edges and had wonderful advice from sixandahalfstitches , Taylor Street and Grandma's (Sadie) besty Betty - I took the lazy way and just gave it a go - but turns out I couldn't deal with the messy edge. So I frogged, recast on and instead decided on the twist method to carry the red up the side. I am much happier with it, despite the pcukers...but I will just breath deeply when I notice those and pretend that I didn't notice them. Character building or some such thing.

Cramming

I had a cramming session today. You see yesterday I ended up in bed/on the couch for most of the day licking my self inflicted wounds and didn't get one single thing done I had planned (other than a couple of rows of Fruit Tingles, the ongoing saga).

So today I played catch up and crammed in as much as I could. Mostly it was housework and so craft wise I didn't achieve quite as much as I had planned, but late tonight I did finish these, and started a new pair.


And the real reason I didn't get as much craft done?

After all the housework, I was here, cheering on Mr SadieandLance's football team, soaking up the atmosphere, living vicariously through their victory - my team was playing interstate you see (and they won too - in both codes). I did take some knitting (my mobile project) but as you can see the game was too exciting for any actual knitting progress.


Despite my poor showing, Team Craft was represented well - there was an old woman sitting behind us sitting under her crocheted blanket (in her teams' colours of course) and knitting a scarf.

Backtack progress

Winter officially arrived today and with all weekday daylight hours spent at work the only time I can take decent pictures for my blog is on the weekend. But I'm too impatient to wait for the weekend - and besides it's likely to be overcast and grey anyway, so tonight I took some progress shots of my Backtack III project. I can't show too much cause that would be giving it away. I'm a couple of days over due but don't worry Tutti Frutti I am well acquainted with express post!


How's this for flash backs...


Did you used to make friendship bracelets? I did and I haven't done one since I was in primary school (gee that was a long time ago) when I used to churn these babies out all the time. I loved browsing the embroidery thread aisle of our local craft shop and picking pretty colours (even back then I didn't go for pink, sorry Shazmina). I think I gave one to everyone I knew. Mum used to wear hers all the time, she's such a great Mum, although I guess she was probably grateful I wasn't giving her a home made macaroni bracelet. It's amazing how easily I am remembering how to do this even though it's been so many years.