Good times with Sadie

Sadie's been visiting, and when Grandma visits there's usually some kind of special little something pressed into my hand with a glint in her eye and an "I know you'll appreciate this, no one else is interested in a 60 year old knitting needle/old spoon/old book of crochet patterns (insert crafty thing here)".

And she's right, I am always in awe of that little piece of Grandma she shares with me. I treasure my spoon and every other little amazing treasure she has pressed into my hand over the years.

The treasure this time was different. It came in a bag! There was no sweet pressing into my hand, (actually there was one very, very special thing, but I'll tell you about that another time) no this time the bag was ceremoniously tipped on to the bench to reveal all manner of baking related GOODNESS!

Beautiful, faded old bottles of food colouring (maybe 40 years old or so) with amazing labels, artificial flavourings in incredible little bottles that look like old medicine bottles, an entire collection of piping nozzles of every shape and size, boxes of vintage birthday cake candles in the orignal boxes, un-opened - photos all to come.

But the piece de resistance, words-cannot-describe-how-amazing, was the handcarved, hand decorated "Old Time Train Set Candle Holder" - in ORGINAL box, thank you very much (see above photo).





Of course no visit from Sadie is complete without me pestering her for some tutorials on her secret recipes she's famed for in our family. This time round we did Chocolate Eclairs (I'm no longer a choux pastry virgin) and gem scones.



And I love that the Smurf is just as excited about the baking tutorials as I am.

What's Hot and What's Not

This is supposed to be a Wednesday thing, but I was doing a whole lot of hot stuff yesterday so here I am now, Thursday night.

Hot:
Driving up the Blue Mountains (to pick Sadie* up) with the windows down listening to the Bell Birds singing


Sadie coming to stay and hang out with the Smurf for a couple of days. The Smurf has a Great Grandma who can (for at least a short time) sit on the floor and play trains with him. Now, THAT is hot.

Sadie bringing a new, simple knitting pattern for me (and her) to try. Approved! On the to-knit list. See photo above.


Making Sadie's Christmas pudding - with Sadie - and using her original pudding cloth. And this year the Smurf is old enough to have a turn stirring the pud. That's hot too.


Shopping for special treats with Sadie.


The best cold icecream on a warm day.


The first strawberry getting ripe. You can follow the progress on my Flickr!

Craft get togethers.


What's Not
Idiots on the road
That's all I've got for the nots right now.

I started this post this afternoon when we first started creaming the butter and sugar for the pudding. The puddings are hung now. Hope they worked.

* Sadie is my Grandma and, obviously, namesake of this blog

Feeling a little bit knitty

The other day one of those crafty bitches* was telling me how she has project sensations. You know obsessive sock knitter then a baby quilt maker extraordinaire then nothing but fetchings for weeks. I have these waves too and at the moment I'm on the cusp of falling heavily into a beanie frenzy.


The pattern is the same one Sadie used but I decided the knob and ties were unnecessary.


I suspect though that the main instigator of my joyous knit-a-thon is the luscious JJ's wool combined with my 4mm clovers. What ever it's a slippery slope and I'm well on my way down.

* I love my crafty bitches - she's not one of those types of crafty bitches.

Sadie and Lance, for reals

The Smurf and I have just returned from a lovely but all too brief couple of days at Sadie and Lance's (my grandparents for any newcomers). It was a lovely couple of days just spending time together with each other (and Sadie's plastic spoons).


Of course, it is not a visit to Grandma's without much craft discussion, some knitting time and talk of favourite recipes. My eyes glistened as the Smurf showed great craft appreciation by favouring the baskets of knitted dolls, organised by gender of course - boys:


girls:

(oh um yeah I know Santa is not generally known to be a girl, he must just be stopping by the basket for a visit?)

He was rewarded well for his appreciation with a little boy knitted doll to call his own. He graciously thanked Sadie's friend Betty (the knitter of the dolls) for his sweet toy


And while the Smurf enjoyed his time playing with Great Gran, an aray of knitted toys and various cooking utensils, I hit the jackpot when Grandma revealed her 60-ish year old notebook full of collected favourite handwritten recipes.

Did someone say pig in mud? Yes, that was me. And I've scanned all the family favourites. Including Great Aunty Marie's ice cream - made with the cream milked from their own cow thankyouverymuch. I might even share some with you some time.

Sadie and Lance live in Portland, a sleepy little country town just west of the Blue Mountains in NSW. It's a town I have long loved. I think the love stems mostly from the fact that it's Sadie and Lance's town but maybe also a little bit from the time we spent briefly living there when I was 8. Or maybe it's because it has big wide open streets and beautiful (albeit mostly abandoned) shop fronts

But alas as with so many country towns, the coffee was bad not so great (sorry Grandma I know that sounds rude). But who cares when you're sitting opposite your Grandma who's looking lovingly into the face of her Great Grandson?

Fishing

Some fishermans rib for the Smurf from Great Grandma Sadie.

It was a semi DIY gift as I had to sew the buttons on as it was a bit hard for Grandma to see them but I don't mind. Grandma supervised me closely and gave me some gentle suggestion that the buttons should all face the same way - and they do

...well they do if I twist them all in the same direction! And did you know that there is a boy way to front flaps on cardy's? No, I had no idea either! This one is obviously a boy one as the Smurf is afterall a boy - so left over right for boys and vice versa for the girls.

Here's the Smurf spending some fun time with Great Grandma Sadie

Thanks Grandma we love it and can't wait till it gets a bit chilly so the Smurf can wear it.

She's SO last year

I got my obligatory New Year post over and done with but I'm going briefly back in time to Christmas to show you the stockings hung across Mum and Dad's fireplace.

Congrats to Rose Red who was the first to guess that I am Petal (my childhood nickname). Monster is my Sister, Yogi is what we call my sisters bun in the oven and Kimbo is my Mum...I think that covers most of the guesses. Just for interest, Marky is Dad, Matthew is Mr S+L, Deano is my Brother in Law and Murphy well you know that one already.

We had a lovely time north of the border. I essentially became just a set of boobs as the Grandparents fussed over and entertained the smurf. It was a lovely first christmas for our little family.

We ended the holiday with breakkie at this little gem of a place on Narrabeen Lake. The food was nothing to talk about but the view was yummy


Just before we headed up to the cafe I received a package from the Knittery (thanks to a recommendation). Maybe the excitement of opening it up to see my new silk merino made the whole breakfast experience all the more sweeter?

Each of these skeins are destined for clapotis greatness. One knitted by me and one knitted by Sadie (Grandma).

Knitting in her sleep

Shit where the hell did April go? One minute I was having a 12 week baby scan and the next I am like almost at the halfway mark of this pregnancy adventure. Yikes. But this is not a baby blog it's a craft blog so where the hell is all the craft??

I'm a snot machine at the moment. I got a cold from someone (I'm blaming my Sister but she thinks otherwise). But in between sneezes I've managed a few things like some progress on the clapotis and the socks, but just minor. More exciting is other people's progress... like Grandma's (Sadie) who knitted the baby this beautiful outfit


I think she started on it the second I hung up the phone after telling her she was going to be a Great G. She was worried I wouldn't like it - I'm worried she has rocks in her head because of course I LOVE IT cause she made it. (Hi Grandma I know you're reading!!). It's all the more spesh cause she has been having some problems with her eyes. But she's such a good knitter I think she could do it in her sleep.

And what about Shazmina Bendi's progress which among her flurry of finished projects these were found for the baby.


Thanks Shaz!

The Baking Queen arose once again, this time from her snotty slumber, to mix up these babies (date and pecan steamed puddings with butterscotch syrup) for dinner with friends (lovely friends who passed no judgement when I fell asleep on their couch with my mouth open and my feet on the arm rest).


Of course you can see raspberries in that blurry photo up there and that's because as per usual I couldn't resist tinkering with the recipe (plus I had no ready supply of dates or pecans) so they're actually raspberry, almond and current steamed puddings. And they're good. Feel free to drop by there's still left overs in the fridge - especially you Tash at Poppyseeds (do you have a blog??) cause there's no lemon meringue pie left!

I promised some yarn porn last post. Feast your eyes:


All from Marta's Yarns. It's great to see the shop open again and to see Marta's husband (George?) carrying on in Marta's name. He was so happy and positive and lovely when we went in there. It's so sad that Marta passed away but it's wonderful to see that life can go on. What was weird though was that the shop was full of older women flirting with George. He was having the time of his life (bless him) but it seemed to me that the women might have been attempting to flirt their way into a nice little lifetimes share of beautiful wool. Can't blame them I suppose.

Now back to lying on the couch with my box of tissues.