frayed at the edge

Australian Adventures

When we were on holiday, I took lots of photos (which I may have mentioned before!!)  Occasionally, I would see something and think - oh I have to take a photo of that for .......

Fiona - just look at all that lovely felted stuff!!

 

Sarah - mmmm, lovely rust!!

 

Malcolm - wood, wood and more wood!

 

Stuart - he knows why!

 

 

Lorraine - I just thought she would like this garden gate

 

Ali & Lizzi - I thought this would appeal to both of them!

 

Lindsay - I am sure as soon as she sees this she will paint happy faces on her eggs......

 

and for me - perhaps one of my favourite photos involves food (of course!!)

my pudding at the very posh Cafe Sydney - all things banana!!
 
 
 
  

 
 
 
 

 

All my own work!

I had a busy afternoon in the kitchen, cooking spicy lamb and sweet potato - some of which we had for dinner (with courgette fritters), the rest to go in the freezer.  I also cooked a huge pot of beef curry, again to go in the freezer.  But before that, I decided to have a go at making scones!  It's a long time since my last attempt - the results of which could have been used to make a rockery!!  But having made all that jelly (after the first batch of quince and apple, I then made apple and rosehip) I thought scones would be just the thing to go with the jelly.  Of course I turned to my favourite ancient old Delia book, (although she let me down for the jelly, I had to turn to Prue Leith!) and got organised

Now, I'd love to be like the Pioneer Woman and show you dozens of photos of every last little thing involved in making the scones - but it would have been far too much effort to keep washing my hands!!  So we'll skip the sifting the flour, rubbing in the butter, adding the sugar and salt, then adding the milk to make a soft dough, rolling it out and cutting out the scones .... so, here they are ready to go in the oven

and here they are twelve minutes later!

not perfect, but not too bad!!  Next time I think I wouldn't roll the dough out so much and would use a bigger cutter, but of course the main thing is how they tasted!  So for afternoon tea, we not only had scones, but we had some of the apple and rosehip jelly  - lovely!!

 

 

Now, I want to tell you about Weekword.  I have been asked to choose this week's word, and after a lot of thinking I have decided on 'BROWSE'.  The rules are quite simple - interpret the word in any way you choose - a painting, drawing, photo, words - the choice is yours.  Then post it on Friday - it's that simple!!  If you want to join in this week, please leave a comment, so that on Friday I can include a link to your blog, so that everyone can visit.

 

 
 
 

 

 

 
 
 

Shadow Shot Sunday

The first photo was taken last month in Parramatta, when we were sitting outside having a cuppa in the beautiful warm spring weather

 

The next photo was taken last Sunday, when we were sitting outside the little tearoom in a park in Hawick having a cuppa - but it was a decidedly chilly autumn morning!

This last photo was also taken in the park, and shows both shadows and reflections of the trees in the river

 

Many thanks to Tracy at Hey Harriet for organising Shadow Shot Sunday - and an even bigger thank you to her for including one of my photos in this week's montage (of course it is the one that was everyone's favourite, of Malcolm on the beach!) 

 

 

 

Stitching sunflowers

Do you remember some weeks ago I made a quilt top with some of the left over fabric from Oliver's quilt?  Well, this afternoon I decided to quilt it!  First I had to decide how to quilt it, and as the bright colours made me think of summer, I decided to use a sunflower.  This meant I had to make templates - first a circle for the centre on the flower, then another with the petals added.  I used card from a cereal packet (we quilters were recycling/upcycling cereal packets long before it became fashionable!)

I then marked sunflowers randomly on the quilt top, including some half-flowers on the edges and in the corners, using a chalk pencil

Next I layered the top with some lovely fleece that I bought yesterday at Borderland Fabrics - I would call the colour buttermilk

I stitched round the flowers using a lovely variegated yellow thread - this photo shows the stitching on the fleece

 

But I wasn't just stitching flowers this afternoon, I was also taking photos of them!  I picked these three flowers from a late flowering fuschia, then had fun arranging them, first on their own

and then with this tiny fan, which was given to me by a lovely Japanese lady whom I taught how to quilt when I was living in Indonesia!

And lastly, for all the fans of Annette's cakes, of course I have a photo of yesterday's wonder - one of her light as air sponges, with jam and cream ... yum, yum!!

 
 
 
 
 

Weekword

This week's word is HISTORY, chosen by the lovely Anairam.  I gave this quite a lot of thought and eventually had this idea .....

..... would HISTORY  be different if women were in charge of the world?  When men are in charge it goes something like this ..... we don't like that country and the way they do things, let's start a war with them and make them do things the way we do them (all in the name of 'democracy').  But perhaps if women were in charge it would go like this ...  we don't really agree with the way that country does things, so why don't we invite the leaders round and we can have a cuppa and talk about our likes and dislikes and try to find some common ground and create a world where we can live in peace with each other.  Yes, that is a very simplistic way of looking at things, but I think there is a grain of truth in it, so I hope you like my journal page which was inspired by HISTORY

 

 

To see other interpretations of today's word, visit Anairam's blog.

Hope you all have a wonderful weekend, love, Anne
 

An autumn walk

Although we have lived here for three years, we had yet to walk up the bridleway just up the road from the house, so this afternoon, we set off to explore.  We passed a few houses, but soon we were surrounded by trees

It was very quiet and ever so slightly spooky!  However, I soon forgot that when I saw one of my favourite things to take photos of on country walks ....... a lovely dilapidated fence!

 

Did you notice the broken branch to the right of the central tree?  Would you like a closer look?

 

Further on we came across this wonderful tree stump - it wouldn't look out of place in an exhibtion of modern sculpture!

 

There were lots of mushrooms under the trees, but we don't know enough about them to risk picking any - so we just contented ourselves with a photo

 

We may not have picked any mushrooms, but we did pick lots of apples and rosehips from the hedgerow - I've got a blister on my finger from chopping up the apples!!  The jelly bag is set up again, and a lovely pink liquid is dripping through .......
 
 
 
 

Jolly good jelly!

Last week we picked the quince from the front garden and Malcolm's sister Jennifer gave us some apples from her garden ......

 

..... so I decided to make quince and apple jelly.  That meant that first I had to buy a jelly bag (or, as this one was made in Glasgow, a jeely bag!)

 

First, I chopped the up the quince and apples and put them in a large saucepn with  just enough water to float the fruit.

 

After simmering the fruit until it was very soft, it was then poured into the jelly bag, which was suspended over a large bowl and left to drip overnight.

 

The next morning, I had a bowl of juice, with which to make the jelly, and the drained pulp, which wasn't wasted, as Alison took it home to feed to her hens!

 

Next, I had to measure the amount of liquid and weigh out the right amount of sugar (I had to buy some sugar - we use so little sugar I probably only buy one bag a year!!)

I then had to make sure that the sugar was properly dissolved, before bringing the liquid up to the boil, using my jam thermometer to see when the setting temperature was reached.

 

Then, the last stage was to put the jelly into jars, admiring the lovely deep gold colour as I did so.  It tastes lovely - I think it will be delicious with roast pork and Malcolm fancies some on his porridge - so a very versatile jelly!!

 

....... and of course I will give Jennifer some, in return for the apples!!
 
 
 
 
 

 
 
 

The tea table is set ......

..... and the stove is lit - so it must be time for the first meeting of Kist for the autumn/winter session!  (for new readers, Kist is my house group - it stands for k1 stitch two, and is also a Scottish word for a chest, particularly a hope chest)

 

of course I didn't bake the goodies - maybe one day .......

 

 

lots of magazines, books and patterns to look at!
 

 

We were a small group today, as Lizzi and Lorraine are both on holiday (although more members are going to join us soon!), so it was just Alison, Tricia and me.  We had a great day, knitting, sewing, blethering, drinking tea, eating cake .....  Alison was working on a wonderful piece of embroidery - she had first drawn and painted the picture on paper, using special paints and crayons.  She then put the paper on to the fabric and ironed it, transferring the picture.  The colours are wonderful ....

 

 

Tricia did a bit of quilting on a bag she is in the middle of making, and she also did a bit of knitting, but the star of the day was her beautiful quilted and embroidered cushion ......

 

The stitching is lovely, and the colour of the embroidery is echoed in the edging.  And ..... the back is so lovely, it is really a reversible cushion ..... 

 

 

So what was I doing?  Well ...... yes, it was those chickens!  I cut and stitched the rest of the strips I need for the sashing, then I embroidered the legs and beak on this little chook ...

 

 

 
 
 
 
 

Autumn colours

Yesterday was a lovely day, so we decided to go for a walk in the park.  Of course the new camera had to go too, so that I could continue to explore the wide variety of settings (although sometimes I have to fall back on the 'intelligent auto'!!).  We sat outside the little tearoom for a cuppa (the tearoom closes for the winter next weekend!) and I was able to take this photo

 

These tress are just starting to change colour, but when we walked further through the park, we saw these lovely trees ........

 

...... with a beautiful mix of autumn colours.

 

Back home, I went out to the studio to do some sewing. Although it was a bright sunny day, it was a bit chilly, so I lit the woodburning stove for the first time this autumn/winter

 

 

Now that the chicken blocks are well on the way to being finished, I decided to make a start to the sashing strips - there is quite a lot of work to be done on them!  Of course I first cleaned the sewing machine and put in a new needle.  Then I assembled some of the fabrics needed for the sashing

 

I chose the four fabrics on the right, from which I cut lots of strips

 

I sewed the strips together in pairs, then sewed the pairs together

 

It was good to be sitting at the sewing machine after such a long break - even if it was just basic sewing!!

 

Some of you may have noticed that my comments on your blogs show me with a different ID ..... blogger/blogspot keeps telling me there is an error in my ID when I use 'frayedattheedge' .......
hopefully it will sort itself out soon! 
 
 
 

 
 

Shadow Shot Sunday

Hi everyone, I'm sorry I missed last Sunday, but I had an attack of the gremlins and couldn't get online - that was a bit of a pain - having posted from Sydney and Singapore I couldn't post from home!!  Never mind, let's get on with today's shadows!

 

a 'designer' shadow shot!

 

 

waiting for the ferry at Drummoyne (Sydney)

 

 

Malcolm and his shadow strolling on the beach

 

 

as always, sneaking in a reflection - this is in Sydney

 

There are lots more shadow shots to see when you visit Hey Harriet - it's a strangely addictive thing, this photographing shadows!!