Happy Holidays and Merry Christmas to All

This nativity scene is constructed outside the City Hall building of our beautiful fair city.  Everything is so green after the lovely summer rain we had recently.

During the holidays I hope to work on some unfinished projects and play around some more with paints and textiles. 

My Sashiko quilt has been ‘maturing’ in the cupboard because of an artistic block.   The girls at Indigo Niche helped me, and suggested another piece of sashiko stitching be added into the next border, so I have launched into stitching this rather large piece of sashiko!!! Thank you dear Sue and Colleen.  It is a great project to do at night in front of the very boring TV.

I would love to get this quilt finished this year some time – but then again – we will be going on our camping trips again this year!!

   

This piece of rather tawdry paper cloth has now become this little book cover.  The little square of watercoloured paper was given to me by Shirley, and it was perfect for the front of my book.  Shirley.  There are another couple of embellishments to go onto the book yet, and I have now added some paper pages into it.  The lime green rectangles are finger painted with ‘Silk’ acrylic glaze.  It has a lovely sheen which doesn’t show up in photographs.

In the last month or so I tried another technique for paper cloth and the results are quite different.  It involves using paper and crayons and stabilizing it all with fusible interfacing, chopping it all up, and rejoining with more stabilizer.  It is interesting, and I will be showing it to the TQ Art Quilt Group in January where they can all have a go at creating some of their own.

This piece is a work in progress.  Goodness knows what I will end up doing with it.  It may get all chopped up again!!

My dear husband has been baking bread.  Is he trying to make me FAT!!  it smells divine coming out of the oven and who can resist?  I love eating the crusts with a big layer of butter and a smidge of vegemite.  mmmmmmm.

A friend of mine emailed me this.

So, to all my dear ‘fruit cakes’ have a very Happy Christmas and Festive Season and all the very best to all of you for the New Year.

Until then……………………………………..Dianne

Christmas Delights

 

 

Some photos of Christmas.  Of course Christmas day was all about the food!  My sister and I try to come up with different things for the menu each year which we wouldn’t necessarily have on an ordinary day. There are some staples we simply must have each Christmas, such as,  Plum pudding and the stuffed eggs (which I make), ham on the bone,  and some seafood.

This year I bought some pearl couscous to make into a different type of salad.  My nephew loved it so much he was the recipient of the left overs – not much. 

If you have never tried the pearl couscous before, give it a try.  It is a bigger granule and you can add all sorts of things to it.  The cooking instructions are on the pack, but basically you just boil it in water for about 8-10 minutes until it is al dente.

I can only buy it at a small delicatessen and this time they only had a tri-colour version, red, green, and plain which I thought was quite festive anyway.

This is what I put in mine.  Green shallots chopped finely, a handful of dried cranberries (you can use sultanas or raisins), salt and pepper, and the ‘secret’ ingredients to make it really special, finely chopped coriander (cilantro) leaves and lightly roasted pine nuts.  Add pine nuts right before serving.

I didn’t do a dressing but you could do a simple olive oil and lemon dressing and stir through just before serving if you wished.

Seafood entree

Main course – Cold collation – Roast Pork, Chicken, Ham, Stuffed eggs, Lyndelle’s fabulous potato salad and her Asian salad and Wombok Asian coleslaw (recipe on back of Chang’s crunchy noodles)

Forgot to take a photo of dessert!!!  Needless to say none of us had any dinner Christmas night.

Finishing off with the delightful and amusing Lilian.

Have a Holly Jolly Christmas!!

These unusual flowers were given to my Dad’s wife on the occasion of her 80th birthday.  They look like wax, right?  These are REAL!!  I have never seen anything like them before and she said they had come all the way from Darwin, so if you know what these plants are I would be interested in finding out.
Here are some pictures of our cute little Lilian on her 5th birthday.  You will have to excuse this doing old Nanna, but she lights up our life 


Lilian in the pink dress with her Rainbow Butterfly cake which her Mamma made and decorated.




She really enjoyed her cake!

"“Have a Holly Jolly Christmas” is what  this little Santa sings when Lilian presses his button.  It really amuses her and it gives us great pleasure to see her enjoying this jolly red man.
Hope you, my dear faithful blog readers, enjoy your Christmas with family and friends and keep safe.
Until next time……………..Dianne.

Reflections at Christmas Time

Christmas time for me is usually a time to reflect on times past, people who are no longer with us (such as my beautiful Mum), happy times with family, friends and neighbours and travels -  just to name a few.

Last Sunday afternoon was spent with our fantastic neighbours.  We dressed up and celebrated Christmas with a huge lunch, a game of backyard cricket and a few glasses of cheer.  A wonderful day. There are no incriminating photos of me attempting to hit a cricket ball.  DH thought he had taped it all on his ‘not so smart phone’ but, alas, it did not work  - (insert big huge laugh from me here!)
Our hosts, Colin & Julie (Mr & Mrs Claus)

DH dressed up as a Christmas Yobbo.  If you don’t know what a yobbo is, it is a belligerent Australian male with a big beer belly who enjoys way too many beers.  A yobbo has no dress sense and has very little social etiquette – ha ha ha – sooo unlike my husband really is (apart from the bit about enjoying beer – LOL)!
I dressed as a Christmas tree and luckily it was a cooler than average day because this fabric was very hot and sweaty.

Yesterday I was fortunate to spend a lovely long lunch with two of my wonderful friends who make my world a better place. 



Joan on the left, Marleen on the right.  Marleen decorates her house beautifully with her Christmas wall hangings and hand made decorations along with other gifts from friends. 



Our little granddaughter, Lilian, has just turned 5 years old and we gave her a toy camera – a Barbie one (because she is into Barbie’s at the moment).

It took a few shots of her finger before the real good photos were taken :-  )))
Hoping you are also making some memories to reflect on
Until next time………………Dianne.