Garlic, embroidery and the garden expo...

I ordered some garlic yesterday.  I have ordered sprouting seeds, so they already have the shoots started, which should guarantee 100% success, and because they are already sprouting, it shouldn't matter that I am planting a little later than usual. I have read that I can plant out garlic until the end of July, so hopefully all should be good. I also had a look a chest freezers yesterday, and now just have to decide between a 500 litre and a 360 litre..I want to get rid of the 2 door fridge freezer in the shed, as it is probably 20 years or so old, and probably uses a heap of power...the 500 litre will cost about $60 a year to run, and the 360 litre will be about $40 a year to run, so very cheap compared to what the other older 1 is probably costing me. I am going to pick up a power monitor today, and work out exactly how much the old fridge is costing me ro run so I will have a more accurate idea. I also got some small knitting needles for Kasey yesterday and started teaching her to knit, I think it will take a long time, and because she is left handed it is really difficult, so I can only show her the right handed way, and she finds that really hard...so I think I need to find a left handed knitter to show her. I also went to sewing class last night, and started embroidering out the flowers for the front of the bag. They are constructed using a wash away stabiliser, so will end up as lovely little individual flowers. I will finish sewing these today hopefully, and then post a couple of photos of the finished flowers, they are really pretty. I am currently making some passionfruit jam, I am just waiting for the skins to cool and I can scoop out the white pulp and add to the mix and start to cook it off. I want to make some lemon curd as well, not sure if I will quite get to that today. I am hoping to go to the Nambour garden show this weekend, they have a giant kitchen garden setup that works on the organic and permaculture principles, so I am really interested in having a look and sitting through a couple of the demonstrations.  I will have to make sure Kasey brings her Nintendo, I may have half a chance of her sitting through a couple of demonstrations that way, as she doesn't have the patience to sit through those. Ok, off to make jam and get through my list of projects for today...

Friday Wrapup

I picked most of the chillies today. I wanted to leave them until they had started to turn red, but something has started invading them, and has started to chew on a couple, so thought it best to pick them all and leave them on the bench to redden. With what's already in the freezer, plus these, I will have enought to fill Christmas requests for Chilli Jam....it is very popular with family members!

I was quite out of sorts this morning, I have lots of things I could have been doing, but just couldn't seem to get myself started. Finally, I decided to bake an orange cake and that seemed to be enough to get me moving. I put on some pizza dough in the breadmaker to mix, I made a double batch so I could put half in the freezer. I did a few other banking errands, wrapped a bouquet preservation being picked up next week, started the hardening process on one in process at the minute, put on a batch of yoghurt, vacuumed and did a bit of dusting, did a few loads of washing and a quick tidy around. We had pizza for dinner tonight, there is heaps left over, so can probably have that again tomorrow night, we have heaps of quiche left over from last night also, so that's another option also, but I may end up freezing that for a quick easy meal for another night yet.Ann came over tonight as she wanted a bit of help with some internet advertising, and stayed for a couple of hours with cuppas and chats, so that was a nice catch up. I was going to try and start on my vegetable garden planning, but didn't get around to it today, so will put that on the list for the next few days/weeks....I am going to go and get some yarn from the American Yarn shop tomorrow, for some of the sugar n cream yarn, to knit up some more dishcloths, and look for some other lovely yarn for my crocheting plans, and then we are going to go and pickup Toni's formal dress, and may have a nice lunch while we are out, so hopefully a lovely day coming up tomorrow :)

Craft room, op shop finds and some scrapbooking

Wow, what a busy few days it has been! Time has just flown by, I can't believe it is halfway through the weekend already....

Thursday, I transferred my craft things from the office to the spare room. Here is how it looked after I had moved everything in, and before sorting...

Here is how things looked after sorting :)

This cleanout took me all day. I haven't managed to get to cleaning up the office as yet, but having all of the craft things out has made things much less cramped already, so I should get to the cleanup next week. On Friday I had to do some running around, I called into Endos, and picked up a fantastic little binder case for $6, which is exactly the right size for scrapbooking cardstock and paper.

I also picked up a hair straightener for $4, it has ceramic plates, so is really nice to use. I then went to Lifeline and picked up a lovely chair for the desk in the craft room, I am going to paint it white and shabby chic it.(Photo to come) After that I went to a scrapbooking crop, we went to a different place at Woody Point, as our usual place cancelled their crop as she wasn't well. The ladies there were all really lovely, and one of the owners there is an ex florist, so we had a great chat about the industry in general and particular florists and what they are doing now. The shop was very, very small though, and we were all pretty cramped, this was the only drawback though, and both Ann and I had a good night there. I started on a paper bag album for our Easter photos. I managed to get all of the pages covered, and a couple of pages completed, but it will probably take me a few crops to finish it off. This is what I have done so far:

This is the front cover:

This page is one large page and a smaller fold over page attached, it is quite eye catching.The colours haven't really showed up that great, they are much nicer in real life.

Today, I went to a card class, and made these cards

after that I went a did a couple of 

wedding quotes, I didn't end up getting home until nearly 7pm with dinner, so it has been a long, few, tiring days. I did finish this dishcloth while sitting down after dinner..

I think I will be having a sleep in tomorrow. :)

Mini Watermelon & Sweet Corn

I have picked the last solitary mini watermelon from the vegie garden this afternoon. I like the mini ones, as they are not too big to store once cut. This one has been up in the garden for a while, and I should have picked it quite a while ago. It is not quite as sweet as normal, I think because I had left it, but it's still nice, and I have saved the seeds to plant later in the year to have a new crop for summer!

I have also planted up about 45 sweet corn in the vegie garden this afternoon, hopefully we will get a successful crop before it gets too cold and I will blanch and freeze some for winter.... I let the little chicks out with the big chooks in the pen while I was up there keeping an eye on things this afternoon, the big chooks seemed fine with them, but I will still wait longer before I put them in with them during the day. The larger frizzle has flown out of their protected area a few times during the day while I have not been up there, and she seems fine, none of the bigs chooks have harmed her at all, so I think it will all be ok...we're having rissoles and vegies for dinner tonight, about to go and cook the rissoles now...after that I am going to knit a few rows on my dishcloth, as I need to increase my supply of these so I can change them over more often, as they do tend to get a bit yucky, so I would like to change them over every couple of days..