COVID-19 Baby Blankets

I have been busy during isolation making baby blankets for some extra special babies due during COVID-19.
I made 2 cot quilts using a pattern from "Gum Valley Patchwork" and the Daisy Daisy fabric range.

I had enough fabric scraps leftover to make a pram quilt.

During the evening I made time to crochet a warm pram blanket out of leftover wools. The border was a mix of patterns I gathered from Pinterest.

Now all I am doing is waiting for the babies to arrive as I'm sure the expectant mothers are doing too.  I can't wait to meet them in safer times.

Stay safe, stay home.

Ann
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Making Olive Oil

We have 4 olive trees, I don't eat olives, so what do we do with all the fruit?

A number of years ago we decided to pick our olives and take them to a friends farm for pressing into olive oil.  We have not bought olive oil since and the best thing is we know exactly what has gone into our oil and where it has come from.


It is a laborious job picking the olives, but time passes quickly when you pick with friends.  We now have a small community who we pick with and then pool our olives into one big batch for pressing.

I bought this wonderful apron a few years ago from a market and it has made picking the olives a lot easier.  I have both hands free for picking and can just load the apron up to be emptied into our picking crates.

After pressing we decant our oil into upcycled bottles (my husband eagerly helps with emptying the wine bottles :))

We use our oil for almost all our cooking and it is delicious as a dip with some bread and dukkah.

My helper

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Using leftovers to make Bubble 'n' squeak

What do you do with leftover food?

When I make the evening meal I always make up a spare plate to put in the fridge or freezer so that there is always something available for my husband to reheat if I am away shopping.  I drive an hour one way to get to the nearest town with a supermarket, so a grocery shopping trip takes a minimum of 3 hours. While I am there I take the opportunity to schedule as many appointments as possible to save on unscheduled trips.

Sometimes when I make the spare meal I misjudge the amount of vegetables needed and end up with a bowl of leftover vegies.

I was home alone at lunch time with this bowl of vegies and I thought what could I do with them.  Then I remembered that my Mum used to cook "Bubble 'n' Squeak" for us as kids.  So I put the leftover mashed potato, vegies and some parmesan cheese in a bowl, mashed them together and made fritters.  I fried them in a little bit of oil and I honestly wasn't going to eat them all, but they were so delicious and full of memories that before I knew it there were none left for anybody else.

Do you have any family favourite recipes that are full of memories too?

Enjoy life, it's the only one we will ever get.

Ann

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Quandong Jam

Living in the Victorian Mallee we are surrounded by native plants, trees and flowers.  One of these is the Quandong (Santalum acuminatum) or native peach.  This parasitic tree belongs in the same family as the Sandalwood.

In early Spring the Quandong produces a small bright red fruit, it has a bitter taste but the fruit is delicious when made into jam.

Quandong Jam

2 cups of Quandongs de-seeded and roughly chopped 

2 cups castor sugar
2 cups water
1 tsp balsamic vinegar

Boil together stirring continuously.  Pour into sterilised jars, seal and label.


















Looking forward to enjoying this on my toast in the morning.










When you have finished preparing the fruit, you are left with these wonderful seeds.  My Mother-in-law had collected hundreds of them which I have in a jar in my craft room.

So far I have used them as game pieces in a Chinese Checkers game and as beads in a necklace.  I am still looking for more uses for them, so any ideas will be gratefully accepted.


Enjoy

Ann
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Mallee Wildflowers

Early Spring is a beautiful time in the Mallee.

The weather is changing to cool mornings and wonderful sunny afternoons, which are perfect for walking through the scrub to look at the wildflowers that are in bloom.  The snakes are not quite on the move, and if they are, they are still a bit sluggish from Winter (hopefully).

We picked a fine day and didn't have to walk very far up our drive to see these wildflowers:

Minuria Leptophylla - Variable minnie daisy

Olearia Pimeleoides - Showy daisy bush

The flowers below where all found around my garden, I love the natives in my garden, they bring the bees and the birds.  I get a lot of pleasure sitting on the veranda on a sunny day watching the birds feeding on the nectar.

Eremophila maculata -  emu bush

Eremophila maculata - emu bush

Grevillea

Grevillea

Acacia

We picked another nice day to go for a drive down the track to explore and discover the local flora.

Clematis microphylla - Old man's beard

Cassia nemophila - Wild boronia or desert cassia

Grevillea huegelii - Comb spider-flower

Acacia

Acacia colletioides - Wait-a-while

Eucalyptus gracilis - White mallee

Zygophyllum apiculatum

Zygophyllum glaucum 

I am no expert on identifying flowers, I have a whole garden of unidentified flowers. So if you recognise a mistake in my identification please let me know.  

For my reference I used the following books:

The Mallee in flower by I R McCann

An introduction to The Wildflowers of "The Millewa" by Margaret Kelly

They have become my bibles on my travels through our scrub and roads.

Enjoy

Ann

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Crochet Blanket

Well these cold nights are certainly good for sitting in front of the heater and crocheting.

After a family member announced their pregnancy I thought of what I could make for the baby, I procrastinated for so long that I have only just finished the blanket and the baby is now 2 weeks old!

I made a granny square blanket using up remnants of 1/2 finished balls of wool.  I reversed the colour combinations (green with orange and orange with green etc.) and included blue and pink as I didn't know the sex of the expected baby.

With a couple of different border ideas and colours the blanket is finished and ready to go to the newest member of our family.

With any left over wool I knitted a ball.                 To make this I cast on 16 stitches and knit 60 rows of garter stitch, although if or when I make another one I will knit more rows (I am a tight knitter so it ended up rather small).  Make 8 of these strips.  Join the ends of two strips together to make two rings.  Before you make the 3rd ring weave the strip between the two rings and then join the ends.  Repeat for each subsequent strip.  It requires a bit of fiddling to get the last two strips in but it is well worth the effort.       

Enjoy

Ann
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