Oh WOW

Last weekend I packed one of those tiny suitcases with the wheels and flew to Wellington for WOW.



I met up with my fabulous friend, Penny for a weekend that included LOTS of shopping, an amazing show and lots of laughs. We left each other at the airport on Sunday, and I STILL had more to say!

I took my (nearly all better) camera along for the ride, with my wee manual lens on board, and I set the camera to black and white. I'm still learning the hang of the focus, but love some of the results I got with my camera over the weekend.

I love how this sign, found in Te Papa, looks like it was shot against a city scape at night!







Thanks to my beautiful sister for taking the above two photos.



After all that shopping I needed to put my feet up!



You can click through on any of the photos if you'd like to see a few more shots from the weekend.

Same time, same place next year Penny?

From the Weekend

I've been making muffins a lot lately, Michael likes to take savoury ones to work for his breakfast. I make a simple recipe with cheese and corn and some herbs and spices. He likes lots of chilli!

Mum gave me a Dish magazine subscription for my birthday this year. I'm always attracted to the sweet recipes, and made a yummy pear and gingerbread pudding the other night. It was delicious, but had more butter, sugar and white flour than what seems advisable or necessary. I adapted the recipe to make muffins for work this week. (if they are a success, I'll share the recipe later.)

I wrap our muffins up and freeze them (on separate sides of the freezer!), then we pull them out on the way to work, they're thawed by morning tea. (Michael get's his out the night before. He eats them on his way to the morning meeting.) It's an effective way to prevent all the baking being eaten by mid-week.

This weekend I also repotted the tomato plants- the seeds were planted on the first new moon in June as per Louise's instructions. There's one runty one, but it should catch up by October. I also planted some seeds, spring onion, more tomatoes, tamarillo, and some flowers for the front of the house.

What did you spend the weekend doing?

Pictures from the weekend

A fibre project

Cannelloni filling

Orange and Poppy Seed muffins

Roast Pumpkin Soup

Autumn Wreath

On the weekend I took some grape prunings, and made a few wreaths. I filled them with drying hydrangea flowers.

A brief, vague, how-to. I'm sure there are lots of more detailed instructions out there. Let me know if you have any questions!

I took the fresh prunings and cut all the leaves off. I found the dark, thin wood the most supple, the green wood broke more easily.

Don't worry about getting it too circular at first, that will come as you add more layers. Keep weaving through the prunings, filling up the skinny spots.

Don't worry too much about the sticky out bits at first either, you can clip them when everything is holding in place.

Fill it up with whatever you like- when you get sick of it, pull all the flowers out and start again!

If you make a wreath, I'd love to see it. Enjoy!

Weekending 3

Relaxing





Gardening



Cooking



How did you spend yours?

::Both shop prices have been tweaked, and felt prices now include free NZ shipping!::

Weekending 2

We had the Papakura spin in on Saturday, it was fun with people to meet, and things to learn.



In the front you can see the novelty spinners, and the knitters are in the back right corner. At 11.30 there was a 'longest thread' competition, with 10g of fibre handed out to each participant and a strict time frame of 30 minutes to spin in.

I had a stall selling some fibre, it went really well.





I also purchased a few things, some ceramic buttons from a local potter,



and a new drive band for my wheel. Maggie and Mike, Auckland Ashford dealers at Wheels and Whorls will be pleased to hear my wheel is running smoothly and effortlessly now I've got the garden twine off there!!



My most popular purchase combo was a skein of merino fibre and a pack of silk hankies, which I was offering at a special price of $20. I've got a couple left and put them up in my felt shop. Keep checking back over the next few days, as I have some more merino, silk sliver and hankies to add too.



Merino/silk combo in 'sugar and spice' and 'merry-go-round'.

Today I went into work for a bit, and made tomato relish, recipe later in the week. Thinking about those affected by the earthquake in Chile too.

How was your weekend?

Weekending

More peaches!!!



Spinning for a friend who is moving to a cold climate.



Coffee and almond croissant, while trying to decide what to sew with the mountain of fabric I bought from Global Fabrics in their 50% off sale



Warm sunshine, and a breeze which blew away the awful humidity we've been having, and dried my new fabrics in no time!

How did you spend the weekend?