Market Wrap-Up

Melbourne turned on its best wet weather for the last market of summer yesterday. It rained all night Saturday, and continued to rain for the duration of the market, only stopping when it was time to pack up for the day.

I only managed one quick photo of the stall right at the start of the day, before the sun had even begun to show itself.

The market received quite a few visitors despite the rain, but being on the grass put quite a few off heading over towards my stall. However, I was lucky to still cover my costs, met lots more wonderful people and will be back there again next month.

My most interesting visitors were two pairs of young girls who returned to my table over and over to play with my squeaky owls; while the girls at the next stall and myself found it quite funny to start with, it got a bit annoying when they started dropping them on the ground, and they never did come back to actually purchase one. I guess thats just something that happens when you have cute toys on your table, and if I'd charged per squeak I'd have done quite well.

1301

Yes, there are 1301 pieces in Rosettes, and I'm finally finished! Talk about a marathon effort.

It's a gorgeous day outside today, perhaps a little too sunny for a photo shoot. I'm not usually a fan of orange, but I thought it worked for the border given the dominance of blues and greens in the quilt.

Just a reminder that the Mulgrave Maker's Market is on this Sunday (8am-1pm), so if you're in the area I'd love to see you there. I'll have handmade goods as well as a selection of fabrics.

One Step at a Time

I've found that the easiest way to tackle Rosettes is to break it down into small chunks; you feel like you're making progress and it's more managable. I cut all the 2" squares one day, drew the diagonal lines the next, then stitched them all to the rectangles the following day. Another day was for trimming and ironing. Within each of those tasks, I break down the fabric into groups, and take a break between each. It's the only way to maintain my sanity!

Today I've finally got around to piecing the blocks, working two at a time. I've done eight of the 16 so far and I think they're looking pretty spiffy. I'm finally getting the hang of those points, too.

Whenever I leave the ironing board "alone" for too long, Miss Bella steps in to keep it company, and promptly falls asleep.

I also thought todays sunshine might be a good opportunity for a photoshoot with Millie, but she was far more intent on rolling around on the grass, or eating it, to pose for me.

Zucchini Fritters

Summer usually brings with it an overload of zucchini, and sometimes it can be a bit of a struggle coming up with new and creative ways to use up the abundance.

Today I turned a few zucchini nearing the end of their shelf-life into fritters; these will be yummy for lunch with a bit of home-made aioli. I used normal milk rather than buttermilk, chedder instead of feta and some parsley and oregano instead of thyme. I also squeezed as much water as possible from the zucchini, and added a handful extra flour.

Recipe and pic from taste.com.au

Ingredients

2 eggs, lightly whisked
75g (1/2 cup) self-raising flour
2 tbs buttermilk
3 (about 400g) green zucchini, ends trimmed, coarsely grated
100g feta, crumbled
1 red onion, halved, thinly sliced
1 tbs finely chopped fresh thyme
1 garlic clove, crushed
Sea salt flakes & freshly ground black pepper
125ml (1/2 cup) vegetable oil
Lemon wedges, to serve

Method

Combine egg, flour and buttermilk in a bowl. Add zucchini, feta, onion, thyme and garlic, and gently stir to combine. Season with sea salt flakes and pepper.
Heat oil in a frying pan over medium heat. Place 4 heaped tablespoonfuls of zucchini mixture around edge of the pan, allowing room for spreading, and use an egg lifter to flatten slightly. Shallow-fry for 1-2 minutes each side or until golden and cooked through. Transfer to a plate lined with paper towel. Repeat, in 2 more batches, with the remaining zucchini mixture, reheating oil between batches.

The Fandango Tango Goes On

After a bit of a break, I'm back taking another stab at Rosettes. Today's mission is to cut out the 320 2" squares required to put the second "ring" around the blocks. It's like a never-ending quilt, this one.

Central Park by Kate Spain came in yesterday and it is yummy! I bought myself a FQB using some Christmas money, so if anyone has any pattern suggestions for that one, I'm all ears.

It's now six months till my trip to the US and I took the big step of booking my flights over the weekend thanks to a well-timed Qantas sale. I just need to survive a semester of uni then I can really start getting excited.

Wacky Weather!

No pictures unfortunately, but the south eastern suburbs have just experience a major dumping of rain, right as I was travelling home from my grandmas house. It took us almost 30 min to travel from the next suburb over, with a detour via another suburb; all the roads to my house are under water and there are dead cars bobbing all over the place. Apparently it's a results of the cyclone that's just battered QLD.

I'm very glad we were in my mum's Forrester otherwise we would have had a lot more trouble, though we did have to use the footpath to get down one street. Outside the local restaurants, cars are up to their windows in water.