"Living Life."

Hello,

Living life, that is what has been happening here. Blogging got put on the back burner for a while. Plus I haven't really been in the sewing room until a few days ago. Summer heat plus the Autumn heat we have been having has taken a toll on the garden so lots of pulling out of plants and trees has taken place. The good news is that we can review our plant selections and purchase new ones in the next couple of months.

I used up the last of our Cucumbers making a relish.

 I followed a recipe in the Country Woman's Association Cookbook. The only thing I didn't have was a chili which I left out.

 4 jars of beautiful Cucumber pickles. Now we all know that we need to leave them for about 3 weeks for the full flavour to go through the Cucumbers and Onions. I found that a certain person had opened the jar the next day!! Needless to say that jar didn't last long.

Ainsley and Julian brought Jacob up for his first big drive on the holiday Monday for lunch. I made up the Vanilla Slice recipe that Wendy had suggested to eat at the last sew in. I can tell you this was one delicious slice. I didn't worry about using the icing on the top because there was cream left over so that was spread on top then the Passion fruit syrup drizzled over this.

 With 6 of us it was the perfect number of guests to each get one big slice. Since making this no other Vanilla Slices that are available in the shops look as good and taste as good as this one. As Julian says I have raised the bar too high!

 On the sewing front a few more Elephants have been embroidered. This is a Elinor Peace-Bailey design. I remember meeting up with her and getting my photo taken with her years ago at a craft show in Perth that a girlfriend and I attended.

 So this is what the Elephant panels are attached to.Lots of tumbler shaped pieces.This quilt which I will probably use as a tablecloth has been a great exercise in using up scraps and making up the pattern as I have gone along.

 I plan to add some yellow toned ric-rac between the main piece and the embroideries.
The Elephant embroideries came from a site called "Cute Embroideries", you have to sign up to get the designs but they are free. The flower designs came from  the Cactus Punch Signature Series called Garden Grannie.

 There is always debate about Books versus Movies. I have watched both these movies and immediately went and bought the books. Lucy has read The Book Thief and said it contained lots more stories than in the movie so I am looking forward to reading that one. Ian and I saw Tracks on the weekend. This is a great movie with wonderful scenery and some great acting. I can still remember reading the West Australian newspaper back in the 70's when Robyn was tracking across the outback with her camels. In the movie it shows her reading the newspaper clipping.

Last night David Lucy and I went and had the most wonderful evening of laughter watching and listening to Alan Davies. We all love watching QI on TV so when we knew he was coming to Perth we were determined to go and have a good time.
Thanks Lucy and David for your company. While we were waiting for the show to start we got a text message from Ian to say that we had 4.5 mls of rain. We haven't had that amount since the beginning of October last year so that was great news.

Our love and prayers goes out to Ainsley and Julian and their circle of friends and the family they know that is waiting to hear what has happened with the missing plane.

Happy days.
Bev C