Plain Jane Creations: Family

Showing posts with label Family. Show all posts

Our gorgeous baby girl is 21

Darling Daughter turned 21 last week. Lucky girl is in Portugal celebrating with Jack Sparrow. Not sure where all those years have gone but she has turned out spectacularly well. Love her and miss her. xo

The most recent photo of her and the special man in her life, last month in the Dolomites, Italy.

Bread baking and sourdough making

I made my first loaf of basic white bread with the help of my Thermomix 4 weeks ago, it was good.

The second with some bread improver added exploded out of the tin.

This sunflower and pepita loaf could have done with a some bread improver.

I discovered Alexandra Alice's cheats sourdough youtube video , it's a great recipe to follow.

It turns out consistent good sourdoughish loaves.

A dear friend sent me some of her Philomena sourdough in flake format, now the fun really begins.

Philomena is frothing and ready to go after a few days of fermenting.

It was cold last night so she had to sit beside the wifi modem overnight.

Two loaves, the cheats sourdough on the left and my first Philomena on the right.

Philomena is a little flat but with a little tweaking I'm going to get this sourdough making sorted.

It's been great fun, it's pretty easy to achieve, it tastes so good, has a nice chewy crust and full of holey bacterial goodness.

Here is is a very interesting article about the benefits of eating sourdough by Daniel Reid's website that my sourdough baking friend shared with me. You might want to give it a go.

Fifty candles for The Traveller

At the beginning of July these four siblings got together on the Gold Coast to celebrate the big 50 for the younger brother. I've known him for half of his life and in that time he has clocked up an amazing number of travel miles all over the world, he is a restless soul who seems to love exploring and meeting new people in all corners of the world. The Traveller has always been the family clown as you can see by their family portrait in the 1960's and he didn't disappoint at his birthday shoot. He had a couple of birthday beers before I shot 24 photos in 5 minutes before his party started. Through the viewfinder I didn't see he was up to mischief!

I have a great in-law family, really enjoy spending time with them all.

The day before the big birthday was my MIL's birthday. It was a very busy day preparing for a party, you can see tables being assembled in the background. I found time to cook her a birthday sponge for afternoon tea which wan't my best ever. I can blame working in a different kitchen, but the lack of height was due mostly to the baking powder being 8 years out of date, discovered after sponge was baked. Still tasted good with mulberry jam and cream.

Dear Husband and I had time to visit MovieWorld. Yes, we are big kids!

The Green Lantern coaster was one I didn't try, not keen on being upside down.

The Parade was great, forgot to take photos.

Arkham Asylum was also one I didn't try!

Superman was helping with the Escape.

Here you can see a Dear Husband looking very wet. The Wild West Falls ride 1 - Us 0! It wasn't the warmest day so once we got saturated it wasn't as much fun.

The long legs on the left are Dear Husbands, he had just eaten a hot dog, not a good plan when riding the Batman Spaceshot ride.

Mega May catchup

Well, May has escaped me, no blogging at all. Time to let you know what I was up to while I was absent from my blog. Mothers Day fell near the middle and I had a great day being made very special and then my mum visited and I made a sponge cake for afternoon tea. Nothing better than a sponge cake straight out of oven cooled, spread with lime and raspberry jam and lashings of cream. It was delish! Here's a link to my recipe just for you!

My children and Dear Husband gave me this beautiful mother of pearl pendant.

Eggs on a Cloud made by Darling Daughter for breakfast. Yummo!

I started and finished this baby blanket for a very special baby girl who arrived just in time for Mothers Day. I used almost 600g of Bendigo Woollen Mills classic 8ply pure wool in the shade Rosebud and a 4.5mm hook. The pattern I thought I might be able to manage was Heather Tucker's, Lacy Round Ripple Blanket, a free pattern I found on Ravelry. I'm not a very experienced crochet pattern reader and I have to say the centre nearly defeated me, but I'm stubborn and once I got to where the rippling started it was pretty straight forward as long as you meticulously cross the rows off as they are done. I washed and blocked the blanket and I was really pleased how it turned out. Dear Husband delivered the blanket personally and met the divine little Miss.

My little Miss Ruby loves her bed even if it is all pushed up in a heap!

Mothers Day when you have a giftware shop means making some special little things for the kids to pop in and pickup for their special mum. I had a great time making these little items, so nice to be settled back into making.

Little fabric tissue packs for your handbag.

Crochet brooches from cotton and mohair with fabric covered button centres.

Pom pom flowers. These were super easy and easy enough for kids whip up too.

I love vintage linen and these little purses are great for using up little pieces of precious embroidery, hand crocheted edgings, and old jeans. The flaps are crochet that I made using a pattern in a book I bought recently. I'm really happy with the finished product, a bit fiddly but worth the effort.

I knit some cotton washers that are a great gift with a luxury MOR soap. Pattern here.

Crochet cotton coasters were fun and they display really well at Kindrawares.

I made a trip over to our little shop and it's looking gorgeous as usual. Love my time over there staying on the farm with my sister, The Farmers Wife. The winter crops are all planted now they just need a bit of rain and harvest 2014 will be looking good.