Thursday, 26 April 2012

Oh yeah, the quilts.

I mentioned a while back that I was quilting up a storm, and here are a few photos to prove it.  The first one is for a new baby girl, and the second for a baby boy.





There was a third, but I forgot to photograph it before it was dispatched.  I am kind of over quilts for now. I've started knitting again though - I'm actually making something for myself, which I don't think I've done in a few years.

Thursday, 19 April 2012

Quince quince quince

A couple of weeks back, i had a bit of time on my hands one evening, and spent it browsing Trade Me. Somehow I stumbled upon this guy selling quinces, with $1 reserve for 3kg. It was such a bargain, I couldn't not bid.


And I won! For $2.50. I only had to travel about 2km from my house to collect them, and the seller popped in an extra kg for free!

I stewed the first few kilos, but once our freezer was full, I turned to making jelly. I used the same recipe I had from when I made Japonica Jelly, about 3 years ago.




I didn't have quite as beautiful a spot to hang my muslin though - I ended up rigging up something from the kitchen drawer:


But now I have jars and containers of this beautiful pinky-orange jelly. Perfect with cheese and a glass of wine.


Any takers?

Tuesday, 10 April 2012

It's been worth the wait..

When Matt and I moved back to NZ in 2007, our first car was this beauty:


Ah, the Goddess. Such an amazing car. It was with great sadness that we said goodbye to her three years later when the kid came along and it went from impractical to impossible.

We sold it to an older couple from North of Auckland - they were so excited, they picked it up and enthusiastically set off on a road trip back to their home.

The woman who bought the car phoned Matt a couple of weeks ago, and shared what had happened since - it turns out her husband was very ill at the time, and passed away sometime after. Two years later she was facing the task of dealing with his estate, and had phoned Matt to ask if we would take back the car, as she knew how important it was to us....

Hell yes!

So she's back - parked outside our house right now. We took it for it's first drive over Easter and it performed excellently. Not sure how we are going to deal with the fact we are now a three car family, but hey....