January 19th, 2012
My first of the farmer's wife quilt blocks - I decided to start with some that were relatively simple, the Kitchen Woodbox and Basket Weave. Even still, I had to do them over because they didn't come out the right size the first time. Lesson learned, cut the templates bigger rather than smaller, and check your seam allowance regularly. Hopefully I've worked out the kinks and it won't be too much trouble on the fussier blocks. The links and resources that Karyn posted are pretty helpful - especially the link to the templates all laid out on just 15 pages.
I've started machine sewing them. I might do some hand pieced at some point but since it's the third week of January I think I'm already behind, if that's possible, so I'm sticking with the machine sewing for now.
#54 Kitchen Woodbox
#4 Basket Weave
January 17th, 2012
January 15th, 2012
January 12th, 2012
This might be the only knitted project I finished this winter season, but I've been wearing it every day. It's based loosely on the Hurricane Hat pattern, but I made it a bit bigger and slouchier because that's the kind of hat I wanted. It's been perfect for the mild weather we've been having, just the right amount of warmth to keep the wind off my ears.
January 10th, 2012
January 8th, 2012
January 6th, 2012
To keep us going while we were doing all this cooking we had a beautiful cheese plate with a terrine and made tuna rillettes to go with it. It was dead easy - tuna, scallion, creme fresh and a little curry powder - and so good. We added a pinch of cayenne as well instead of the allspice and it was quite nice. There's a salmon rillettes recipe in the book that looks really good as well - next time we go to someone's house for dinner I'm thinking of bringing it along.
Tuna Rillettes
Adapted slightly from Around my French Table
2 - 5 to 6 oz cans of white tuna
1 shallot, thinly sliced, rinsed and dried
1/2 to 1 tsp curry powder
1/4 tsp cayenne
3 Tbsp creme fresh or 3-5 Tbsp heavy cream
1/4 tsp salt, or to taste
freshly ground pepper
fresh lemon juice to taste
Put all the ingredients except the lemon juice in a food processor and blend until it becomes spreadable. Taste it and adjust the seasoning and ingredients as needed. Add a splash of lemon juice. The flavours will blend if you let it set, so try to keep it in the fridge for at least an hour before serving - it tastes even better the next day too.
January 4th, 2012
I hope you enjoyed as nice a start to 2012 as we did - it involved some delicious food, bubbly, board games and the last Harry Potter movie, which was all just the right way to spend an evening in my opinion. And now we're into January, appropriately with some snow on the ground and weather so cold it activates my hibernating instincts. Ah well, it is good quilting weather though.
Ian has made us a dynamite soundtrack to listen to this month, some exceptional songs if I do say so myself. Maybe you'd like to give them a listen while you're doing some sewing of your own. Please check it out in the right hand column, all free, legal mp3 downloads as usual. Hope you enjoy!
THE WEEKND – d.d.
SHARON VAN ETTEN – serpents
BOWERBIRDS – tuck the darkness in
ST VINCENT – surgeon
THE DUKE SPIRIT – don’t wait (live)
CASS MCCOMBS – county line
REAL ESTATE – it’s real
DAMIEN JURARDO – nothing is the news
GIANT SAND w/ VICTORIA WILLIAMS and EVAN DANDO– music arcade (neil young cover)
KATHRYN CALDER – arrow
BON IVER – beth/rest (solo piano)
January 1st, 2012
February: A glorious week spent in Mexico.
March: We kept ourselves busy through the dregs of winter by eating good food with friends.
April: First glimpses of spring, and we went to the Brickworks Farmers Market.
May: We explored Philadelphia, ate the best sandwich of my life, and fell a bit in love with the city.
June: My proudest gardening achievement!
July: This was the hardest month to choose just one photo, so I picked two - we did so much this month! Lots of biking adventures, trips to the island, family visiting, camping, time at the cottage, Montreal and a wedding.
August: An amazing trip to Nova Scotia, including my first lobster dinner.
September: We manage to get in one more camping trip and some time on the beach.
October: Played bocce in the park before our Thanksgiving feast with friends.
November: Visiting with family in British Columbia.
December: We spent a week in Cuba, but I haven't finished processing the photos yet. Otherwise, enjoying a relaxing Christmas holiday.