Roast tomato sauce

 Tomatoes ready for the oven with chopped garlic, thyme sprigs, olive oil and salt & pepper.  The tomatoes, garlic and thyme are all from our garden.

 After 1 hour of roasting

 After being pushed through a mouli- 900mls!  The recipe (River Cottage Veg) said I'd get about 500mls.

Ready to be frozen in 200ml (ish) portions.  Now I can try out the Roasted Tomato Risotto.

Gap Tooth

Evie has lost 2 teeth within a week, but it's a front tooth and the incisor next to it, so she has a sideways gap.  And she has a nasty mozzie bite on her chin that looks like a pimple.

Woolly Blanket Dress

 This is a new style of blanket dress I've been working on, a bit of a tunic style, as I just couldn't find a pinafore pattern that worked for girls bigger than 4 years old.  I know they're out there, I just haven't found them.  Anyway, this style does away with button holes, which suits me.  Button holes are certainly much easier on my new machine (2 years old now), but there's still fiddling with dials and changing machine feet that I'd rather do without.  This one has a button and loop fastening at the back, and a sweet hand embroidered doily on the front.

And here we have Jonty enjoying some sunshine on a train track, what a life!

More summer woollies

This is what I've been working on this week (in and around school holidays activities, shovelling compost and soil into a new garden bed, and Andrew being in Brisbane), four of each of these from gorgeous wool blankets I found last weekend.  Just wondering if I might need to make one of the lemon/pink/purple ones for one of my girls, it just looks like Easter colours to me!  Some of my vests will be appearing in Nurture by Nature Sustainable Living very soon.

Winter woollies in summer

I've turned my focus at the moment to making woollen vests for winter using blankets from op shops.  It's turned into a bit of a production line, and I'm making up to 4 in each style, in sizes 1, 2, 3 & 5, but considering doing a size 6.  The size 5 would fit for a while I'm sure though.  Evie at 6 1/2 will fit into her 5 for at least a few years I'm sure, though she is slender.  I just found 4 more blankets at op shops yesterday, so there are more colours to come.  Some vests have gorgeous handmade wooden buttons bought on our recent trip to Tasmania, and some have fabric covered buttons.  I'll stash these babies away until the weather has a bit more of a chill in the air.

Garden mid summer

 We've been enjoying a bounty of sweet corn, capsicums, carrots, tomatoes, and a few sneaky potatoes from the front yard garden.  It's looking rather lush compared to the backyard at the moment, as it gets most of the attention.

 Drought tolerant sedums and lavender cotton are going gangbusters in front of the house.

 The empty looking tub has baby leeks in it for winter.

 Potatoes growing tall, with a few echinacea popping up behind.

30% off in the shop

I'm having a new year sale to make room for new beginnings.  I'm thinking about going completely upcycled, phasing out new fabrics.  This process will take a while, but in the meantime, enjoy 30% off in my Etsy shop this week, with the code NY2013.

Christmas in Tasmania part 2

 Botanical gardens

 Bumble Bees!

 Japanese garden

 Ducklings

 Callington Mill in Oatlands- the oldest working Georgian mill in the southern hemisphere.  We bought some of their oats, bread flour and semolina

The surrounding gardens with espaliered apple trees.

Christmas in Tasmania part 1

 Elgaar Farm stand selling milk and yoghurt in glass bottles and jars, and cheese in paper bags.  They also have a bottle buy back offer.

 Ross O'Meara at his stall

We spent 6 nights in Hobart over Christmas, our longest family holiday so far!  We've been having trouble loading photos, so here's the first installment, our trip to the Farm Gate farmer's market in Hobart.  Crowds of people were buying all their fresh produce for Christmas, the queues for raspberries and cherries were ridiculous!  We bought amazing apricots, milk, yoghurt and cheese, apple cider, carrots, lettuce and honey.  We later bought cherries and apples off the side of the road in Huonville.  We also had lunch in Cygnet at the Red Velvet Lounge, and saw Gourmet Farmer's (Matthew Evans) partner and mum in the main street.  It was a bit of a Gardening Australia/Gourmet Farmer inspired holiday really.