Roses, beads and a Funnelhead update

Here is the project I was working on last time... a crocheted rose dangly ornament! Well, it can be used as many things... I'm using one as a curtain tie and it also looks good as a handbag ornament or hanging off a door handle or drawer knob. Anywhere you need a little bit of rosy cheer!

I made them in two colours: dusky rose and lovely aqua. I can't decide which is my favourite.

The only part I didn't enjoy so much was stringing the beads. Fiddly! Even for a picky-fingers like me who usually enjoys fiddling around with tiny things. But I think it was worth it.

This is the next lot of work in progress. You'll have to wait till next time to find out more about that!

And guess what, poor Lui is Mr Funnelhead again. He came in on Sunday with a big cut on his tum which had to be stitched up. That meant an overnight stay at the vet, and they were going to remove the lesion on his neck at the same time. However upon shaving the fur off, it turned out to be bigger than the vet had realised and he decided to leave it be. He didn't even take a little bit for a biopsy, unfortunately. Poor Mr Lui is very happy to be at home eating jellimeat again, and resigned with good grace to wearing his funnel for the next few days. At least until he stops trying to eat his stitches.

A little bit of progress

This is just a quick little update. Thanks for checking in on me! I'm gradually moving out of the kitchen and back to the workspace. While I still have two bowls of tomatoes left to make the last relish with (recipe coming soon, I promise!), I've also set myself a couple of creative projects to finish. Nothing is quite finished yet, but they looked so sparkly and pretty under the daylight lamp that I had to take some pictures.

Beautiful blue glass beads. I am quite in love with aqua right now!

Beads, beads, beads... don't you want to reach your finger in and give them a stir?

Can you guess what I'm making? I'll tell you next time!

Pineapple Relish recipe

pineapple relish
Originally uploaded by ghostmyst

600g fresh pineapple
2 limes
6-8 cloves garlic
1 tbsp black pepper corns (optional - I left this one out!)
1 tbsp fennel seeds
1 tbsp cumin seeds
1 tbsp mustard seeds
1 tbsp oregano
200g brown sugar
1 tbsp salt

Peel pineapple and chop into cubes. Wash and chop limes (with the peel on). Chop garlic.

Put pepper, fennel, cumin and mustard seeds into dry saucepan. Cook on med heat until they pop. Remove, grind with mortar & pestle.

Put everything into a large saucepan. Bring to the boil on a low heat. Boil for 15 minutes or till desired consistancy is reached.

Bottle and seal, keeps 4-6 months.

Cold days in a warm kitchen

This is my favourite new toy... a Breville breadmaker, bought in the Easter sales. I've been baking bread like mad since I got it. I've had some tasty successes, and one or two doughy messes (it definitely pays to use the right kind of flour). Here it is, making yummy corn bread.

Homemade bread (this is sunflower and pumpkin seed bread) makes the best sandwiches - especially when you fill them with fresh homegrown tomatoes and salad greens and homemade tomato relish!

You can even bake cakes and teabreads with it. This is a sweet Madeira cake (best served with cream and fresh berries).

My other new toy is a slow cooker. I've been googling for recipes to use with that and am quite amazed at the range available - all kinds of hearty casseroles, potato bakes, desserts, chutneys - you can even bake bread in one! Today I'm cooking lasagne.

It's autumn here in the southern hemisphere. Daylight savings time ended in NZ this weekend. The summer flowering plants in the garden are finishing up and putting themselves to bed for the winter.

I planted all my spring bulbs. I have miniature daffodils, irises, ranunculus, and crocus. I didn't plant any tulips but after seeing all the pretty pictures starting to pop up on northern hemisphere blogs, I might have to make a quick dash to the garden centre and get some after all...

All my bulbs are in pots so I can move them in and out of pretty containers as they flower.


I'm also propagating my strawberrries: the lovely sweet pink-flowering Pink Temptation. You peg the runners into little pots and in a couple of months they put down roots. And then: six new little strawberry plants.

And just think of all the jam I could make with those...

PS. All these photos (and more) are at my Flickr page.

Happy St Paddy's Day!

Happy St Paddy's Day! I never normally celebrate this day, but I have an Irish surname (O'Connor) and, since it's about the only bit of "culture" I have in me, I thought it's about time I did! Then the lovely Vanessa at A Fanciful Twist came up with these fun shamrock pins, and I knew what I had to do.


Vanessa's pdf is at her blog if you want the pattern to make your own pretty shamrocks! They are designed to be a pin but I found they work just as well as a table centrepiece.

Hope this day is lucky for you!

A stroll through the hothouse

This is a corner of the hothouse at the Christchurch Botanical Gardens. I wish I had a similar nook in my own house! Although the humidity of this building is really not something to be desired.

Up the stairs to the second storey, and look at that atrium ceiling! Look at the pink bouganvillea.

All around were samples of exotic, unusual and just plain weird plants.

Vibrant colours abounded.

Pretty leaves and contrasting textures were all around.

Here's a steamy photo of some Purple Bells. They were growing round a circular arch which you can see in the very first photo, and cascading from baskets hung from the ceiling, similar to the pink bouganvillea in the second photo.

My Purple Bells at home have quite a bit of growing to do to catch up to their cousins!

These are only a few of the photos I took... more can be found at my Flickr page. Caren also has some photos here.

Art mess

What happens when two creative girls get together for a week with no cares and no responsibilities? Well, you get an art mess of course. This was my coffee table on Monday (and I must confess, it usually looks worse than this) after Caren, myself and my friend Roseanne had a "Nana Craft" afternoon. Nana craft involves playing around with a new (or old) idea, while catching up with friends, having a chat and lots of coffee. On this occasion we made little felt pincushions and decorated them with buttons, beads and embroidery.

On Sunday after meeting Caren at the airport, we went to Riccarton market where I picked up these sweet little alpines in tiny terracotta pots. At the back is an Ulmus (miniature elm), left front is a hybrid rhodohypoxis and right front is a tiny white cyclamen which is probably the cutest cyclamen I've ever seen... I love all things miniature and that includes miniature plants!

We also got a fantastic deal on these pen nibs. I've no idea what I'll use them for, but we couldn't pass them up.

All right, so after the market fossicking and nana crafting, we got into the jam making. You might not know this, but jam making is one of those things where once you start, you can't stop, so I've ended up with three types of preserve in the cupboard (tomato relish, pineapple relish, and pear and earl grey jam) and two types in the fridge (blueberry jam and blueberry creme). I've also got an ever-growing pile of tomatoes sitting on the bench, just waiting for me to get some more jars so I can make more relish of them.

This is the pineapple relish and it's incredibly tasty! It has pineapple, lime, garlic, oregano, cumin, fennel and mustard seeds. Very good with ham sandwiches and probably roast pork as well.

I have more to tell but I'll save it for another post. Here's a quick Funnelhead update: the Soft Paws nailcaps arrived and we put them on him today. Have a look at his back paw in the photo. See the red nails? Pretty! Lui seems to think so too - he hasn't tried to chew them off or anything. Yet! Keep your fingers and paws crossed!

Paintbrush earrings

Remember the One World One Heart event? This is a prize I was lucky enough to win. These cute little paintbrush earrings are by Gemma at A Desert Garden. They are very appropriate since I have been attempting to work on some paintings this weekend. (I haven't gone so far as to dip my ear into the paint, although I have gotten my hair and sleeves into it.) Thank you so much for the lovely prize, Gemma!

Crystals and cat paws

This week has been rather a busy one on the housework front. Don't worry, I wouldn't normally spend every spare minute cleaning, but my dear friend Caren is coming to stay next week! And I had to clear her a space to sleep in. You know, my usual method of tidying up is to pick up the piles from the floor and transfer them to the desk, or vice versa, depending on what area I'm trying to clear. It's really rather difficult, doing the whole house... I'm just going round in a circle!

One way to beat the boredom when house cleaning is to take a break and go pretty shopping. So I did, and the best pretty I found is in the photo above: sparkly dangling crystal chandelier ornaments, marked at 50% off! I bought four, which I can already tell won't be enough (especially come next christmas). I think Caren and I might have to go grab up the rest of the stock...

Thanks to everyone who left comments on my last post about Lui. He's no longer called Funnelhead as a couple of days ago he ripped into his neck again, so I've taken the funnel off since it wasn't helping. I'm trying to decide what the next thing to try will be - any suggestions are gratefully received! I made a little sock to go on his leg, with felt on the base to dull the claws. However it's so hot at the moment I can't bring myself to put it on him, especially since it would have to be on for so long. I ordered some nail covers from Soft Paws, but they'll take at least a week to get here. Sooner or later we will need to go back to the vet, but I'm reluctant to do that just yet because I don't have a lot of faith in them... we've been back and forth so many times, and no one seems to know what the problem is. Every time we go it seems to be me asking the questions and making the suggestions. It doesn't help that every time we go it's a different vet on duty! Anyway, Mr Lui is a lot happier without the funnel. He's actually quite pleased with himself that he managed to get it off.


By the way, remember the crochet bag I posted about a while ago? I finally finished it and sent it off to Caren. If you want to see how it came out, she's blogged about it here!

The Sad Saga of Funnelhead

This is Lui, currently known as Funnelhead. The thing on his head is an Elizabethan collar. It's on there to prevent him scratching and licking at his neck where there is a small lesion.

This is a saga because it's been going on since late last year. He would let the wound almost heal and then scratch the scab off, opening it again. We've been to the vet countless times... opinions differ on the cause (most likely an allergy, but it's not clear to what) and the treatment (ranging from the lovely collar to steroid pills to flea treatments to hypoallergenic food to the suggestion of biopsies and skin grafts).

Poor Lui was a miserable cat when we first put the collar on him. It was much too big and would drag on the ground in front of him and trip him when he tried to walk. The next day I trimmed off a good third of it and it was much lighter. His whiskers poked out the front and he could walk without crashing into furniture. He could even get out the cat door again, although it would take a couple of goes to get into the right position. (Crash, bash).

I have to smile whenever I get a glimpse of him strolling past in his Sunday bonnet with the big bow. It bobs back and forth as he walks and, at the right angle, it certainly does look like a funnel..

Right now we are coming to the end of the latest regime of pills, and crossing fingers, toes and paws that the itch has stopped for Lui! If only, if only he can leave it for another week or so then all will be well.