Author: Anne S

Brightening my life one stitch or one card at a time, and sharing my joy of needlework and card-making.
Canvaswork, Finishes, From Nancy's Needle

Crazy January Challenge #4

Anne S

I’ve been in a lot of physical pain with my leg this week, which has meant having to keep it elevated with an icepack on it … the perfect position being sat up in bed … which means the perfect position for stitching, and the chance to complete my canvaswork project.  This also means finish #4 for my Crazy January Challenge for the year.

From Nancy's Needle-Lavender Blue Celtic Knot Quilt
“Lavender Blue Celtic Knot Quilt” by From Nancy’s Needle
canvaswork stitched with recommended threads
(and the project uses almost ALL the thread skeins in total)

It also means plenty of TV viewing time so I’ve started watching season 1 of The Tudors today – along with a few other TV shows I’ve had taped from during the week … all-in-all a very lazy and relaxing couple of days! 😀

Canvaswork, From Nancy's Needle, Works in Progress

Canvaswork updae

Anne S

My weekend plans didn’t quite go as planned, so instead I sat in my room and got some ‘needle’ practice in … and loved every little stitch.  Here’s how my canvaswork piece looks like after a full day today and a few hours yesterday (inbetween sleeping half the day) … another 1-2 weeks and this one will be finished 🙂

From-Nancy's-Needle-13Mar11
“Lavender Blue Celtic Knot Quilt” by Nancy’s Needle

And after that quick little preview, it’s time to settle in for the night and my final 1/2 hour of stitching … then it’s back to hydrotherapy in the morning 🙂

ABC Wednesday, Hardanger, Travel - Hong Kong, Works in Progress

ABC Wednesday – H … and some stitching

Anne S

Here is my choice for this week’s “ABC Wednesday” – brought to you by the Letter “H” … Hong Kong trams:

And this week’s “one I prepared earlier, stitchy/crafty content” is a Hardanger doily from a class I took in Auckland (unfortunately the shop is no longer in existence, for I spent many an hour and many a dollar in that shop!!):

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And just because I can’t be bothered typing up a second post ‘cos I’m getting tired (I didn’t get home from work until almost 9pm tonight), here’s my latest stitching update … one of my Crazy January Challenge projects … I’m loving stitching this one – the only problem is that once it’s finished I’m going to get a serious urge to start another canvaswork one straightaway, so it’s going to take some willpower not to! 😉  Alas the photo is washed out due to dreary non-daylight lighting, but what the heck …

Food, recipes

Cheese Crisps

Anne S

As promised earlier, here is the recipe for Cheese Crisps:

Cheese-Crisps

1/2 cup self-raising flour
1/2 cup grated fresh parmesan cheese
60g butter
2 teaspoons paprika

Filling:
1/2 cup grated havarti cheese
1 1/2 tablespoons cream
2 teaspoons chopped fresh basil

Sift flour into bowl, stir in cheese.  Rub in butter, press mixture firmly together into a ball (or process all ingredients to form a ball, which is what I did).  Cover, refrigerate for 30 minutes.

Roll pastry between sheets of greaseproof paper until 3mm thick.  Cut 2 1/2 cm rounds from pastry, place onto lightly greased oven trays, sprinkle half the rounds with paprika.  Bake in moderately hot oven for about 8 minutes or until lightly browned; cool on trays.  Sandwich plain and paprika topped crisps with filling.

Filling: Stand cheese in bowl at room temperature for 30 minutes.  Beat in cream and basil, beat until smooth.  (In fact I blended my ingredients in a mini food processor, which ensured I got a nice smooth consistency with the basil flavour being distributed nice and evenly.)

Makes about 45

Cross Stitch, Finishes, Freebies, Heartstrings, Works in Progress

Stitching update

Anne S

I’ve managed a tiny bit of stitching over the last few nights, including finishing all the actual stitching on Bittersweet Seasons – all I need now is to buy some little gold embellishments for it (a tiny gold star and bell) then it’s totally finished.  It’s hard to pick up the little details such as the beads and metallics, but I’ve tried to capture it as well as I can in the below photos (although when I do compilations there is a lot of quality lost in the conversion).

Bittersweet-Season

Then, after a trip to Spotlight yesterday afternoon to pick up the DMC thread I have mislaid (so, what’s new??), I put the finishing stitches into the Autumn freebie that I started last year.

The Stitcherhood-Autumn freebie

“Autumn” freebie by The Stitcherhood LLC
Stitched on 32ct hand-dyed Belfast linen by Countrystitch ~ colour Merino
with recommended DMC threads
(the chart is still available here)

I’m not sure what happened to the photo of this one – the fabric is a beautiful mottled creamy fabric, not the putty-like colour that is showing in the above photo!!  I hope to turn this into a little pillow soon, which is timely considering we are now officially in the first week of Autumn here “down under” and it’ll be nice to have it on display (gee I’m so sorry to say farewell to Sydney’s summer … not …).

Now I guess it’s back to the Drawn Thread Joyeux Noel, although I have to admit I’m really not enjoying stitching that one in the slightest – which is disappointing, as I’ve had the urge to stitch this one for the longest time … I’m tempted, instead, to do an hour or so of one of my Crazy January Challenge projects, as unfortunately they’ve been taking a back seat just lately while I’ve been finishing up some older WIPs … I’m starting to think I have bitten off more than I can chew this year what with both the CJC and my personal challenge of two ornies per month ho-hum (not to mention some other commitment pieces that aren’t able to form part of my CJC!) 😦

Talking of which, I also need to kit up my two March Christmas ornies, and make a start on Katie’s Christmas gift from last year plus get cracking on my outstanding PIFs from last year.

In the meantime, though, it feels really good to finally get a couple of WIPs from last year into the finishing pile (even if one does still need its embellishments).

Food, recipes

Orange Liqueur Chocolate Tartlets

Anne S

As promised earlier, here is the recipe for these divine little morsels … a little bit fussy to make, but oh so worth it! 😀

Orange-Liqueur-Chocolate-Ta

1 1/4 cups (185g) plain flour
1/4 cup (25g) cocoa
125g cold butter, chopped
1 egg yolk
1 tablespoon iced water, approx

Filling:
300ml thickened cream
1 2/3 cups (250g) White (chocolate) Melts
2 tablespoons Grand Marnier
1 tablespoon grated orange rind

Candied Rind:
1 medium (180g) orange
1/2 cup (110g) caster sugar
1/4 cup (60ml) water

Sift flour and cocoa into bowl, rub in butter, add egg yolk and enough water to make ingredients cling together (or make pastry in processor, which is what I did).  Press dough into a ball, knead gently on lightly floured surface until smooth, cover; refrigerate 30 minutes.

Divide pastry in half.  Roll each half between sheets of baking paper until 1mm thick (mine were about 2mm thick ‘cos I’m obviously not an expert roller!!).  Cut pastry into 5cm fluted rounds, press rounds into 5 x 12 hole tiny tartlet trays (3 teaspoon capacity) (note I used mini muffin tins – so they didn’t sit as ‘flat’ as the recipe suggests, but they still held their shape well and held the filling beautifully).  Prick pastry bases with skewer; refrigerate 30 minutes.  Bake pastry cases in moderately hot oven (200-210C; 400-425F; Gas Mark 5) about 7 minutes or until crisp; cool.

Spoon filling into piping bag fitted with small star tube (which I couldn’t find, so I had to use a plain round piping nozzle).  Pipe filling into pastry cases; top with candied rind (which I didn’t bother with because a lot of people don’t like it).

Filling: Heat cream in small pan until boiling, pour over White chocolate Melts in bowl, stir until White Melts have melted.  Stir in liqueur and rind; refrigerate until firm.  Beat mixture with electric mixer until fluffy; do not over-beat (mixture should resemble whipped cream).

Candied Rind: Using a vegetable peeler, peel rind thinly from orange.  Cut rind into very thin strips.  Combine sugar and water in small pan, stir over heat, without boiling, until sugar dissolves.  Add rind, simmer, uncovered, about 5 minutes or until mixture is syrupy.  Remove rind from syrup, place on greased tray, separate strips of rind.

Makes about 60

(in my case because the pastry was rolled a little thicker, I managed to get 42 nicely, but then ran out of baking tins anyway!)

Christmas Ornaments, Cross Stitch, Finishes, Food, Home & Family TO BE FIXED, Little House Needleworks, Works in Progress

Quick drive-by posting

Anne S

The last few weeks have been absolutely mental at work – another project that hasn’t gone as well as planned thanks to an unstable testing platform, code not delivered as planned, and another department totally not delivering their side of the requirements.  Testing is supposed to take 2 weeks, this time it took the entire month of February … and I’m sure I don’t need to say how much I was “over it” by the end!!  But thankfully March is now here, and testing is mostly behind me … except now I have to do more to help out the other department now they’re implementing their side of it … pfffft.

Alas that means there hasn’t been much motivation to do anything other than sleep in my spare time, and not much stitching.  Then when I did do some stitching both my camera batteries died … and I lost my Lumix charger.  The charger turned up a few days ago, then I lost my memory card … I decided to just buy a cheap replacement online (and found a store by doing so that offers really healthy discounts on top brand cards!!), then of course found the original one stuck in the front of the computer this morning … after I had checked there the other night!  Oh well, I needed a spare anyway, and now I have loads and loads of memory on the cards for my next holidays 😀

That also means I’ve managed to take a couple of quick snaps this morning – even if they’re not great quality in the overcast morning light, here is my current stitching update … one finish and one work in progress:

LHN-He's a Flake
“He’s a Flake” by Little House Needleworks
stitched on 32ct hand-dyed Belfast linen by Countrystitch ~ colour Kina
with recommended threads (Crescent Colours and DMC)

2605948540047689748pszEZV_fs
WIP – “Joyeux Noel” by The Drawn Thread
(I’m using DMC 3865 instead of 739 for the snow etc for more contrast on the fabric)

I would have done more stitching on Wednesday night, but at 7pm I remembered I was supposed to bake for morning tea the next day, so chose something I’d never done before that was a bit of a challenge (including making my own pastry, which I haven’t done for years!).  Alas it took me all night (literally) and 1 1/2 hours the next morning to get everything finished, but I was just ‘in the mood’ for kitchen time, and I enjoyed every minute of it.  If I get chance, I’ll post the recipes later – the Orange Liqueur Chocolate Tartlets went down an absolute treat!  Anyway, here are the results:

Cheese-Crisps
Cheese Crisps (with Havarti & Basil filling)
(these are only about 1.5cm in diameter … like little cheesy burgers
for Ken and Barbie! LOL – and for me very more-ish!!)

Orange-Liqueur-Chocolate-Ta
Orange Liqueur Chocolate Tartlets (simply divine!)

On a health side, I’ve been going to Physio twice a week since last week, and had my first hydrotherapy session on Wednesday – hopefully it will help to loosen up my lower back and stop the knee pains … when it gets really bad, unfortunately the pain keeps me awake at night – and it’s been the worst lately when spending long hours in the office 😦

And on that note I really should get my A into G and get my carcass into that office – today I have a meeting with our Occupational Health & Safety assessor to find out if my employer will cough up for a new chair for me … otherwise I’m going shopping to buy myself one.  Not quite the most exciting of shopping, but a very worthwhile investment if I do have to do it myself! 🙂

ABC Wednesday, Birds, Christmas Ornaments, Gannets, Napier & Hawkes Bay, Travel - New Zealand

ABC Wednesday – G

Anne S

Here is my choice for this week’s “ABC Wednesday” – brought to you by the Letter “G” … Gannets from the colony at Cape Kidnappers, Hawkes Bay, New Zealand:

2008 12 15_1478

2008 12 15_1416

2008 12 15_1420

2008 12 15_1404

2008 12 15_1418

And this week’s “one I prepared earlier, stitchy/crafty content” is “Golden Garland” ornament from the 2005 JCS Christmas ornie issue:

Golden Garland

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