Food – Page 5 – Feather Stitching

Don’t ask me why, but last night I ended up staying up until 3.30am last night … reading blogs!!! That’s one reason I don’t have a sleep in the afternoons when I’m tired (especially on early shifts), as I can’t usually sleep in the evening, and I was just plain wide awake after 11pm. It’s strange too, that once I’d made the decision to wipe out all the unread feeds and start from scratch, that it felt like a burden had been taken off my shoulders … and I felt more relaxed and in the mood to tackle ‘a few’, which ended up being a few hundred!! I actually read through just over 650 unread feeds last night/this morning and pretty stunned I managed it. I’m left with just 89 left to go today (I’m not going into the archives), and it feels pretty darned good! That also means no stitching was done last night … oops …

Now it’s time to do the last two SBQ’s … I finally managed to do an approx count-up of finished pieces from over the years, so I can answer the questions …

Today’s SBQ was suggested by Elisabeth and is:

“How many pieces have you stitched? Out of these, how many have been for you? How many have had specialty stitches or other techniques besides cross stitch?”

According to my photo albums I’ve done about 142 pieces in total (finished ones, that is – and I might have missed a few earlier ones). Of these 89 have been either for me, or have yet to be allocated a recipient, and 53 have been gifts for others and already given away. Out of these about 70 have been pure XS, and the rest have included specialty stitches or are specific techniques such as stumpwork (4), canvaswork (8), silk ribbon embroidery (2), hardanger (6), blackwork (3), and almost entirely beaded (7).

Today’s SBQ was suggested by Sharon and is:

“When you find yourself making a lot of mistakes in various stitching projects do you find it better to muddle your way through or do you take a brief break from stitching? If you do take a break, how long do you take?”

That depends on how bad the errors are – if it’s something quick to fix, I’ll usually do it straightaway … if I keep doing it on the same piece time after time I’ll put it away for the rest of that day and come back to it the next day … if I’m still having a difficult time with it, and there’s no deadline, it gets thrown in a corner never to see light of day again. And that’s one great way UFO’s are born! haha. Actually my Waiting for Ships was one of those great examples … I’d frog-stitched the metallics on the tail a few times when I finally threw it in the corner and had a hissy fit with it … picked it up about 3-4 months alter, and fixed it in 10 minutes, then finished it off without any further mishaps 🙂 I have to admit, I’ve never taken an entire break from stitching for longer than a month, and always have oodles of projects on the go (also thanks to those dreaded UFO’s).

And for those of you who are curry hounds, I’ll share my new recipe with you from the weekend (and it’s not really hot, unlike normal vindaloos):

BEEF VINDALOO

1kg (2lb) chuck, blade or skirt steak (I used blade)
2 tablespoons ghee or oil
3 onions, sliced (but I ended up thinking it was too much, and halved it)
1/2 teaspoon ground cumin
1 tablespoon ground coriander
1/2 teaspoon ground cardamom
1 teaspoon ground fenugreek
1 teaspoon chilli powder
1 teaspoon ground turmeric
1 teaspoon mustard powder
1 cinnamon stick
3 teaspoons grated fresh ginger
3 cloves garlic, crushed
1/3 cup (80ml/2 3/4 fl oz) brown vinegar
1/2 cup (125ml/4 fl oz) beef stock
1 teaspoon sugar

1) Cut the steak into bite-sized cubes. Heat the ghee or oil in a large pan and brown the meat in two batches. Transfer to a plate.
2) Add the onion to the pan; cook over medium heat for 5 minutes, or until very soft and lightly golden. Add the spices, ginger and garlic and cook, stirring, for 1 more minute. Return the meat to the pan and stir until well coated in the spices.
3) Add the vinegar, stock, sugar, and season with salt and pepper to taste. Bring just to the boil, reduce the heat to low and simmer, covered, for about 1 1/2 hours, or until the meat is very tender. Discard the cinnamon stick. Serve with plain or basmati rice. Garnish with a little finely grated fresh ginger.
Serves 4

Today was another good day in ‘my world’ … I’ll get to the part that had me gob-smacked earlier today right until the end … but I won’t keep you too long before you can get there (unless the curiosity has got the better of you already, and you’ve left me here on my own, and already jumped to the bottom! LOL). I’m pretty tired tonight, so my apologies if I’m not too coherent. Anyway, back to business …

Yesterday was a wonderful mail day in general – in addition to Barbara’s gorgeous gift, I also received an Ebay win in the post. I have to admit that after my huge financial blow-out last year, I’ve been avoiding Ebay like the plague so I’m not tempted, but Sharon and Gina told me there was a XS book called Allura’s Australia in XS at a reasonable price – after seeing Sharon’s copy first-hand, I decided I definitely had to check this one out … so I did, and managed to win it for a sum total of AU$2.24 – daylight robbery on my part, is all I can say! I can’t believe a hardback book of 192 pages and oodles of charts could go for such a paltry sum!! I honestly do feel as though I’ve robbed the seller – with postage included it came to a total of AU$10.64 – crikey!!! Am I grinning? You betcha!

The other wonderful thing to arrive is my black aida … finally!! It was supposed to arrive last week after being on backorder – but the supplier stuffed up and missed it off the back-ordered shipment, but it finally turned up yesterday. I was about to email off to the US organisers taking up an offer for them to send me some, as my Aussie supplier had fallen off the rails, but luckily it came through … and that means I can finally stitch up my block for the World Trade Center charity quilt …

So, that was my wonderful mail yesterday all sorted out … The other good news I had today is that I had an exam at work for another permanent Hotline role – it was supposed to be next week, but the Supervisor running it has finally got a surgery date to get her gallbladder out, in two weeks time, right when she was planning interviews … so we’ve been getting pulled in really quickly to sit the exam. And I passed, which means I’m at least over the first hurdle – 17 have applied for the job again, but I don’t know how many have got to the interview stage … but I’m now trying hard not to think about the outcome of the interview, as I’m appalling at interviews, and I wanted it too badly last time … this time I’m going to try to ‘go with the flow’ and not end up with a couple of weeks off with cluster migraines over the whole situation … what will be, will be!

OK, I’ve prattled on for long enough … on to the great mail day for today … oooh, no, before I do that, let me say I finally made the infamous Mars Bar slice today to take into work, and it went down a treat, with yet another two people wanting the recipe. Anyway, I figure it’s always such a winner with people, I’d share it here as well … if you decide to make it, your arteries will hate you for life, but your family, friends and loved ones that you share it with will love you for eternity LOL:

MARS BAR SLICE
Base:
3 x Mars Bars (approx 60g-65g each)
90g butter
3 cups rice bubbles
Topping:
200g milk chocolate
30g butter

Yup, that’s all there is in it – do you see why I said your arteries would hate you? haha.

Base: Melt together the Mars Bars and butter in a saucepan over a low heat, making sure not to let it burn – keep mixing until it’s a smooth creamy mixture (can take quite a bit of time). Mix in rice bubbles until they’re all coated, then press down into the base of a greased 19cm x 29cm lamington pan (or equivalent dish – I usually add baking paper as well, as it can be a pain to get out!). Spread with the topping, and devour! (I usually pop it in the fridge to set properly, especially when it’s roasting hot weather!)
Topping: Melt together the butter and milk chocolate over a pan of hot water (ie using a double-boiler).

Frazier heard I was making Mars Bar slice today and he put his orders in straightaway for me to save him some!

OK, now on to the best bit … you see, you always have to leave the best bits until last … Today I got an additional surprise in my PO Box (I really love my PO at the moment – they’ve left some wonderful surprises in that box!) – today I received a parcel from my very best friend of all time, Vicki, in New Zealand. Vicki and I have been best friends since we were 10 years old, so exactly 3/4 of my living days to date. Anyway, she is the most creative soul I’ve ever met – everything she touches creatively, she turns to gold … she works in the scientific realm for her work, and comes home and does all sorts of crafts … and every craft she has tried, she does it to perfection! If I didn’t adore her so much, I’d hate her for being so bl**dy perfect haha. She seriously is amazing, and I’m very very blessed to count her as my best friend. I would most definitely give her both my kidneys if she ever needed them! And she really out-did herself with this little creation!!

So, what did this gorgeous creature do for my birthday? She created the most amazing tribute to our friendship – she has gotten into scrapbooking in a big way I think, and has put together a concertina book with photos from our growing up years and memorable occasions … I’ll photograph and scan the images so I can share it with you …

Above is a photo of the other gifts as well, and I adore them all – another duck for my ever-growing collection (but I’ll never ever have enough LOL) (the little duck was chosen by little Orion – boy, did he choose well!), and a lovely hand-bound book by a bookmaker (Rhonda Niven) in Motueka, Nelson. For those of you who are non-Kiwis, that’s a fantail on the cover … and of course everything is in my absolutely favourite colours (yep, turquoise is definitely my all-time favourite of all the blues). OK, on to the details of the concertina book Vicki made me … here is a scan of the cover:
And the four inside ‘pages’:

And inside each of these ‘pages’ there is a little page that pulls out – this is the most amazing part of it … I just love the contents of these!

I did say, though, that I’m glad I went to my PO Box before work and opened the gifts at work, ‘cos if I’d done it at home I would have bawled my eyes out, I am so touched and honoured by this wonderful gift. The sentiment behind this gift makes it a treasure beyond compare, and it’s something I’ll continue to treasure throughout my lifetime … Vicki, I love this gift with all my heart and then some … if someone today offered me a million dollars for it, I would turn them down. I’ve always longed to own something that Vicki’s created, and this exceeds all expectations … yep, definitely “gob-smacked” and feeling well and truly blessed! As stitchers we all know how much time and effort goes into making something, so this is truly a labour of love … and worth more than gold itself to me!