:: If You Haven't... Then Go Here....

Here.  Wowee. Very excellent video. Very excellent track.  Very excellent viral marketing.

xx Pip

:: What Did You Do Today?

Hi!

What did you do today? I had a pretty nice day.... I ate smoked trout dip on rye toast with Mr Ari while we watched The Cosby Show.  I had coffee with Ghostpatrol and Miso and Cam at Sonido.  I went to the studio for an interview with Carrie.  Then some work.  Then off to Captains of Industry with Cam for some lunch.  We saw Karlee and Catie there.  Then home to put on the Yellow Box dinner.  Then back to the studio.  Then a bit of crochet at home. Some email catch-up.  Some book stuff.  And now a glass of vino and getting ready for a sit down with the family!  Thank goodness it is Spring tomorrow.  I am a bit tired of this wishy washy windy weather....!  Are you?!  And what did you do today?  And do you like this video?  Have you started reading the Book Club book?  Are you cosy? Do you like cheese?!

xx Pip

:: Book Club :: The Books

via


via

Hi!

Would you like to join our Book Club?  We did Book Club last year and it was really great. Sometimes we think we are too busy to read.  Or we just read blogs.  Our Book Club is all about reading a book over a couple of months : no pressure, no rules.  You can read one book, or both.  It is even for busy people.  We choose one classic and one contemporary fiction title : you register here (below) and then you pop over to the Forum if you want to discuss the book you chose to read... or anything else really!

For September and October we are going to read ::

Classic :: Anne of Green Gables by LM Montgomery
Contemporary :: The World Beneath by Cate Kennedy

If you are a renegade, you can choose your OWN book and read by yourself.  Maybe you would like to share your thoughts on the renegade title over at the Forum too?!  Just start yourself a thread with the book title in it!

If you read for 5 or 10 minutes a day, you could read a book in two months, right?

I think that it's really important to read fiction, peeps.  Fiction opens up all sorts of new trains of thought, new points of view,  new thought processes that the real world may not.  Fiction can remind you of important relationships, buried feelings and dreams.  Fiction can help you be a MUCH better writer and a MUCH better person.

I chose these books because I have not read them.  Anne of Green Gables is a favourite to many, and I do not know why I have not read it!  So I will.  If you have read it, perhaps you could re-read it... or read another of Lucy Maud's titles?

I am going to read Cate Kennedy's book too.  The book was sent to me yonks ago by one of my sponsors Scribe Publishing and I slotted it into my bookshelf and forgot about it.  When I was trawling through recommended titles yesterday, Cate Kennedy's book came up a lot, so I dusted it off again.  'The World Beneath' has recently won or been short listed for a slew of literary awards. It's set in Australia, and I'm really loving reading and watching Australian stories at the moment.  If you are not local you can buy it here for under $20 with free shipping.  (Or here : if Book Depository is sold out : but no free shipping here :( )If you are local it will be in your favourite bookstore, or indeed online.

So!  There we go!  Are you in?!

NB :: You don't need to have a blog to join us :: just add your Facebook or Twitter link... or even just your name in the comments section



xx Pip

:: Some Things You Could Do...

video via Frankie!

In other news ::
Bid on the Frankie Blankie and support the Salvation Army
Attend the very limited screening of Making It Handmade :: tickets here :: this is a really great film and you can see me talk about craft whilst sporting an awesome lung infection.  You can also see Casey and Gemma and Rayna and Justine and Faythe and even more amazingly great crafty chicas!  This sold out at the Melbourne International Film Festival... so get your tickets TODAY!
Go to the birthday party of The Embroiderers Guild
Join Craft Nerds Going Public :: via Kristy
Knit something to bomb something (in a yarny way) :: via Judy
Celebrate :: Spring is nigh!

xx pip

:: Project Yellow Box :: Recipe Eleven :: Baked Rigatoni

Rice and Pasta - The World's Best Dishes
Card 18
Baked Rigatoni


Hmm. Well. Let me just say this straight up. Good concept but bad recipe.  Sorry AWW.  I do love you a lot, but this recipe was completely annoying.  You are meant to COOK the rigatoni. And THEN stuff them.  Hmm. Nope. No. Nada.  Cooked rigatoni are very prone to splitting.  They don't like to be stuffed.  But don't let that stop you : just use cannelloni and it will be fine.

I knew my kids would love this recipe if I could get it to work.  So I bought some super huge rigatoni from Simon Johnson (which is in my neighbourhood).  You may not be able to find super huge rigatoni.  And it is expensive.    So as I said, just use cannelloni and everything will be alright.   Mr Simon did not have cannelloni.  Probably cannelloni is a bit retro from him.  (I don't think he had vol au vents either.)  We had to buy the super huge... and that worked okay too.

It took a  while to stuff all the pasta tubes, but it was kind of fun and sort of therapeutic.  I got to think about Lou and Frankie in Love My Way.... and wonder what the heck Lewis is all about.... sip wine... listen to Neil Diamond.... that kind of thing.  Tubes (uncooked) stuffed, sauce made, into oven.  There followed lots of topping up with water (you could use stock) to ensure the pasta was kept moist and cooked through.

I put the cheese on once the pasta was cooked and let it brown a bit more.   And then it was all done. And very super hot as it cooked for just over an hour at a pretty high temperature.

The kids DID love this, especially Max.  But yes, forget the rigatoni unless you are a masochist like me.  Go for cannelloni and you will be grinning from ear to here.

I think this would be even nicer with ricotta and spinach, but I am not allowed to divert from the recipe without good reason (says me) so I stuck with the meaty filling.

I saw Julie in an op-shop in Blackburn on Friday. Hi Julie!  I have been working on the zig-zag blanket.  I have been making lamb shanks a la Jamie Oliver (with raisins and apples - quite sweet!), I have been going to see James and The Giant Peach at ACMI with Ari. I have been mulling over books for Book Club.  I have been watching the final eps of Love My Way Season 3.  I have been visiting Camberwell Market with Cam and Ari : I saw Chris and Kitty there and they are rad.  I have been eating smoked trout dip on rye bread... and tomato and cheese on french stick (with salami).  I have been working on project ideas for Book 3.

How was you weekend?  Do you like Baked Pasta?  Do you have a favourite recipe?  Do you like Love My Way?  (I have stopped watching Offspring... sigh. I just can't do it. Sigh.)

xx Pip

:: Karen Elson

:: Book Club :: Shall We?!

Hello!

Shall we read a book together again, before everyone gets too seasonally busy?  Would you like to?  Would you be in? I'll choose one modern and one classic and you can read either... or both!  We'll have sign ups here and chatter about it over on the Forum.  How would that be?!

xx Pip

NB  : It will be a grown up book : not a Little Golden Book!

:: Happy Holidays ::My Entry for 'Kidspot Top 50 Blog Your Way To Dunk Island'

When I was a wee gal holidays meant heading down to The Shack.  Actually there were two shacks.  There was the blue shack with the flat roof and the boat parked in the vast front yard.  And there was the other shack with the outdoor loo and the little balcony.  Both were perched on a steep little hill, looking over the little bay that is Tinderbox.

The blue shack was where my grandmother (Icky) and my grandfather were based for the holidays. It was home to a constant stream of extended family every school break.  It seemed quite big back then, but of course it was actually quite modest.   It had a fifties kitchen counter and vinyl stools.  It had an open fire.  It had cute bedrooms with anodised lamps clipped on to the bedheads and shelves.  It had a mantelpiece stocked with treasures found on the beach and elsewhere.  It had piles and piles of old comics, old Readers Digests and lovely musty old books.  There was Tuppaware.  There were board games (Trouble, Chess, Monopoly).  There were dead flies scattered upside down along the ledges of the vast front windows. Wood was piled up under the side stairs.  Once Terry caught a snake in that wood pile.  The bed spreads were chenille.  The wooden chest in the back room was full of sand and buckets and spades.  (Sometimes we played totem tennis.)  There were colourful fly strips out back which lashed the back door when it was windy.  There was warm milo with skin on the top (yuck), hot water bottles at 7 'o'clock, a tiny bathtub and a couple of huge water tanks out the back.  The cricket was on the telly and the phone hardly ever rang.

The other shack was right next door to the blue shack.  The family bought it much later.  One family would stay in the other shack for a period, while everyone else shared the blue shack, or drove backwards and forwards from town.  I loved it when we stayed at the other shack. That meant that the whole family was on holidays and Mum and Dad hadn't left us with Icky and Poppa.  Not that I didn't like that, but it was nice to be all together, you know?  Dad played Neil Diamond way too loud.  Mum trawled through a big pile of magazines and shared her Camembert with me.  It was cosy.   The bathroom was bigger in this shack and the rooms seemed fancier, maybe just because they were newer to me.  The little balcony meant you could sit outside and watch what was happening on the beach from afar.  You could also yell out to cousins and aunties and uncles if they passed.  And you could eyeball any strangers who drove up the hill sight seeing.

The barbed wire fence between the two shacks was cut in the middle with a rug thrown over the lower wires, so the kids could climb over and shortcut down the driveway to the beach or next door for a jaffle or a pikelet.  The grass was crunchy and a golden kind of green and served as a stage for my cousin and I, or somewhere to light a bonfire, or somewhere to whack the Totem Tennis or play cricket.  Geraniums, Red Hot Pokers and Agapanthus were dotted around the house and near the front fence.  We drank Icky's homemade ginger beer from colourful anodised cups and waited for the egg and bacon pie to come out of the oven before we slathered it with sauce and scoffed the lot.

Both shacks backed on to paddocks full of sheep and in the far distance was the road that snaked scarily up to town again.  You could hear the cars coming from a mile off.  There was an old fort somewhere up near the road too and you could see all the way to Bruny Island when you stood up there. There was heaps of sheep poo everywhere which was quite disgusting.   At the far end of the paddocks was a little cliff down to the rocks and the sea.  Sometimes we climbed down there with our backpacks and our fishing rods to catch leatherjackets.

If you ventured past the back road you would reach a dam full of eels. Blackberries grew everywhere (or were they raspberries?!) and we picked ice-cream containers full and took them back to the shack for pie or crumble or jam.  Once I found an echidna there, but there were heaps of rabbits too.

Our holidays were spent with our cousins.  There were babies and toddlers and kids and bigger kids.  It was busy and noisy and fun.  People came and went all day and there seemed to be a constant stream of delicious things to eat.  We took thermoses and sandwiches down to the beach and walked around the rocks or rowed out to the speed boats.  The water was so very cold, you couldn't swim for long, but you could always turn the rocks over next to the boat ramp and fill your bucket up with seaweed and little crabs.

What were the holidays like for you?  Does this sound like your childhood or are you from somewhere else, and did something else?

xx Pip

NB :: I wrote this post to try and win a holiday... but actually I don't really mind if I don't.  It was just pretty nice to remember the sheep poo and the blackberries again, to be honest.  Good luck to the other Top 50 Bloggers :: they are all deserving of a holiday!  My money is on Rhonda!

:: Bake-Stars...

1.


2.


3.


4.


5.


6.

1 -- via here
2 -- via here
3 -- via here
4 -- via here
5 -- via here
6 -- via here

xx Pip

:: Ra Ra Riot...

:: Project Yellow Box :: Recipe Ten :: Chicken In Nectar

Great Ways With Chicken and Duck
Card 7
Chicken in Nectar
(and also Honeyed Chicken)

Hi!

I do not really like Apricot Chicken.  I don't know why... I think it might be the whole fruit and meat thing that freaks me out. I do, however, applaud those who DO like it. Good for them.  Max and Cam and Ari like it.  I prefer something less fruity for my dinner.  In fact,  I made a big bowl of miso soup with vegetables the night that we had this.

Fruit aside, the thing I do like about this is the soup base... You know a lot of those seventies recipes start with a packet or a tin of some kind of soup.  French Onion seems to be a favourite flavour base for this era... and Cream of Celery or Cream of Mushroom Soup. I was at the supermarket this morning turning over the soup cans, and they really do still have some good basic recipes on them.  If you had just moved out of home, or you did not have a clue about cooking, a can of soup can totally help  you out on the comforting, hearty dinner front.

The other cool thing about this card is that it has a 'hidden' recipe.   A lot of the AWW Yellow Box cards have two recipes on the back of them.  You can find the 'hidden' recipe in the Index Book that comes with the box, but it's not listed on the top of the card nor pictured on the front of the card. Sneaky and cool, methinks.  Kind of a bonus recipe.

Do you make things with tinned or packet soup as the base?  Do you like this recipe?  Is this something you cook now, or something that someone in your family used to cook?

xx Pip

:: Project Yellow Box :: Recipe Nine :: Chocolate Self-Saucing Pudding

Lovely Hot Puddings
Card 8
Chocolate Self-Saucing Pudding

Here's the thing.  The boys have cooked this three times this week.  It is simple (not that they are simple... they are not, they are smart) - it is chocolaty and it is delicious.  It is extra good with ice-cream or cream or even custard would be super great.  This is a very saucy pudding and delivers exactly what it promises.  That is a great quality in a pudding, don't you think?

Quite a few people have said that this is their very favourite recipe from the Yellow Box.  Is it YOUR favourite recipe?  Did your Mum or Nan or Dad used to cook this for you?  Are you the self saucing type?  Does that pudding photo make you queasy?

xx Pip

( :: I have been crocheting zig-zags while they have been pudding-ing along..!)

:: I'm Making This....

... amongst other things.  What are you making, I wonder?  I would love to see!  Why don't you show us?  Just add your image below, if you want to play along! I hope you are well, lovely reader.  I am well. I am.  Yay!

xx Pip

:: Our Sunday...

... and generally just recovering from a crazy federal election result. Wowee.

xx Pip

:: A Granny A Day :: Sarah London

Via Sarah's Flickr Stream.

Do you know Sarah?  I do. Well. I don't.  But I do know her via her lovely blog and amazingly great crochet.  Wowee. She's the Queen of the Hook, methinks. Yes.  Sarah knows all about colour, as well as all about crochet. You could visit her often and you would learn a whole heap of stuff.  I think you should do that.

xx Pip

:: So You Can Find Your Way To The Mermaid...

xx Pip

:: 9 By Design...

:: Watcha-Up-To?

What a day.  Up early to make a Potato Tortilla for breakfast.  Chat with the dog, the cat, the bird.  Eat breakfast, drink coffee, drink tea.  Treat self and child with Nit Treatment. Ugh.   Get dressed.  Go to Fitzroy Primary to vote.  Leave because it's too busy. Go to St Marks to vote. Vote.  Pick up some things from Chemist Warehouse.  Texts to and from Shelley.  Bump into Stacey.   Come home.  Pop into shop where the girls from Kinokuniya are visiting.   Eat more Potato Tortilla (between two slices of bread with some Windsor Deli relish.)  Get coffee from Sonido.  Strip beds and wash linen.  Watch this show which I am ADDICTED TO (it's awesome : you might like it too).  Crochet (whilst watching). Get ready to take child to Party.  That's where I am up to!

How about you?!  Watchaupto?

xx Pip

:: Show Pony

I know. I have been cooking a lot and you think I haven't been crafty.  Well you are wrong. Here is what I have been making.  Blankets.  For babies.  Lots of babies = lots of blankets!  Here is a ripple blanket I made for Angela's gorgeous baby boy Luka.  And a ripple blanket I am making with a friend for another baby (it is growing!)  And a Larks Foot blanket that I am making for another baby.  And there are even more blankets on the way! Wowee.  You can find out how to make a ripple blanket via Lucy. And the Larks Foot pattern can be found here and here and here too!  So if you would like to, you can make these too!

You know, sometimes I feel like there is a bit of pressure to document religiously on blogs, to show every little thing you are doing, to post tutorials all the time.. or funked up galleries of things we want to buy.  Do you know what I mean?!  Sometimes it feels like that.  Personally,  I think it is okay to just write about what you feel like writing about. Or even just post images.  I like a blog which is not always on show, ya know?  In fact I like a blog which is a big colourful paste-up of real life, and UN-apologetically so (edit : sorry - ironically I left the UN off there when I first posted this!!)  But that's just me.  You might feel completely differently!

Crafty as I am, lately I feel like writing about food.  I know.  I am ca-raaa-zzzy!  Perhaps I am hungry.  I think I am.  Anyway, cooking is what I am blogging a lot about at the moment.  I want to improve my photographic skills, and blogging about food is a good way to do that.  I also think it comes from spending months and months writing and making this book.  I'm having a little bit of a rest from tutorials and the like.  Just for the mo.

I am still crocheting like a demon in most every spare moment... And I am doing some sewing too.  I just know that you don't need me to prattle on about that all the time, right?! It's nice to not show off all the time.  And it's nice to have a bit of variation, isn't it?! Never fear, I will still show you the growing collection of baby blankies, as they are coming along!  And some sewing a bit further down the track too.

But what about you?  Are you sewing?  Are you hooking?  Have you made a blanket?  Do you feel a bit like a blogging show pony sometimes?  Are you hungry?

xx Pip

:: Project Yellow Box :: Recipe Eight :: Tuna Casserole

Money Saving Meals
Card 17
Tuna Casserole

Hi!  Hi!  Okay.  Here's the thing.  Max hates tuna.  He loathes it, in fact.  He really loves anything else fishy, but tuna is a no-go.  On Friday Max stayed at Leon's house, which meant we could try this recipe out (again) without Max getting antsy or going hungry.

Let me just put it out there that I LOVE TUNA CASSEROLE.  I have not eaten it for years, but my Mum used to make it when we were kids and it was one of my very favourite meals.  She used to make a different one to this.  It had Cream of Celery Soup in it.  I wish I had THAT recipe. If you have it, can you send it to me?!

This AWW Yellow Box recipe was pretty delicious.  This really is comfort food.  I added HEAPS of lemon and pepper and salt at the end and piled it on to grainy toast. Yum.  Ari, who is a fan of rice, tuna and corn did not much like this.  Go figure.  I am not sure why.  I think it was the sort of non-cheesy-mornay-esque base that weirded him out.  He's not genetically programmed to like that kind of thing.  We live on very clean, simple flavours... creamy saucy things are not on our menu very often.  But he TRIED to eat this because he recognized the key ingredients were friends of his.  Cam liked it... not a lot... but a bit.

I think Tuna Casserole is the kind of thing you have to have nostalgic ties to, to like.  I like it.  I grew up with it.  Those that have not grown up with it were not huge fans. Do you like it?  

xx Pip

:: The Flying Nun....

:: Some Good Stuff...

I would like to tell you about some good stuff.  Are you ready? Let's go.



Ari likes to play this old Farfisa organ while he waits for dinner.  I think that is good. (above)



My new typewriter!! Argh!  How good is it?! (above)

Megan Washington.  I think she is good.  That is her below.  I like this video a lot and have lived in a couple of houses that look JUST like this.  Her new album is out on iTunes now and it is great and you should get it.

More from Sister Corita Kent.  Amazingly good,  no?  Find out more about her here.  She is the coolest nun... apart from The Flying Nun. (above)

Pull In Emergency : 15 Years : Everyone in this band seems to be about twelve years old.  It's a Summery Lo-Fi Nostalgic video and I really do like the voice of the gal who is singing quite a lot.  She is good. (below)

:: 3000 : Some Favourite Vintage Mikes Posts : Part One

So... on Saturday I wrote the 3000th post on this very blog! Wow!  I know.  That is a lot! I have been blogging since 2006, so that is plenty of time to write 3000 posts, I reckon.   Here is part one of the Mikes Retrospective : good stuff we have written here, so far.  This is kind of the older stuff... from way back... newer stuff coming up later this week.

Thanks for reading... thanks so much... how long have you been popping in here?  Do you have any favourite posts?  Or things that made you first click over?  How long have you been blogging? (AND would you mind clicking over here and voting for us?!  Our tired family might win a holiday if you do! Tell you friends too?!)

• How to Make Things
• Delicious Soup Paysanne recipe
• Mike-ro-Scopes
• How to raise a Naturalist
• Things I have noticed about the Dentist
• 300th Post : Day at the Museum : more of my life here
• Flashback Friday and the Flower Festival
• Crafternoon at the Melbourne Museum of Printing
• Mikes Top Five
• How to start a craft blog
• 1972
• 1975
• Do not pinch me
• When does a walk become a jog?
• Nice weather for snails and hoping for notes
• The crack can't get me
• Word verification
• Discipline, walruses, wine and wee
• A Week of Vintage Australiana with Gemma Jones
• A Week of Vintage Craft Patterns
• A Week of Frenchness with Lily and Agathe
• A Week of Pillowcases with Kootoyoo
• A Week of Australian Fabric Design
• A Week of the Best British with Allison
• A Week of Cute with Three Buttons
• A Week of Embroidery with Floresita
• Sunday Supper :: Zucchini Slice : more Sunday Supper recipes here
• Superbomba I love you : more Superbomba here
• A rough guide to having nice blog manners
• I Heart Figgjo : more Figgjo here
• A Week of Neil Diamond
• Saying sorry to Michelle Pfeiffer
• Ways to make your blog look cuter
• How to crochet a granny square

Learn to crochet with me...!

• Lesson 1 : How To Make A Slip Knot
• Lesson 2 : How To Hold Your Yarn Right
• Lesson 3 : How To Crochet Chain Stitch
• Lesson 4 : How To Start Your Square
• Lesson 5 : How To Make The First Round!
• Lesson 6 : How To Make The Second Round!
• Lesson 7: Change Your Yarn Colour
• Lesson 8 : How To Make the Third Round!
• Lesson 9 : How To Sew In Your Yarn Ends
• Lesson 10 : Joining Granny Squares

Or make these things with me...!

• Max Embroidery
• Wild Thing Crocheted Finger Puppets
• Max Christmas Stocking Tutorial
• Dapper Fox :: Embroidery How To
• Christmas Embroidery :: TeePee Girl
• Make a Patchwork Summer Throw
• How To Make a Gadget Cosy from a Vintage Napkin
• How To Print Gocco Onto Fabric Hankies
• How To Make Cute Soft Toys
• How To Make Nanna Style Tomato Sauce (Ketchup)
• How To Make Home-made Ginger Beer (Non-Alcoholic)
• How To Make Nice Rustic Pane Toscano Bread
• How To Crochet A Granny Square
• How To Embroider Back Stitch
• How To Use Embroidery Floss
• How To Use An Embroidery Hoop
• How To Trace An Embroidery Design Onto Fabric

xx Pip